AUCKLAND
A still, sun-filled autumn morning, with crisp sharp air that made it a pleasure to be alive, on wide, sheltered mother-of-pearl waters, bounded by gra.s.sy hills, with frequent hummocks and white gleaming cliffs, greeted the _Renown_ as she neared New Zealand on the morning of the 24th of April, 1920. Dotted over the hills, like sheep at grazing, were numerous red-roofed country houses, which developed pleasant gardens with green fields between as the distance decreased. Out of shadowy bays and inlets crept motor-boats in ones and twos and threes, the numbers growing as township and village each contributed its quota, so that, by the time the _Renown_ was amongst them, there had a.s.sembled a fleet of very considerable dimensions decorated with flags and filled with cheerful men, women and children, soldiers in khaki, wounded in hospital blue, pretty girls in smart frocks, all clapping, cheering, and laughing in the most inspiring welcome imaginable.
The Prince climbed to his look-out above the bridge, and waved back a cheery acknowledgment. Bands struck up in half a dozen of the boats.
Flags leapt up like wind-swept flowers in a herbaceous harbour. The hubbub grew. Numbers of sailing yachts joined the a.s.semblage. Rowing boats chipped in, and, by the time the first harbour buoy was reached, the _Renown_ was sliding along with some hundreds of small craft racing beside her, in imminent danger of collision alike with her and with one another. The last headland turned, Auckland itself came into view, a red-and-white city climbing up the sides of a beautiful, sheltered cove, with clear, deep water in front, and a green, conical extinct volcano behind. Coloured bunting fluttered from the rigging of all the vessels in port, and long vistas of greenery and flags led up the volcano from the water"s edge. One caught glimpses of wide wharves, black with cl.u.s.tering crowds, and of dark ma.s.ses of people on the slopes of Rangitoto, all on the look-out for the arrival of the Prince from Mother England.
We had arrived at the first of the island continents which had drawn us all, battle-cruiser, Prince and pa.s.sengers, half-way round the world.
The ports of call behind us faded into instructive entertainments by the way. Here was another home of the race, another place in the sun where the breed throve and multiplied, and developed, under conditions fresh and far from the source, the man and womanhood we are proud to call British.
Auckland was an appropriate starting point for the Royal tour. The city was the capital of the Dominion until 1865 and now has over a hundred thousand inhabitants. It was founded in 1840 by Captain Hobson, R.N., when he added New Zealand to the Empire, the British Government having characteristically disavowed the action of Captain Cook who set up the Union Jack in 1779. The place had its G.o.dfather in Lord Auckland, the most distinguished First Lord of the Admiralty in Hobson"s time, and thus a suitable sponser for the second city of a Dominion which owes its being to the Empire"s sea-power. Auckland now has a fine harbour and a shipping trade of 2-1/2 million tons per annum. It is a place to which the prosperous sheep farmer looks forward to retiring, as it has educational opportunities, social amenities, and one of the most genial climates in the whole Dominion.
The _Renown_ was brought alongside one of the wharves, on which black top-hats and brilliant uniforms guided the eye to groups which proved to include the Prime Minister of the country, the Leader of the Opposition, the members of the Cabinet, the General Officer Commanding, the Mayor of Auckland, and the President of the Harbour Board. Thus New Zealand waited to greet the Prince.
At the appointed moment the Governor-General drove up in a motor-car.
The ship was dressed. Bands played, guards on the quarter-deck presented arms, His Excellency was duly conducted aboard, where the Prince as duly received him. Later on, with more saluting, a full bra.s.s band for the Governor, and bos"n"s whistling for the Prince, the Royal party went ash.o.r.e, and New Zealand welcomed her future King. It was a little bit of England that had gone on board to make a call of ceremony. It was the whole of New Zealand, heart and hand, that took charge of His Royal Highness ash.o.r.e.
Out of a mult.i.tude of motors the procession to Government House was formed. The cars proceeded through wide, well-built streets of stone business houses, smothered in wreaths and flags. Crowds of cheering people lined the pavement. Upstanding soldiers and cadets in smart khaki uniforms kept the roadway. The Prince, by now, was standing on the seat of his motor-car, waving greetings to the crowds, who responded vociferously. Two equerries, on the front seats, clung to his coat-tail to prevent his falling out of the vehicle. The Governor-General sat back with a smiling face alongside. The route led through the city, and out amongst solid residential houses, standing in gardens brilliant with variegated chrysanthemums, flaming red salvias, purple bougainvilleas, and the greenest of shaven lawns, with cedars and palms together spreading the shade of the north and the south.
