Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 9 (April 1, 1933)

Pictures of New Zealand Life

page 21

Pictures of New Zealand Life

Lover of the Bush

His Excellency Lord Bledisloe loses no opportunity of expressing his keen admiration of New Zealand's varied forests, and of urging on the people the necessity for taking care of the unique flora of the country. In common with all other discerning visitors and sojourners with us, he laments the needless and foolish destruction of the native bush.

Of course, in our early days the forests were regarded as practically illimitable; the bush was to the settler a nuisance, to be got rid of as soon as possible. That feeling has given place to a more intelligent appreciation of the value of our bush.

Yet the old craze for hacking and burning has not yet passed. Native forest growth is being destroyed waste-fully and improvidently in many parts of this island, in the belief that grass will more profitably take its place. We have seen the folly of that practice in a great many districts, where land that was cleared by settlers has only too often reverted to second growth and formed a breeding place for noxious weeds. The time has long passed for the clearing of rough native forest land for settlement. It is an economic mistake, apart from any other consideration. Yet rugged hill country, where the forest is needed as a protection for river sources and water supply, is still being stripped of its woodland covering.

“Ny-ree.”

The present writer has frequently been asked to suggest a suitable Maori name for a child. The proud parents almost invariably reject the names suggested, if it is a girl child, and christen the unfortunate young howler Ngaire. It is no use telling them that that word so spelt is not Maori; that it should be spelt Ngaere, and that it simply means a swamp or bog. They positively won't believe it; the idea is fixed in their minds that it means beautiful hope from heaven, or darling ray of sunshine, or something like that. And of course they pronounce it “Ny-ree.”

Another name which for some inexplicable reason seems favoured by some page 22 pakeha parents is Kiore. It appears to be reserved exclusively for girls. Here again, it is not much use trying to switch off the mother on to more fitting Maori words. No use to tell them it means a rat. They will have Kiore.

Stags and Adventure.

An English lord who had a wet and perilous experience far down and far out in New Zealand two or three years ago, is again on his way to seek the red deer of the Haast Pass country. On his first visit he lost his rifle in a snow river which flows into the roaring Haast, just across the Westland border from the Otago side, and at the same time he nearly lost his wife. Cold, wet, loss of supplies, fearfully rugged country, all conspired to baulk the plucky pair of their sport. But they are longing to be at it again. The great heads of antlers are still a sufficient lure for the real British sportsmen, it seems. These are the people New Zealanders should be glad to welcome and place in the way of getting all the good stalking they desire. They are the true adventure-seekers, and such trifling mishaps as a tumble into a raving river fresh from the glacial ice are simply morning tonics to them.

Geysers and Gazers.

The guides who dispense information to visitors at some of our tourist resorts, more particularly those in the Rotorua country, must send some visitors away with a curious mass of data about the sights they see. The youthful, or not so youthful Maori, half-caste, or pakeha guide, does the best that is in her—it is usually her. None of them is ever at a loss. They know exactly how many million gallons flow from a certain spring in the twenty-four hours; no one at any rate is likely to go to the trouble of measuring it and contradicting them.

A good many years ago, I watched an earnest party of young women school teachers from Australia standing, with notebooks out, near the Wairoa geyser at Whakarewarewa, with a girl guide of the village. Up went the geyser, higher and higher, while the girls scattered with squeals of fright and delight.

“How high did it go?” they asked with one accord, when it was all over.

“Seven hundred feet,” said the guide firmly. And down went the seven hundred feet in half-a-dozen notebooks, no doubt to be embodied in due course in a school lesson or a college thesis on the marvels of New Zealand's geyserland. No use any mere Maorilander contradicting that estimate. It was down in the notebooks.

Pumpkins.

Random memories take me back to Kerikeri, that beautiful little nook of the North, with its historic buildings in the sleepy hollow at the head of a Bay of Islands tidal river. Once two of us took motor-car from an inland township to Kerikeri, going by way of Waimate the old mission station, and that clay road which was the very first road made for wheels in New Zealand, and which is still almost the very worst. Our car-driver was a stalwart young Czecho-Slovakian, or Jugo-Slavian, as they call them now— I am not sure which—but in those days we called them all Austrians or else Dalmatians.

While we explored Kerikeri he did some shopping in the venerable bluestone store, built a century ago by the Church Mission people. Where Bishop Selwyn once kept his library, they now buy kauri gum, huge pumpkins and other produce, fruit and maize, and all mariner of garden stock for shipment by the Russell launch. Our chauffeur came away with the largest ironbark pumpkin I had ever seen; one of the kind that would last a good-sized family a week, served up in one way and another.

On our way home, the driver asked us if we would mind waiting for him a few minutes while he delivered the pumpkin at a farm house which stood near the roadside, not another house in sight for miles. We consented, and off he trotted, hugging his monster pumpkin. We waited page 23 twenty minutes, then he returned, beaming all over his good-humoured face. He told us, with frank delight, that it was a present to his sweetheart; she was the daughter of the house, and she was extremely fond of ironbark pumpkins. And he beamed and chuckled and sang to himself all the way home.

I hope they're raising big pumpkins together now, as becomes the backbone of the country. And, whether or not, I am glad to have done my little bit towards that idyll of the backblocks, to the extent of twenty minutes wait on the old clay road to Waimate in the North.

Ben Biddle, Scout.

The veteran Benjamin Biddle, who lives near Whakatane, is the very last, I think, of the real old bush scouts of the Maori War days. He is a New Zealander born, a backblocksman and colonial soldier from his boyhood days. His pluck is attested by his New Zealand Cross; he is the last survivor of the gallant little band who wore that reward of valour, the rarest military decoration in the Empire. He is bedridden now, ‘with disabled legs, but his voice, when last I saw and talked with him, was hearty and strong, and he could tell the tales of his fighting years in the bush.

Ben Biddle was once a marksman of note in the Armed Constabulary Field Force. He was a particularly good and quick shot with a revolver. This is a tale of his years of peace, when he and his Maori wife and family were living at Ruatoki, the large settlement of the Ure-wera tribe, up the Whakatane Valley. Some disagreement arose between Ben and the Urewera, and some of the Maoris decided to evict the white man from the village and put him across the border, the land-confiscation line. A friend warned Ben, “They're going to put you out tomorrow morning.”

Departure from Auckland of one of the summer excursion trains.

Departure from Auckland of one of the summer excursion trains.

A party of Ruatoki young bloods marched in through Ben's gate next morning. He went out to meet them. “What do you want here?” he asked in his big bull-like voice. “We've come to put you across the line, Ben,” said the head of the deputation.

Ben pulled out his old revolver in a flash, and levelled it at the leader. “Haere atu!” he roared. “Clear out of this or I'll shoot!” And in a few seconds the front garden was clear of the evicting party. Ben was not a man to be bullied.

[Since the above was written the death of Mr. Biddle has been announced from Whakatane.—Ed.]

(From the W. W. Stewart collection.)

page 24