WANDERING SEA-FARERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 634, 24 August 1951, Page 8

WANDERING SEA-FARERS

An extract from the unpublished papers of

HELEN

WILSON

author of "My First Eighty Years" Palliat

HE. ever-increasing sands of Horowhentia coast had, at some past time, either removed by an unprecedented storm or by slow daily drifts, piled themselves up into a ridge of sandhills. Thesé, "beside lending somé shelter to the Jand from the "roaring fofties," itprisoned the rainfall from the hills and turned it into a chain of beautiful lakes, the mdst* important of which is Lake Horowhenua. Of the virgin bush that once covered hill and plain a fringe on the Levin sidé of the lake is all that remains. Our house touched .that fringe,. so the Jake was our playground. ‘The ‘three children had just statted off for a walk to the lake with the maid. (doesn’t that sound old-fashioned -almost archaic!) when I heard excited cries ‘and looking out saw four whitefaced Creatures tearing home. They waited not to open the gate but climbed on it and scrambled to the gate-posts. They were all there and safe so I need not have panicked, but I ran to hear the trouble. All speaking at once they :told me that a huge white bird had chased them-no, not flying-run-ning with its wings wide-spread and its beak wide open. It might have caught them only. that .it stumbled sasitine bushes and tufts of grass. | "Silly ones! It .couldn’t have been anything but a goose," I assured them. "Come, we'll go down and’ sée." .To overcome their reluctance to abardon their safe perches I told them -that:a gander from the Maori Pa had perha been disturbed or blown (we had had a tremendous storm) from hig geesé and angry. He had seemed big because they were frightened. Hardly had I elaborated the comforting theory when it came in sight: It was a huge, white bird-its outspreed.

wings were at least eight feet wide; its beak was: gaping and it did come straight for us. Surprised and bewildered and even a little scared; it took me some. time to realise that it must be an albatross, but not so long to be sure that it was hafmless and that though large; it was only a baby and was running to us for help. It fdllowed us home, and, in spite of the protests of the still doubtful childrén, I opened the gate. Inside the garden it began running from one red flowet to another trying to swallow therm. It was hungry we were sure; but why réd should suggest food to a seabird wé nevér discovered. He always had a penchant for red and would run to a child in a réd codt, to the child’s consternation. We gave him raw meéat dipped in water, for we thought hé must be thirsty. The first piecés we had to drop down his throat, but afterwards he took them from our hands. He ate all the meat we had ard then settléd down of the grass and with a grunt went to Sleep. HE children were intensely inter- * ’sted and so was theit father when fie Game home. He said that he had heard of dead or damaged albatrosses being found on the beach after a storm. hii cléatly was a véfy young bird, and been blown by an exceptional gale we ‘had ‘had three days , from some antartti® nesting groufid, across the "ocear,,then somehow wafted over the sandhill, across the lake and finally anehored by the ring of ‘bush iti the Levin side. He seemed to be quite unhurt, though . tired and very hungry. We — TE

tried him- when the meat was gone-with bread anid other soft foods, but he would have none of them. We had to buy him beef which he would eat "tilk furthet orders." He did not appear to drink though he sat beside the waterrace that.ran by the tennis court, and perhaps he wet his bill sometimés, and seemed content. ‘ Whenever we bought meat (we had to go to the butcher’s in those days as now) we bought

a pound or so of gravybeef for "Humph." One day, coming home from the township, I put my pur-chases-including Humph’s gravy-beef-down on the grass while I took the horse and trap round to the stables. I returned just in time to see Humph flapping across the lawn with the family joint in his beak. He kneW his dinner had arrived and objected to waiting for it. We christened him Humph because that was all he could say. When he wanted something he said "Humph," and when he was satisfied he said the same. His vocabulary consisted of that ‘one word. He was friendly and obviously ' delighted in compariy, but was not very eritertaining. As he grew sttotiger he took to walking up and down the water-race and occasionally dipping his head so that we thought he might be getting small

water life. Whén in the summer the grass dried tip atid we irtigated the lawn by damming the race, and the water covered it sothe six inches deep, a@ cat we had used to wade in and bring out sriall eels and cockabullies, lay them on the édge and seem surptiséd that they disappeared into the water again: But Huimph took no interest in the little fish, perhaps because his palate had been spoilt by occasional meals of trout which he adored, One of the disadvantages of having’ this new member of the family was that he would always sit on the same spot of the lawn and that spot got very unsavoury. VE read that the albatross was an exceedingly long-lived bird; no one could ascertain correctly, but apparently one known to sailors had been seen to frequent Cape Horn for two hundred years. This took the fancy of the. children. The bird. was so friendly «that they were sure that when he learnt to fly he might leave us but would surely come back again, and for two hundred years he would sail over the sea from his home among the icebergs to the ancestral home of the Wilsons for, of course, we or our descendants should always live there and eight or nine generations of little Wilsons would run out to greet him as he settled on the grass after his long flight. Humph often stood up and anand his @normous wings, but he seemed to make no attempt to throw his weight upon them, so we guessed that it would be long before he made his first flight. He contented himself with walking up and down the water-race and sleeping on the grass. Then Humph disappeared. We were not alarmed, he often went further afield but always kept to the water-races; he would come back; When he did not we scoured the farm, inquired of neighbours. We never saw our ancestral bird. again, but some months later we heard that ie had wandered as far as Ohau, near which was an Industrial School, and the boys had teased, chased and dragged him about so that he lay down and died. Why we did not advertise I cannot think. Perhaps there was no local paper in 1905. ‘TEN years later we acquired another sea-faring a e-Captain Edwin, a seagull who had one broken wing. : (continuéd on next page)

(continued from previous page) He had none of the appealing dependence and fondness for human company that had endeared Humph to us. Like his namesake, the Government Meteorologist, he was very sure of himself. He never asked for food, but when hungry repaired to the fowlyard and devoured the choicest bits of the scraps thrown out to them and apparently despised homo sapiens, He, too, frequented a tennis court with a water-race beside it, not at the same home, but at another though still in Levin-a farm about two miles, distant from the, lake. This was a@ much more used court. Our champion lady player, whom we all wished to beat, was a splendid specimen of New Zealand girlhood, with véry few if any feminine weaknesses. But, like the Duke of Weljington towards cats, she was aliergic to birds. Captain’ Edwin had never looked like attacking anyone, but the minute he encountered her he ran at her with beak open. How he knew her from the rest no one could. guess. True, her skirts were a tiny bit shorter than ours, being just above the ankle, but I think it was because she squealed and ran thet he saw a bit of fun for

him in the game. I don’t believe he would have hurt her, but she wasn’t proposing to experiment. When she was playing he spoilt her game because however far away he was banished she must watch with the tail of her eyes in case he took a steak out of her calf. Her opponents would call "Here’s Captain Edwin," and shriek with delight when she missed her ball. When we left Levin for good we gave him to a friend who lived nearer town. The day following he was missing from his new home. Mr. M- advertised, offering half-a-crown reward: In less than a quarter of en hour a small boy with the bird in his arms came to claim the reward, An hour later another boy brought Captain Edwin and claimed the reward, then the days following were punctuated with boys coming for halfcrowns. Then a farmer, friend came saving: "I saw you were advertising for this bird. I saw him a little way up the road, so I just. brought him to you." — Mr. M- was only too glad to give the farmer the pet, which looked like costing him half-a-crown an hour for the rest of his life.