Old Government House, which still serves an Excellency from Wellington on tour, where the Dominion"s address was read by the Hon. Mr. Ma.s.sey, Prime Minister, with his Cabinet standing by, is a s.p.a.cious, Georgian building surrounded by an old-world garden of lawns, shrubs and flowers.
It has a homely charm and beautiful views; it made one think of Surrey, and must have been left with regret when New Zealand changed her capital. Thence the route led back through the city to the Town Hall, which was packed to its utmost capacity with well-dressed people who gave the Prince a rousing reception. Here more addresses were presented, and an informal levee was held, everybody present filing past. Large crowds, meanwhile, waited patiently outside for his reappearance.
Later in the day the Prince was taken to the Domain cricket-ground, where he reviewed five thousand returned soldiers and cadets and again received an ovation. This cricket-ground is at the bottom of a shallow valley, gra.s.sy hills forming a natural amphitheatre. Looked at from the central stand while the review was in progress, the slopes of the amphitheatre were as if covered with a fine Persian carpet, so thick was the crowd upon the ground. It was a carpet that had frequent spasms of agitation, the cheering and hat-slinging, whenever the Prince came near to it, being exceedingly lively. H.R.H. first went down the lines of the troops and had a friendly word for every officer and a number of the men. Later on every man who had been wounded or disabled was presented to him individually, the Prince going round to search them out himself.
When this had been completed he presented war decorations to those who had won them at the front. It was nearly dark by the time the last hand had been shaken and the last word said. The cheering, when it was over, was something to remember.
The following day was Anzac Sunday, and was taken up with religious war-services, H.R.H. attending those at St. Mary"s Cathedral in the morning, and at the Town Hall in the afternoon. The Town Hall service was especially impressive. The Prince, slender in the world-familiar khaki, stood in the crowded gathering, and as the Dead March was played, and the Last Post sounded in memory of sons who had fallen, the people knew him the Empire"s symbol of their sacrifice. Perhaps there, where the women sobbed to see him, he touched the supreme height of his mission.
The cricket-ground, on the following day, was again the scene of an enormous gathering. Eight thousand children were here a.s.sembled and went through pretty evolutions and drill. In the terminal figure some two thousand little girls, attired respectively in red, white and blue frocks, so grouped themselves as to form, first the word "Welcome," and afterwards the Union Jack, which waved and rustled as the children bent and swayed to time given by a mite mounted on an eight-foot stool in front. The crowd which surrounded the enclosure, on this occasion, was estimated at thirty thousand.
From Auckland the Prince went south on a train, every part of which, from the engine to the brake-van, had been built in New Zealand workshops.
The first thing one realizes starting for anywhere in New Zealand is the thing that has been a geography wonder since the age of nine, the queer inversion of the climate. The experience is curious, notwithstanding all one"s submission to the fact since that time, so potent a governor of a.s.sociations is a little word. We had arrived at the North Island, where the climate was warm and sunny like that of Italy. People coming with more permanent intentions had a way of settling in the South Island to be under home conditions of temperature, many of them gradually moving across the Strait to the North Island in pursuit of balmier airs. We saw the late autumn apples of April here and there ungathered on the trees about Auckland, and were grateful to escape the imaginative dislocation of a midsummer Christmas, with sunstroke as the punishment of over-indulgence. It would be interesting to know in what period of residence New Zealand undertakes to change one"s dreams.
A green, rolling land, homely turnip fields, orchards, pasture containing fine cattle and sheep, pleasant, red-roofed farm-houses, comfortable country residences, and thriving market towns at frequent intervals, sped past the train. At Ngaruawahia, two thousand brown-faced, high-cheekboned Maoris, in European dress, greeted the Prince from outside the railway fence, men, women and children, hand in hand, repeatedly bowing to the ground, to slow rhythmic soft-voiced singing, as the train steamed by. At the same time, a dozen pretty Maori girls, in flowing white frocks, bare feet, and raven ma.s.ses of waving fillet-bound hair, swayed, undulated and step-danced upon a mat upon the side of the track. These folk were Maori, as often as not, by courtesy rather than by strict racial description. Few pure-bred Maoris indeed are now to be found in New Zealand, and it is said that the mixture of brown and white is here more successful than anywhere else in the world.
