Mr. Smythe had only one defect as a comrade, and that was his conversation in a fog. It was of a distinctly depressing character, as I had occasion to learn when we ran into very thick weather among the rocky islands which make navigation so difficult to the north of Auckland. Between the screams of the siren I would hear a still small voice in the bunk above me.
"We are now somewhere near the Three Kings. It is an isolated group of rocks celebrated for the wreck of the _Elingamite_, which went ash.o.r.e on just such a morning as this." (Whoo-ee! remarked the foghorn). "They were nearly starved, but kept themselves alive by fish which were caught by improvised lines made from the ladies" stay-laces. Many of them died."
I lay digesting this and staring at the fog which crawled all round the port hole. Presently he was off again.
"You can"t anchor here, and there is no use stopping her, for the currents run hard and she would drift on to one of the ledges which would rip the side out of her." (Whoo-ee! repeated the foghorn). "The islands are perpendicular with deep water up to the rocks, so you never know they are there until you hit them, and then, of course, there is no reef to hold you up." (Whoo-ee!) "Close by here is the place where the _Wairarapa_ went down with all hands a few years ago. It was just such a day as this when she struck the Great Barrier----"
It was about this time that I decided to go on deck. Captain Brown had made me free of the bridge, so I climbed up and joined him there, peering out into the slow-drifting scud.
I spent the morning there, and learned something of the anxieties of a sailor"s life. Captain Brown had in his keeping, not only his own career and reputation, but what was far more to him, the lives of more than three hundred people. We had lost all our bearings, for we had drifted in the fog during those hours when it was too thick to move. Now the scud was coming in clouds, the horizon lifting to a couple of miles, and then sinking to a few hundred yards. On each side of us and ahead were known to be rocky islands or promontories. Yet we must push on to our destination. It was fine to see this typical British sailor working his ship as a huntsman might take his horse over difficult country, now speeding ahead when he saw an opening, now waiting for a fogbank to get ahead, now pushing in between two clouds. For hours we worked along with the circle of oily lead-coloured sea around us, and then the grey veil, rising and falling, drifting and waving, with danger lurking always in its shadow. There are strange results when one stares intently over such a sea, for after a time one feels that it all slopes upwards, and that one is standing deep in a saucer with the rim far above one. Once in the rifts we saw a great ship feeling her way southwards, in the same difficulties as ourselves. She was the _Niagara_, from Vancouver to Auckland. Then, as suddenly as the raising of a drop-curtain, up came the fog, and there ahead of us was the narrow path which led to safety.
The _Niagara_ was into it first, which seemed to matter little, but really mattered a good deal, for her big business occupied the Port Authorities all the evening, while our little business was not even allowed to come alongside until such an hour that we could not get ash.o.r.e, to the disappointment of all, and very especially of me, for I knew that some of our faithful had been waiting for twelve hours upon the quay to give me a welcoming hand. It was breakfast time on the very morning that I was advertised to lecture before we at last reached our hotel.
Here I received that counter-demonstration which always helped to keep my head within the limits of my hat. This was a peremptory demand from six gentlemen, who modestly described themselves as the leading photographers of the city, to see the negatives of the photographs which I was to throw upon the screen. I was a.s.sured at the same time by other photographers that they had no sympathy with such a demand, and that the others were self-advertising busybodies who had no mandate at all for such a request. My experience at Sydney had shown me that such challenges came from people who had no knowledge of psychic conditions, and who did not realise that it is the circ.u.mstances under which a photograph is taken, and the witnesses who guarantee such circ.u.mstances, which are the real factors that matter, and not the negative which may be so easily misunderstood by those who have not studied the processes by which such things are produced. I therefore refused to allow my photographs to pa.s.s into ignorant hands, explaining at the same time that I had no negatives, since the photographs in most cases were not mine at all, so that the negatives would, naturally, be with Dr.
Crawford, Dr. Geley, Lady Glenconnor, the representatives of Sir William Crookes, or whoever else had originally taken the photograph. Their challenge thereupon appeared in the Press with a long tirade of abuse attached to it, founded upon the absurd theory that all the photos had been taken by me, and that there was no proof of their truth save in my word. One gets used to being indirectly called a liar, and I can answer arguments with self-restraint which once I would have met with the toe of my boot. However, a little breeze of this sort does no harm, but rather puts ginger into one"s work, and my audience were very soon convinced of the absurdity of the position of the six dissenting photographers who had judged that which they had not seen.
