Chapter I.

A Bad Start—Petane—a Little Eden—a too Familiar River.

It was on a very wet Monday morning that I took my seat in Griffiths coach at the Criterion Hotel, bound for "Taupo and back, box seat, luggage at owner's risk," as a neatly printed ticket presented, inter alia, to all whom it might concern. A small strong coach, of the American, "thorough brace," buffalo-hide-spring species, with a team of five light, wiry-looking horses who seemed able to pull the small coach at the rate of 1000 miles a day. I was the only passenger booked, and none other turned up, so without any fear of waiving my right to a box seat by temporary neglect of the "nine points," I took a seat inside, stifling sundry uncalled for suggestions of conscience that this was a cowardly retreat, by urging the heavy downpour, and an incompletely cured attack of influenza. The stableman at the horses' heads let go; the driver uttered a sharp "Ay, there! G'r'r'r'p!" and we (I soon adopt the "we" you observe) set off at a pace whose rattle and splash wake the echoes of Hastings-street verandahs,—to pull up smartly at the Post-office to pick up tie lading for whose sake the coach must be run, as per contract, passengers or no passengers, rain or shine,—Her Majesty mails. This consists of a number of [unclear: s] parcels in a tarred canvas sack. The [unclear: s] is stowed away in the boot, once more [unclear: the] horses hear and heed "G'r'r'r'p!" [unclear: and] we're veritably off to Taupo! Up [unclear: Shah] peare Hill, with the fresh clear rain [unclear: ping] down perpendicularly and that [unclear: wh] fell a minute ago tearing down the [unclear: s] channels. Down Shakespeare Hill, [unclear: w] straws and chips hopelessly racing [unclear: with] on fuller and muddier streams as [unclear: the] scamper down, all reins taut and the [unclear: lo] levered brakes hissing and shrieking on [unclear: the] hinder wheels. Through the Spit [unclear: at] spanking pace, ia few early risers [unclear: show] at doors and wtndows to see the fine to romp by with their light load. Over [unclear: it] long bridge—not, as some who [unclear: know] better assert, by any means, nor by [unclear: a] half a mile, the longest in the colony-[unclear: with] a last glance at the shipping in the [unclear: ri] half shrouded by a thick veil of rain [unclear: a] mist, and we are out of the Borough, [unclear: a] airly started for the interior.

As I am in search of the [unclear: picturesque] interesting, it is my duty to [unclear: commence] search at once. But is it my duty [unclear: to] page 3 down when and where having searched, I fail to find either one or the other? I cannot make up my mind about this, and will make a mental toss-up to fix the fate of each item.

On the left lay the broad expanse of the Inner Harbor, at no time of striking beauty, this morning dismal enough, seen through a drizzling rain. The heavy downpour we had left behind us, as if the higher ground had acted as a condenser, or J. Pluvius had in a considerate mood directed his hose towards the hill gardens. The water lay pulseless, dreamily still, as if enjoying supremely its vapour bath. Soon we passed a small fishing village, its inhabitants early astir, and one or two greet the driver with a grateful smile as he pitches towards them with practised hand the morning paper, with its budget of news from the remote antipodes, where men's heads do grow beneath their shoulders, to judge by the remarkable antics they play. On the right the view is compressed by the ridge of shingle on whose landward base the road lies, and little was to be seen in that direction. A few ill-clad sheep, striving to pick up a breakfast from among the harsh and scanty herbage, with an industry that seems born of experience that if they lose a minute, dinner-time will arrive before they have got their breakfast. Red and golden wild flowers, drooping their heads to keep the rain out of their eyes, gleam brightly among the miserable "feed," but poor Merino derives no pleasure from these. The tide was out, and the numerous bars of shingle stretching across the lagoon could be easily traced. "How came they here?" was a question interesting enough, but it must be postponed for the present, too complex to be worked out in a passing coach. Scores, hundreds of medusæ lay stranded on the narrow beach of the lagoon, and more were visible in the water, dead, victims of misplaced confidence. There was no caution placed at the entrance to the pool, for these luckless creatures, "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Nature is most careless of her helpless children.