At all events one received the impression of a people plastic to the print of a new civilization, and developing happily in it.
At Hamilton, a town of ten thousand inhabitants, more formal ceremonies were gone through. The whole place was decorated. The people a.s.sembled in the streets, where they cheered most vigorously. Several hundred returned soldiers, and a very large number of children, stood in lines upon the racecourse where they were inspected by the Prince. Several addresses of welcome were read, that from the local munic.i.p.ality being presented by Mayor Watt, a prominent Hamilton solicitor and a man of much influence, also of dramatic instinct it appeared, since he discarded for this occasion the chains and ermine of his official garb, in favour of the private"s uniform he had worn at the front.
A few stations further on, five hundred children were upon the platform, singing "G.o.d Bless the Prince of Wales," as the train went past. They had come in from a neighbouring mining-camp to catch a glimpse of the Royal visitor, who waved to them from his carriage. The flourishing coal-mining centre of Huntley, where a valuable brown lignite, capable of being c.o.ked, is being raised in large quant.i.ties from shafts, some of which are only three hundred feet deep, was also pa.s.sed, the inhabitants a.s.sembling along the railway line and cheering as the train went through. A large experimental farm, where the secret of converting barren land into fruitful by means of basic slag has been discovered; cold storage factories where incredible ma.s.ses of New Zealand mutton are being preserved for export; and extensive works where pumice, here found in the scoria of long-extinct volcanoes, is turned into material for the insulating of boilers, pa.s.sed in procession before the train. We saw also peat-swamps, in process of profitable reclamation by means of drainage, in the valley of the wide Waikato stream.
Presently a second engine was attached to the train, which now crept slowly upwards, through a tangled wilderness of dense-forested gorge and mountain canyon, the scenery being of the wildest. The imported spruce, oak, willow, and ash of the more settled region gave place to feathery green _punga_ tree-ferns, and stiff brown _tawa_ of indigenous growth.
Clearings were seen at intervals where cultivation struggled with the grey, bushy _manuka_ scrub; well-kept fields, in the hands of white settlers, alternating with unkempt jungle, where the easy-going communal _hapu_ tenure of Maori ownership is still in force.
Suddenly, the scenery opened up, and we saw, in the soft rays of the setting sun, a wide panorama of blue lake, and olive-green headland, round the dark, conical Mokoia island, famous in Maori tradition as the trysting-place to which Princess Hinomaa and her lover Tutanekai swam across the lake. Here, almost in the shadow of the Tarawera volcano, which blew up with terrific results to the countryside thirty years ago, we found the pleasant little station of Rotorua, where an address was presented and the Prince shook hands with a long line of returned Maori soldiers.
Visits to the wonderful spouting geysers of this famous neighbourhood, with Maori receptions and national dances, occupied the next two days, some of the party also taking advantage of the holiday to catch a number of very fine lake-trout, creatures which have thriven and multiplied amazingly since their importation from Great Britain a few years ago.
The Maori dances are a thing by themselves. They are performed by warriors and maidens in phalanxes. The men, often stout and sometimes elderly, who in ordinary life may be lawyers, landlords, doctors, or retail dealers, put patches of black paint on their faces, array themselves in ta.s.sellated _pui-pui_ mat loin-clothes and arm themselves with slender feather-tufted spears. Then, bare-footed, bare-legged, bare-backed, and bare-headed, they line up in battalions, and leap and stamp, stick their tongues out, grimace, slap their knees, emit volleys of sharp barking shouts, and thrust and swing their spears, in wonderful time to the music of full string bands. The ladies, many of them good-looking, with melting brown eyes, well-developed figures, and graceful carriage, are more restrained in their performances. They are bare-headed, with long waving hair down their backs, kept in place by a coloured ribbon round the forehead. They may be dressed in voluminous brown cloaks of soft _kiwi_ feathers, or in loose, embroidered draperies of every colour, their feet and ankles, sometimes bare, sometimes encased in high-heeled American shoes and black lace stockings. They stand or sit in long lines, singing the softest of crooning songs, the while swaying, posturing, undulating, or step-dancing in perfect unison, to represent the movement of paddling, spinning, weaving, swimming, or setting sail. At the same time they swing white _poi_-b.a.l.l.s, the size of oranges, attached to strings, which form in their swift gyrations gauzy circles of light around each hand, a charming performance worthy of Leicester Square.