Auckland is the port of call of the American steamers, and had some of that air of activity and progress which America brings with her. The spirit of enterprise, however, took curious shapes, as in the case of one man who was a local miller, and pushed his trade by long advertis.e.m.e.nts at the head of the newspapers, which began with abuse of me and my ways, and ended by a recommendation to eat dessicated corn, or whatever his particular commodity may have been. The result was a comic jumble which was too funny to be offensive, though Auckland should discourage such pleasantries, as they naturally mar the beautiful impression which her fair city and surroundings make upon the visitor. I hope I was the only victim, and that every stranger within her gates is not held up to ridicule for the purpose of calling attention to Mr.
Blank"s dessicated corn.
I seemed destined to have strange people mixed up with my affairs in Auckland, for there was a conjuror in the town, who, after the fashion of that rather blatant fraternity, was offering 1,000 that he could do anything I could do. As I could do nothing, it seemed easy money. In any case, the argument that because you can imitate a thing therefore the thing does not exist, is one which it takes the ingenuity of Mr.
Maskelyne to explain. There was also an ex-spiritualist medium (so-called) who covered the papers with his advertis.e.m.e.nts, so that my little announcement was quite overshadowed. He was to lecture the night after me in the Town Hall, with most terrifying revelations. I was fascinated by his paragraphs, and should have liked greatly to be present, but that was the date of my exodus. Among other remarkable advertis.e.m.e.nts was one "What has become of "Pelorus Jack"? Was he a lost soul?" Now, "Pelorus Jack" was a white dolphin, who at one time used to pilot vessels into a New Zealand harbour, gambolling under the bows, so that the question really did raise curiosity. However, I learned afterwards that my successor did not reap the harvest which his ingenuity deserved, and that the audience was scanty and derisive. What the real psychic meaning of "Pelorus Jack" may have been was not recorded by the press.
From the hour I landed upon the quay at Auckland until I waved my last farewell my visit was made pleasant, and every wish antic.i.p.ated by the Rev. Jasper Calder, a clergyman who has a future before him, though whether it will be in the Church of England or not, time and the Bishop will decide. Whatever he may do, he will remain to me and to many more the nearest approach we are likely to see to the ideal Christian--much as he will dislike my saying so. After all, if enemies are given full play, why should not friends redress the balance? I will always carry away the remembrance of him, alert as a boy, rushing about to serve anyone, mixing on equal terms with scallywags on the pier, reclaiming criminals whom he called his brothers, winning a prize for breaking-in a buckjumper, which he did in order that he might gain the respect of the stockmen; a fiery man of G.o.d in the pulpit, but with a mind too broad for special dispensations, he was like one of those wonderfully virile creatures of Charles Reade. The clergy of Australasia are stagnant and narrow, but on the other hand, I have found men like the Dean of Sydney, Strong of Melbourne, Sanders of Manly, Calder of Auckland, and others whom it is worth crossing this world to meet.
Of my psychic work at Auckland there is little to be said, save that I began my New Zealand tour under the most splendid auspices. Even Sydney had not furnished greater or more sympathetic audiences than those which crowded the great Town Hall upon two successive nights. I could not possibly have had a better reception, or got my message across more successfully. All the newspaper ragging and offensive advertis.e.m.e.nts had produced (as is natural among a generous people) a more kindly feeling for the stranger, and I had a reception I can never forget.
This town is very wonderfully situated, and I have never seen a more magnificent view than that from Mount Eden, an extinct volcano about 900 feet high, at the back of it. The only one which I could cla.s.s with it is that from Arthur"s Seat, also an extinct volcano about 900 feet high, as one looks on Edinburgh and its environs. Edinburgh, however, is for ever shrouded in smoke, while here the air is crystal clear, and I could clearly see Great Barrier Island, which is a good eighty miles to the north. Below lay the most marvellous medley of light blue water and light green land mottled with darker foliage. We could see not only the whole vista of the wonderful winding harbour, and the seas upon the east of the island, but we could look across and see the firths which connected with the seas of the west. Only a seven-mile ca.n.a.l is needed to link the two up, and to save at least two hundred miles of dangerous navigation amid those rock-strewn waters from which we had so happily emerged. Of course it will be done, and when it is done it should easily pay its way, for what ship coming from Australia--or going to it--but would gladly pay the fees? The real difficulty lies not in cutting the ca.n.a.l, but in dredging the western opening, where shifting sandbanks and ocean currents combine to make a dangerous approach. I see in my mind"s eye two great breakwaters, stretching like nippers into the Pacific at that point, while, between the points of the nippers, the dredgers will for ever be at work. It will be difficult, but it is needed and it will be done.