Here is a conundrum: Why do map-makers in representing this inner harbor, and similar shingle-bar lagoons on the New Zealand coast, if they have any opening at all, permanent or temporary, represent such opening as of considerable width, sufficient to allow a full tide to ebb and flow over the lagoon? I give it up. But it is misleading. Students of geography unaware of the facts, wonder why such landlocked waters are not available harbors. We struck "sile" on the alluvium being deposited by the Petane river at the head of the lagoon, at a rate which in time, that is, short of eternity, will make a rateable property of the whole watery area. Then we swish by his well grown plantation and pretty grounds to pull up for a few minutes at Host Villers' Petane Hotel. The rain had now ceased, temporarily at all events, and before resuming the journey I took possession of my estate and interest in the box seat, and secured a freer range of vision. This brought me beside the driver, Mr Bodger, who, I will say once for all, I found to be most obliging in the way of supplying information, anxious to make his passengers comfortable; of untiring patience with his "cattle"; a first-rate whip, with all the coolness and courage that a life spent among horses and five years on the box on this particular road might be expected to bestow. I was not aware of these latter facts so early in the journey: picked them up by degrees, each item just after a knowledge of it would have been most welcome. Between Petane Hotel and Petane settlement lies a limestone spur to be crossed by what seemed to me a very narrow road for a settled district. I innocently asked if this were a specimen, as to width, of the Main North Road, and am assured, and proportionately reassured, that much of the road further on is much narrower. Hawke's Bay people are more easily satisfied in respect to width of roads than their Southern contemporaries. In one of the main roads close to Napier, is it not questioned whether there is room for a tram-car to pass a cabbage-cart?

Petane is Maori for Bethany, the name of a pah near the beach at the foot of the valley in which lies the settlement.—Petane Valley, or Eskdale, indifferently. The river flowing through it is mapped as the Esk, but is commonly called the Petane. It has a Maori name seldom used. If the original Bethany were as pretty a place as this, no wonder the Master was fond of going there. After the dreary road from Napier, with the little oasis made by Mr Villers, this seems a little Eden. Such green fields and rich crops, such massive foliage on the gums and willows plentifully scattered throughout the dale, such neat cottage homes, such an air of well-to-do-ness pervades it. A neat school-house and residence are the first buildings passed, pleasantly situated on the sloping hillside. The smaller farms passed, three station homesteads come in sight,—three woolsheds almost cheek-by-jowl is surely an unusual thing. After passing the settlement the roadway takes to the river-bed, compelled to do so by the steep and broken nature of the country, and for an hour and a half or so, the drive was a succession of splashes into the stream and dashes out of it, dripping at all points. Exactly how many times the road crosses the river and one of its tributary streams I page 4 cannot say from my own knowledge. I had heard that it must be crossed a great many times and undertook to keep count. But I ran short of figures. I never was much of a hand at arithmetic anyway. I take the driver's statement, 47 clear crossings, (besides those cases in which the water is entered and left on the same side of the stream) if doubled or trebled, as sufficiently near the mark, not for the actual fact but for the impression on the mind. 150 would be a decent guess for a traveller who did not try to count, who asked no questions, and who had no wager on his guess. After running out of figures I tired of noting that we were crossing the river, save for one circumstance. I amused myself with watching the roller raised by the sudden dash into the water of ten pairs of legs, a tiny billow that went rolling on ahead of us in deeper places, and lagged behind in the shallows, curling over with the hiss that forms the fundamental note in the ocean's roar, and everywhere overwhelming the shelving shores in a most destructive fashion, bringing consternation and disaster to communities of tiny life lodged under stones and loaves, giving them cause to think the Flood had come again in spite of the rainbow promise. The rain re-commenced before we had got far up the river, and after getting pretty damp, I retreated into the interior. The downpour, and the mist accompanying it, shut out the view of all but the river and its banks, but left, even provided, something to see, even something new. The pelting rain confused the surface of the water, raising a "velvet pile" upon it that was very pretty indeed where the stream was rippled on the shallows. It reminded me of a striking "effect" I once saw produced by hailstorm on a swelling heaving sea. The [unclear: s] face was whitened by the close splashing the hail, until the billows looked like a [unclear: S] clad country, all in motion—a [unclear: memor] spectacle.

The low, steep, scrub and [unclear: fern-] hills through which the river winds [unclear: n] look exceedingly pretty under [unclear: sunshi] but perhaps not much more pleasing [unclear: f] an artistic point of view than [unclear: they] on this wet day, when every tint [unclear: w] softened, some of them darkened, by [unclear: the] moisture. Much of the shrub [unclear: vegeta] there consists of manuka, then in [unclear: the] bloom, and the weight of water on leaf [unclear: an] blossom bowed each spray and branch in a graceful drooping, much more pleasing the eye than the prim, harsh, [unclear: uprighness] of this ubiquitous plant in fine [unclear: weatl] Some patches bloomed so profusely [unclear: a] were so much the more pressed downs [unclear: the] they appeared as if weighed down by heavy fall of snow. The country [unclear: pas] through on this section of the [unclear: n] is very rough, but is good [unclear: sh] country, and not nearly so desolate one who knows nothing of it, and looking at it from Napier, might imagine. Two three homesteads on the river [unclear: side] passed, where, at one in particular, [unclear: wh] owner's name I forget, the natural [unclear: be] of the place has been enhanced by a [unclear: lib] planting of foreign trees. Hundreds pleasant places for picnic [unclear: scrambles] passed, with wealth of fern and [unclear: pre] shrubs and wild flowers for amateur [unclear: a] lectors to fill their baskets with. But [unclear: the] is too much river for freedom,—and [unclear: perh] I have given you too much of it.