In the case of Rotorua ceremonies, performances took place, first on the lake sh.o.r.e, on ground which emitted clouds of steam in the very face of the dancers, and afterwards, on a much larger scale, on a wide gra.s.sy plain adjoining, where six thousand Maoris, brought from all parts of New Zealand, the South Island as well as the North, were encamped in military bell-tents, a legacy of the war. Here, battalion after battalion, first of men, then of girls, and finally of the two combined, performed in quick succession, at least a thousand dancers taking part, while ten thousand spectators, about half of whom may have been Maoris or half-castes, and the balance Europeans, looked on and applauded. Here I suppose if anywhere we saw the pure-blooded Maori, though it seems a distinction with little difference. Unlike most Orientals, the children of mixed ancestry continue the traditions of the pure-breeds, put on their clothes, speak their language and boast their ancestry. One of the most striking of the figures was where the warriors stole out between ranks of dancing maidens, to take an enemy unawares, who was supposed to have been beguiled into believing that he had only women to deal with.
Sir James Carrol and the Hon. Mr. A. T. Ngata, both Maori members of the New Zealand Parliament, and both distinguished speakers, took a prominent part in the ceremonies.
The address presented to the Prince by these loyal and attractive people was characteristically picturesque. It was read, first in English, and afterwards in Maori, by one of the chiefs, an elderly gentleman of reverend appearance in fine Kiwi robe, who spoke in a pleasant, resonant, well-rounded voice. "You bring with you," he said, "memories of our beloved dead. They live again who strove with you on the fields of TU in many lands beyond seas. Your presence there endeared you to the hearts of our warriors. Your brief sojourn here will soften the sorrows of those whose dear ones have followed the setting sun. Royal son of an ill.u.s.trious line, king that is to be, we are proud that you should carry on the traditions of your race and house. For it is meet that those who sit on high should turn an equal face to humble as to mighty. Walk, therefore, among your own people sure of their hearts, fostering therein the love they bore Queen Victoria and those who came after her. Welcome and farewell. Return in peace without misgivings, bearing to His Majesty the King, and to Her Majesty the Queen, the renewal of the oath we swore to them on this ground a generation ago. The Maori people will be true till death, and so farewell."
The history of the Maoris is one long record of chivalry and courage, and their promise is one they will perform.
IX
NORTH ISLAND
Among the telegrams which met the Royal train on its way from Auckland to Rotorua was one of a character which differed from the rest. The message was addressed to Rt. Hon. William Ma.s.sey, that embodiment of notable ability, kindly good sense and unquenchable spirit whom this Dominion is so fortunate as to have as Prime Minister, who was on the train. It announced a general railway strike unless certain demands of drivers and men, some time pending, were agreed to by the Government. It was in the form of an ultimatum which expired at midnight, an hour which found the tour at Rotorua. Against the extreme and humiliating public inconvenience of the moment thus selected must be placed the immediate offer of the strikers, to complete the schedule of the Royal train, to take the Prince in fact wherever he wished to go. While the offer was declined in the main it was accepted as far as a return journey to Auckland, where the Prince thus spent several unforeseen days while matters were being adjusted. The time had to be cut out of later dispositions. It was spent in private engagements, in the much qualified sense of the word as it applied to any of the Royal arrangements. The strike was ultimately settled through the efforts of Mr. Ma.s.sey, who, being denied the service of the railroad, drove several hundred miles over sodden mountain roads, in the worst of weather, from Rotorua to Wellington to discuss the matter with the men"s leaders there. The settlement did much credit to the forbearance of both sides. It did not go into the merits of the immediate question, which was as to the rate of compensation to be paid to the men in consideration of the increased cost of living, but provided a tribunal, on which the strikers and the railway management should be equally represented, with a co-opted neutral chairman, to report upon the merits of the demand, and suggest the best way of doing justice to all concerned. The acceptance of this sensible arrangement was largely aided by the New Zealand Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, this important organization putting pressure upon the drivers and firemen to return to work while the tribunal was taking evidence. The incident afforded interesting proof, not only of the confidence inspired by Mr. Ma.s.sey himself, but also of the reasonableness of the att.i.tude of labour in this part of the world.