The Australian Davis Cup quartette--Norman Brooks, Patterson, O"Hara Wood and another--had come across in the _Maheno_ with us and were now at the Grand Hotel. There also was the American team, including the formidable Tilden, now world"s champion. The general feeling of Australasia is not as cordial as one would wish to the United States for the moment. I have met several men back from that country who rather bitterly resent the anti-British agitation which plays such a prominent part in the American press. This continual nagging is, I am sorry to say, wearing down the stolid patience of the Britisher more than I can ever remember, and it is a subject on which I have always been sensitive as I have been a life-long advocate of Anglo-American friendship, leading in the fullness of time to some loose form of Anglo-American Union. At present it almost looks as if these racial traitors who make the artificial dissensions were succeeding for a time in their work of driving a wedge between the two great sections of the English-speaking peoples. My fear is that when some world crisis comes, and everything depends upon us all pulling together, the English-speakers may neutralise each other. There lies the deadly danger. It is for us on both sides to endeavour to avoid it.
Everyone who is in touch with the sentiment of the British officers in Flanders knows that they found men of their own heart in the brave, una.s.suming American officers who were their comrades, and often their pupils. It is some of the stay-at-home Americans who appear to have such a false perspective, and who fail to realise that even British Dominions, such as Canada and Australia, lost nearly as many men as the United States in the war, while Britain herself laid down ten lives for every one spent by America. This is not America"s fault, but when we see apparent forgetfulness of it on the part of a section of the American people when our wounds are still fresh, it cannot be wondered at that we feel sore. We do not advertise, and as a result there are few who know that we lost more men and made larger captures during the last two years of the war than our gallant ally of France. When we hear that others won the war we smile--but it is a bitter smile.
Strange, indeed, are some of the episodes of psychic experience. There came to me at my hotel in Auckland two middle-aged hard-working women, who had come down a hundred miles from the back country to my lecture.
One had lost her boy at Gallipoli. She gave me a long post-mortem account from him as to the circ.u.mstances of his own death, including the military operations which led up to it. I read it afterwards, and it was certainly a very coherent account of the events both before and after the sh.e.l.l struck him. Having handed me the pamphlet the country woman then, with quivering fingers, produced from her bosom a little silver box. Out of this she took an object, wrapped in white silk. It was a small cube of what looked to me like sandstone, about an inch each way. She told me it was an apport, that it had been thrown down on her table while she and her family, including, as I understood, the friend then present, were holding a seance. A message came with it to say that it was from the boy"s grave at Gallipoli. What are we to say to that?
Was it fraud? Then why were they playing tricks upon themselves? If it was, indeed, an apport, it is surely one of the most remarkable for distance and for purpose recorded of any private circle.
A gentleman named Moors was staying at the same hotel in Auckland, and we formed an acquaintance. I find that he was closely connected with Stevenson, and had actually written a very excellent book upon his comradeship with him at Samoa. Stevenson dabbled in the politics of Samoa, and always with the best motives and on the right side, but he was of so frank and impetuous a nature that he was not trusted with any inside knowledge. Of the German rule Mr. Moors says that for the first twelve years Dr. Solf was as good as he could be, and did fair justice to all. Then he went on a visit to Berlin, and returned "bitten by the military bug," with his whole nature changed, and began to "imponieren"
in true Prussian fashion. It is surely extraordinary how all the scattered atoms of a race can share the diseases of the central organism from which they sprang. I verily believe that if a German had been alone on a desert island in 1914 he would have begun to dance and brandish a club. How many cases are on record of the strange changes and wild deeds of individuals?
Mr. Moors told me that he dropped into a developing circle of spiritualists at Sydney, none of whom could have known him. One of them said, "Above your head I see a man, an artist, long hair, brown eyes, and I get the name of Stephens." If he was indeed unknown, this would seem fairly evidential.
I was struck by one remark of Mr. Moors, which was that he had not only seen the natives ride turtles in the South Sea lagoons, but that he had actually done so himself, and that it was by no means difficult. This was the feat which was supposed to be so absurd when De Rougemont claimed to have done it. There are, of course, some gross errors which are probably pure misuse of words in that writer"s narrative, but he places the critic in a dilemma which has never been fairly faced. Either he is a liar, in which case he is, beyond all doubt, the most realistic writer of adventure since Defoe, or else he speaks the truth, in which case he is a great explorer. I see no possible avoidance of this dilemma, so that which ever way you look at it the man deserves credit which he has never received.
We set off, four of us, to visit Mr. Clement Wragge, who is the most remarkable personality in Auckland--dreamer, mystic, and yet very practical adviser on all matters of ocean and of air.
On arriving at the charming bungalow, buried among all sorts of broad-leaved shrubs and trees, I was confronted by a tall, thin figure, clad in black, with a face like a sadder and thinner Bernard Shaw, dim, dreamy eyes, heavily pouched, with a blue turban surmounting all. On repeating my desire he led me apart into his study. I had been warned that with his active brain and copious knowledge I would never be able to hold him to the point, so, in the dialogue which followed, I perpetually headed him off as he turned down bye paths, until the conversation almost took the form of a game.
"Mr. Wragge, you are, I know, one of the greatest authorities upon winds and currents."
"Well, that is one of my pursuits. When I was young I ran the Ben Nevis Observatory in Scotland and----"
"It was only a small matter I wished to ask you. You"ll excuse my directness as I have so little time."
"Certainly. What is it?"
"If the Maoris came, originally, from Hawaii, what prevailing winds would their canoes meet in the 2,000 miles which they crossed to reach New Zealand?"
The dim eyes lit up with the joy of the problem, and the nervous fingers unrolled a chart of the Pacific. He flourished a pair of compa.s.ses.
"Here is Hawaii. They would start with a north-westerly trade wind. That would be a fair wind. I may say that the whole affair took place far further back than is usually supposed. We have to get back to astronomy for our fixed date. Don"t imagine that the obliquity of the ecliptic was always 23 degrees."
"The Maoris had a fair wind then?"
The compa.s.ses stabbed at the map.
"Only down to this point. Then they would come on the Doldrums--the calm patch of the equator. They could paddle their canoes across that. Of course, the remains at Easter Island prove----"
"But they could not paddle all the way."
"No; they would run into the south-easterly trades. Then they made their way to Rarotonga in Tahiti. It was from here that they made for New Zealand."
"But how could they know New Zealand was there?"
"Ah, yes, how did they know?"
"Had they compa.s.ses?"
"They steered by the stars. We have a poem of theirs which numbers the star-gazer as one of the crew. We have a chart, also, cut in the rocks at Hawaii, which seems to be the plot of a voyage. Here is a slide of it." He fished out a photo of lines and scratches upon a rock.
"Of course," said he, "the root of the matter is that missionaries from Atlantis permeated the Pacific, coming across Central America, and left their traces everywhere."
Ah, Atlantis! I am a bit of an Atlantean myself, so off we went at scratch and both enjoyed ourselves greatly until time had come to rejoin the party and meet Mr. Wragge"s wife, a charming Brahmin lady from India, who was one of the most gracious personalities I have met in my wanderings. The blue-turbaned, eager man, half western science, half eastern mystic, and his dark-eyed wife amid their profusion of flowers will linger in my memory. Mrs. Wragge was eager that I go and lecture in India. Well, who knows?