Industrial discontent is a more manageable thing in a country where the great majority of the men own their homes and the half-acre that surrounds them. The struggle for better conditions is sweetened by the air of gardens, and every operative has the interest in the general prosperity that comes of a private stake in it.
The Royal party left Auckland in three railway trains, a pilot, a main, and an emergency, the Prince and staff travelling in the middle one. The New Zealand Government was represented by Sir William Fraser, Minister of the Interior, a Highland Scotchman from the South Island. Official appointments to accompany the tour were happily made throughout, but never more than in this instance, where the extraordinary kindliness and charm of the Minister of the Interior enhanced the great volume of his experience, to the pleasure and profit of every member of the party.
Another of those present was General Sir Edward Chaytor, commanding the forces in New Zealand, a soldier whose world reputation has not in any way interfered with the simplest manner and the most delighted directness of mind. It was his function to present to the Prince the military side of New Zealand life, a side which was represented at every centre visited, alike by surprisingly large numbers of returned soldiers from the forces which gave such splendid account of themselves in the great war, and by considerable bodies of smartly turned-out territorials and cadets. Accompanying General Chaytor was Colonel Sleeman, also a remarkable personality, to whose initiative is largely due the system of cadet-training now in force in New Zealand, a system which is doing wonders in the matter of infusing the best public-school spirit into previously unkempt national schoolboys and larrikins, teaching them to play the game, giving them a pride in themselves, and interesting them in physical culture, and in the duties of citizenship, so that their parents have become as keen as themselves that they should go through the courses. Another of the party was Mr. James Hislop, Permanent Under-Secretary of the Interior, one of the ablest members of that fine body, the New Zealand civil service, who organized the arrangements of the tour, and whose irrepressible humour, good fellowship, and infinity of resource, in disposing of what seemed to most of us an utterly overwhelming burden of work, were a continual wonder to everybody upon the train. No less important amongst those outstanding figures of the New Zealand party, was Mr. R. W. McVilly, General Manager of the railways of the country, a man who with his predecessor, Mr. E. H.
Hiley, has succeeded in doing in New Zealand what proved impossible, in England and in the United States. Under their direction the railway system of the Dominion was carried on throughout the war without break in management and without making any loss. It did not take travellers long to discover the affection and respect in which the Director-General was held, not only by his colleagues, but by all who came in contact with him.
The British pressmen with the tour were particularly happy in their New Zealand newspaper a.s.sociates. Amongst these gentlemen were Professor Guy Scholefield, who holds the chair of English Literature at the University of Dunedin and who knows New Zealand inside and out, from the historic as well as the modern point of view; and Mr. F. H. Morgan, representing that business-like organization the New Zealand Press a.s.sociation, a practical journalist, a helpful colleague, and one of the best of good fellows.
Although the main train journey was only decided upon a few hours before a start was made from Auckland, all the arrangements worked with extraordinary smoothness, and the number of people a.s.sembled at even the smallest wayside stations to cheer the Prince was astonishing. At Frankton, the first stopping-place after leaving Auckland, the gathering around the station consisted largely of the very railway men who had just been on strike. Their reception of the Prince had the special cordiality that carries a hint of apology. One of their number indeed, acting as spokesman, explained in a speech which could not be considered inopportune, how much they all regretted having been the cause of delay to the Royal tour. At Tekuiti, another small station, a more formal reception took place, in which some five hundred children, collected from the schools in the neighbourhood, partic.i.p.ated with characteristic fervour.
Through the night the Royal train traversed the red-pine Waimarino forest, mounted two thousand feet up the Raurimu spiral, pa.s.sed the still smoking summit of the Ngauruhoe volcano, and emerged at daylight upon the rolling plains of the rich Taranaki dairying country. Here pastoral land, though still dotted with the blackened stumps of bygone forest, is worth to-day anything up to one hundred and fifty pounds sterling per acre. Thence, pa.s.sing beneath the snow-streaked cone of the extinct volcano Mount Egmont, the train rolled out upon the open western coast, and entered the gorse-encircled city of New Plymouth. Here the Prince was given a picturesque reception beneath spreading _Insignis_ pines, in a natural gra.s.s-covered amphitheatre, of beautiful Pukikura park. Conducted by General Melville, commanding the district, he inspected a large gathering of returned sailors, soldiers, nurses, and cadets. He also went through the ranks of ma.s.ses of school-children, who waved long wands topped with white and red feathery _toi-toi_ gra.s.s, and sang patriotic songs. In the course of a reply, later on, to a civic address, read by Mr. F. Bellringer, General Manager of the Borough, the Prince referred to the splendid prospects of the north-west coast, also to its fine war record, adding: "When I look at the development of this wonderful dairying country, I am amazed at the enterprise and energy which have achieved so much in little more than two generations."