I was so busy listening to Mr. Wragge"s Atlantean theories that I had no chance of laying before him my own contribution to the subject, which is, I think, both original and valid. If the huge bulk of Atlantis sank beneath the ocean, then, a.s.suredly, it raised such a tidal wave as has never been known in the world"s history. This tidal wave, since all sea water connects, would be felt equally all over the world, as the wave of Krakatoa was in 1883 felt in Europe. The wave must have rushed over all flat coasts and drowned every living thing, as narrated in the biblical narrative. Therefore, since this catastrophe was, according to Plato"s account, not very much more than 10,000 years ago there should exist ample evidence of a wholesale destruction of life, especially in the flatter lands of the globe. Is there such evidence? Think of Darwin"s account of how the pampas of South America are in places one huge grave-yard. Think, also, of the mammoth remains which strew the Tundras of Siberia, and which are so numerous that some of the Arctic islands are really covered with bones. There is ample evidence of some great flood which would exactly correspond with the effect produced by the sinking of Atlantis. The tragedy broadens as one thinks of it. Everyone everywhere must have been drowned save only the hill-dwellers. The object of the catastrophe was, according to some occult information, to remove the Atlantean race and make room for the Aryan, even as the Lemurian had been removed to make room for the Atlantean. How long has the Aryan race to run? The answer may depend upon themselves. The great war is a warning bell perhaps.
I had a talk with a curious type of psychic while I was in Auckland. He claimed to be a psychologist who did not need to be put _en rapport_ with his object by any material starting point. A piece of clothing is, as a rule, to a psychometrist what it would be to a bloodhound, the starting point of a chase which runs down the victim. Thus Van Bourg, when he discovered by crystal gazing the body of Mr. Foxhall (I quote the name from memory) floating in the Thames, began by covering the table with the missing man"s garments. This is the usual procedure which will become more familiar as the public learn the full utility of a psychic.
This gentlemen, Mr. Pearman, was a builder by trade, a heavy, rather uneducated man with the misty eye of a seer. He told me that if he desired to turn his powers upon anything he had only to sit in a dim room and concentrate his thought upon the matter, without any material nexus. For example, a murder had been done in Western Australia. The police asked his help. Using his power, he saw the man, a stranger, and yet he _knew_ that it was the man, descending the Swan River in a boat.
He saw him mix with the dockmen of Fremantle. Then he saw him return to Perth. Finally, he saw him take train on the Transcontinental Railway.
The police at once acted, and intercepted the man, who was duly convicted and hanged. This was one of several cases which this man told me, and his stories carried conviction with them. All this, although psychic, has, of course, nothing to do with spiritualism, but is an extension of the normal, though undefined, powers of the human mind and soul.
The reader will be relieved to hear that I did not visit Rotorua. An itinerant lecturer upon an unpopular cause has enough hot water without seeking out a geyser. My travels would make but an indifferent guide book, but I am bound to put it upon record that Wellington is a very singular city plastered upon the side of a very steep hill. It is said that the plan of the city was entirely drawn up in England under the impression that the site was a flat one, and that it was duly carried out on the perpendicular instead of the horizontal. It is a town of fine buildings, however, in a splendid winding estuary ringed with hills. It is, of course, the capital, and the centre of all officialdom in New Zealand, but Auckland, in the north, is already the greater city.
I had the opportunity of spending the day after my arrival with Dr.
Morrice, who married the daughter of the late Premier, Sir R. Seddon, whom I had known in years gone by. Their summer house was down the Bay, and so I had a long drive which gave me an admirable chance of seeing the wonderful panorama. It was blowing a full gale, and the road is so exposed that even motors are sometimes upset by the force of the wind.
On this occasion nothing more serious befell us than the loss of Mr.
Smythe"s hat, which disappeared with such velocity that no one was able to say what had become of it. It simply was, and then it was not. The yellow of the foresh.o.r.e, the green of the shallows, the blue mottled with purple of the deep, all fretted with lines of foam, made an exhilarating sight. The whole excursion was a brief but very pleasant break in our round of work. Another pleasant experience was that I met Dr. Purdey, who had once played cricket with me, when we were very young, at Edinburgh University. _Eheu fugaces!_ I had also the pleasure of meeting Mr. Ma.s.sey, the Premier, a bluff, strong, downright man who impresses one with his force and sincerity.
I had the privilege when I was at Wellington of seeing the first edition of "Robinson Crusoe," which came out originally in three volumes. I had no idea that the three-decker dated back to 1719. It had a delightful map of the island which would charm any boy, and must have been drawn up under the personal guidance of Defoe himself. I wonder that map has not been taken as an integral part of the book, and reproduced in every edition, for it is a fascinating and a helpful doc.u.ment.