It is indeed amazing. Taranaki does much with b.u.t.ter, sending to such a compet.i.tive country as Canada nearly 12,000 cwts. in 1918, and even more with cheese, producing a particularly delectable Stilton. There are fifty-seven b.u.t.ter factories and one hundred and eleven devoted to cheese. To carve these conditions out of virgin forest in two generations is a feat that well deserved its recognition.
The route thereafter lay through a land of s.p.a.cious, green sheep-downs, overlooking a blue, sun-lit sea, as idyllic as a pasture of the Eclogues. On the way, at Stratford, Hawera and Patea, the Prince received and replied to addresses and inspected gatherings of returned soldiers, sailors, nurses, and cadets, besides incredible numbers of fat, red-cheeked children, a.s.sembled with their teachers to do him honour. Speaking at Hawera, the scene of fighting in days gone by, between _Pakeha_--white strangers--and Maori natives, "Nothing," said His Royal Highness, "has impressed me more in New Zealand than the evidence I have found everywhere that Pakeha and Maori are now one people in devotion to the Dominion, the Empire and the King."
[Ill.u.s.tration: WELLINGTON: A CANOE IN THE PETONE PAGEANT]
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE MAORI PEOPLE WILL BE TRUE TILL DEATH"]
Proceeding afterwards to w.a.n.ganui, a more imposing welcome awaited him, ten thousand enthusiastic people being found a.s.sembled in a big gra.s.s-covered stadium. Here, some of the territorials he inspected insisted upon drawing his motor-car round the grounds. In the course of a reply to an address read by the Mayor, the Prince put into words what was so plain in his actions. "I value," he said, "more than anything the opportunity this journey gives me of making the acquaintance of the people of New Zealand, many of whose gallant sons I knew on active service in the great war." A visit followed to the w.a.n.ganui college, a fine inst.i.tution where three hundred of the sons of the settlers of the Dominion are receiving up-to-date education upon British public-school lines. Later in the evening the Prince attended a concert, also a democratic supper-party of the heartiest description, held in enormous marquees, at which three thousand people were present. The Prince and his staff were served at a table on a raised platform in the middle of the biggest of the marquees, so that as many people as possible might see him, a distinction which apparently caused His Royal Highness no loss of appet.i.te.
From w.a.n.ganui the Prince motored twenty-five miles through undulating fields of gra.s.s, turnips and rape, alternating with patches of yellow gorse, the last introduced from the old country by sentimental but ill-advised settlers, and now a most troublesome field-pest, special legislation having had to be introduced requiring owners of land, under penalty, to prevent its spreading. Crossing the wooded valleys of the beautiful w.a.n.ganui and Turakina rivers, the Ruahine mountains shining through the morning mists upon the left, while s.p.a.cious sheep-farms sloped seawards upon the right, the Prince reached the township of Marton, where the usual inspections and addresses took place. Thence the party started by train to cross the country to the east coast port of Napier. Receptions were held, _en route_, at the townships of Feilding and Palmerston-North. In the course of the day the Prince received a number of presents, including, from Maori chiefs, an ancient and possibly unique greenstone _mere_ or battle-axe, and a fine _Wharikiwoka_--a mat-cloak lined with feathers. At Palmerston-North there was handed into his keeping the shot-torn colours actually carried by the third British Foot Guards at the battle of Alexandria as along ago as 1801. These colours had been handed down, from generation to generation, by New Zealand descendants of Colonel Samuel Dalrymple, who commanded this distinguished regiment in that engagement. They were presented to the Prince by Mrs. J. H. Hankins, _nee_ Dalrymple. The colours were said to be the only ones, belonging to a Guards regiment, hitherto preserved elsewhere than in the British islands.
Leaving Palmerston-North, the Prince proceeded through the gorge of the rushing, turgid Manawatu river, alighting at the small wayside station of Woodville, where a number of the inhabitants had a.s.sembled and where he shook hands with a territorial officer, who, with the gay adventurous spirit of the Dominion, had taken considerable risks in keeping pace with the Royal train in a motor-car all the way from Marton, though part of the route was along an unfenced winding mountain road on the side of a cliff where the slightest obstruction or miscalculation might have hurled the car and its occupants into the torrent below.
From Woodville the Prince went on, through wide gra.s.s-covered plains, dotted with pleasant homesteads, standing amidst thousands of browsing sheep, along the broad, shallow, shingly reaches of the Waipawa river, and past sunny apple-orchards, and coppices of oak, poplar and pine, at times skirting breezy uplands where he saw shepherds and their families, often from long distances in the interior waiting to cheer the train.
The arrival at Napier, on the east coast of the island, was late in the afternoon, in threatening weather. Yet the entire town of twelve thousand inhabitants seemed to have a.s.sembled in the streets, and the turn-out of returned sailors, soldiers, nurses, and cadets, at the beautiful Nelson Park, on the seash.o.r.e, where a reception was held and an address presented by the Mayor, Mr. Vigor Brown, was most impressive.
In the course of his reply, in this centre, the Prince once more referred to the quick coming prosperity of the land he had been traversing. "It is amazing," he said, "to think that all the homely, happy country I have seen on my journey here has been cleared, cultivated and civilized in the life of two generations. The measure of that splendid achievement is well reflected in this flourishing port and town."
The following morning the Prince was early afoot, yet the inhabitants made a fine showing in the streets, as the procession of motor-cars pa.s.sed through to the station, where the Royal train was waiting to convey the party on the long run southwards to Wellington, the capital.
The weather had cleared in the night and it was a lovely autumn morning as we skirted the waters of Hawkes Bay, which washed against the steep, white cliffs of Kidnappers" Island, still the home of thousands of strong-winged gannets the size of geese. Arrived at Hastings, a solid market town of ten thousand inhabitants, the Prince was conducted, through lanes of cheering people, to the racecourse. Here yet another large gathering of returned men, also territorials, cadets, nurses, and children, had a.s.sembled, and yet another civic address was presented and replied to. Similar experiences awaited the party at further stopping-places, including Waipukurau, Dannevirke, Woodville, and Pahiatua--the "place of G.o.d"--the number of the motor-cars, drawn up in the rear of the crowds, testifying to the prosperity of the farmer-folk, many of whom had been making fortunes out of the high prices of the mutton, wool and dairy-produce they raise. At Dannevirke--Dane Church--the Scandinavian origin of the township was reflected, not only in the name, but in the faces of whiskered vikings who were to be seen amongst those who came forward to shake hands with the Prince. They contrasted quite obviously with the conventional Anglo-Saxons around them, and recalled in their persons the fact that the settlement of Dannevirke was originally made by a ship-load of government-aided immigrants from Schleswig, Holstein.
After leaving Dannevirke, the Prince took a turn on the foot-plate of the engine of the train, which he drove at something like fifty miles an hour to Woodville, where he had halted the day before. At Woodville the track turned southwards through wilder country, including a certain amount of still uncleared bush. Even here, however, the land is being opened up, and I heard of farms changing hands at as much as seventy pounds per acre. As the afternoon progressed halts were made at various stations, including Featherston, where the Prince was received by cheering crowds from a military training camp near by. At dusk the train skirted the wide Wairarapa--lake of shining water--where wild swans still breed in some numbers. Here we seemed to have reached the end of the track, as high hills closed in on either side, and there was no sign of a tunnel. The big single engine, however, was replaced by three smaller ones of special make for mountain climbing, one of them being attached at either end of the train and the third in the middle. A start was then made up a zigzag track consisting of three rails, the third so fixed in the middle, between the other two, that pulley wheels beneath the body of the engines can get a purchase below it, thus completely wedging the train and preventing its too sudden descent in case of accident. Slowly then the train crawled up the gradient, which, in places, is no less than one in fifteen. On the way we pa.s.sed heavy timber-fences erected to break the force of the wind, which has been known so strong, at times on this part of the line, as to overturn a train. In the darkness we crossed the Rimutaka--ridge of fallen trees--and slid smoothly down to the other side into the rich Hutt valley in which Wellington stands.