War to the Knife

But this was a far different experience. A shipload of perfect strangers, many of them not indifferent, like himself, to changing scene and environment, but unwilling exiles, leaving all they held dear, and murmuring secretly, if not openly, against Fate, presented no cheering features. The weather was cold and stormy; while, in crossing the Bay of Biscay, such a wild outcry of wind and wave greeted them, that with battened-down hatches, a deeply laden vessel, frightened passengers and overworked stewards, he had every facility afforded him for speculation as to whether his Antarctic enterprise would not be prematurely accounted for by a telegram in the Times, headed "Another shipwreck. All hands supposed to be lost."

This, and other discouraging thoughts, passed through the mind of the voyager during the forty-eight hours of supreme discomfort, not unmingled with danger, while the gale ceased not to menace the labouring vessel. However, being what is called "a good sailor," and his present frame of mind rendering him resigned, if not defiant, he endeared himself to the officers by refraining from useless questions, and awaiting with composure the change which, as they were not fated to go to the bottom on that occasion, took place in due course. How the storm abated, how the weather cleared; how, as the voyage progressed, the passengers became companionable, has often been narrated in similar chronicles.

The mountains of New Zealand were finally sighted, and the good ship Arrawatta steamed into the lovely harbour of Auckland one fine morning, presenting to the eager gaze of the wayfarers the charms of a landscape which in many respects equals, and in others surpasses, the world-famed haven of Sydney.

It was early dawn when they floated through the Rangitoto channel between the island so called – the three-coned peak of which, with scoria-shattered flanks, denoted volcanic origin – and the North Head. Passing this guardian headland, "a most living landscape," the more entrancing from contrast to the endless ocean plain which for so many a day had limited his vision, was spread out before the voyager's eager and delighted gaze. Land and water, hill and dale, bold headlands and undulating verdurous slopes, combined to form a panorama of enchanting variety.

The city of Auckland, which he had come so far to see, rose in a succession of graduated eminences from the waters of a sheltered bay. Bold headlands alternated with winding creeks and estuaries; low volcanic hills clothed with dazzling verdure, ferny glens and copses which reminded him of the last day's "cock" shooting at the Court; while trim villas and even more pretentious mansions gave assurance that here the modern Vikings, having wearied of the stormy seas, had made themselves a settled home and abiding-place. Glen and pine-crested headland, yellow beach and frowning cliff, wharves and warehouses, skiffs and coasters, the smoke of steamers, all told of the adjuncts of the Anglo-Saxon – that absorbing race which has rarely been dislodged from suitable foothold.

On the voyage Massinger had noticed a good-looking man, about his own age, in whom, in spite of studiously plain attire, he recognized, by various slight marks and tokens, the English aristocrat. Most probably the stranger had made similar deductions, as he had commenced their first conversation with an unreserved condemnation of the weather, after a passing depreciation of the food, concluding by a query in the guise of a statement.

"Not been this way before?"

Massinger admitted the fact.

"Going to settle – farm – sheep and all that – take up land, eh!"

"I thought of doing so, unless I change my plans on arrival. I suppose it's as good as any of the Australian colonies?"

"Beastly holes, generally speaking, for a man who's lived in the world. Don't know that New Zealand's worse than the rest of the lot. Australia – all black fellows – kangaroos – sandy wastes – droughts and floods. Burnt up first – flood comes and drowns survivors. So they tell me!"

"But New Zealand is fertile and well watered; all the books say so."

"Books d – d rot – lies, end to end; must go yourself to find out. My third trip."

"Then you like it?" pursued the emigrant, stimulated by this wholesale depreciation of a country which all other accounts represented as the Promised Land.

"Have to like it," answered the other; "billet in this infernal New Zealand Company. Wish I'd broke my leg the day I applied. Heard of it, I suppose?"

Mr. Massinger had indeed heard of it. Had read blue-books, correspondence, letters, articles, and reviews, in which the New Zealand Land Company was alternately represented as a providential agency for saving the finest country in the world for British occupation, for finding homes on smiling farms for the crowded population of Great Britain, for Christianizing the natives as well as instructing them in the arts of peace; or, as a syndicate of greedy monopolists, insidiously working for the accumulation of vast estates, and oppressing a noble and interesting race, whose lands they proposed to confiscate under a miserable pretence of sale and barter.

"I have heard and read a good deal of the proceedings of the New Zealand Land Company; but accounts differ, so that they are perplexing to a stranger."

"Naturally; all interested people – one myself," said his new acquaintance. "But, as we've got so far, permit me?" and extracting a card from a neat porte-monnaie, he handed it to Massinger, who, glancing at it, perceived the name of

Mr. Dudley Slyde,Secretary to the New Zealand Land Company, Auckland and Christchurch

"Happy to make your acquaintance," he said. "I am not sure that I have a card. My name is Massinger."

"What! Massinger of the Court, Herefordshire? Heard generally you had sold your place and gone in for colonizing. What the devil – er – excuse me. Reasons, no doubt; but if I had the luck to be the owner of Massinger Court —born to it, mind you – I'd have seen all the colonies swallowed up by an earthquake before I'd have left England. No! not for all New Zealand, from the 'Three Kings' to Cape Palliser."

"If all Englishmen felt alike in that respect, we shouldn't have had an empire, should we?" suggested the other. "Somebody must take the chances of war and adventure."

"Somebody else it would have been in my case," promptly replied Mr. Slyde. "However, matter of taste. Every man manage his own affairs. Great maxim. And as mine are mixed up in this blessed company, if you'll look me up in Auckland, I'll put you up to a wrinkle or two in the matter of land-purchase – of course you'll want to buy land; otherwise you might get sold – you see? Stock Exchange with a 'boom' on nothing to it."

The transfer of Mr. Massinger's trunks in a four-wheeler to a comfortable-appearing hostelry was effected with no more than average delay. An appetizing breakfast, wherein a well-cooked mutton chop was preceded by a grilled flounder, and flanked by eggs and toast, convinced him that the Briton of the South had no occasion to fear degeneration as a consequence of unsuitable living. After which he felt his spirits distinctly improved in tone, and his desire to explore the surroundings of this distant outpost of the wandering Briton took shape and motion.

The town of Auckland, having a few reasonably good buildings and a large number of cottages, cabins, and other shelters in every gradation, from the incipient terrace to the Maori "whare," was about the average size of English country towns. No great difference in the number of houses. Not much in that of the inhabitants. But there was an unmistakable departure in the air and bearing of these last. The recognized orders and classes of British life, hardly distinguishable from their British types, were all there. Rich and poor, gentle and simple. The farmer, the country gentleman, the tradesman, the lounger, the doctor, the banker, the merchant, the peasant, and the navvy, all were there, with their pursuits and avocations written in large text on form and face, speech and bearing. But he marked, as before stated, a certain departure from the home manner. And it was grave and essential. Whether high or low, each man's features in that heterogeneous crowd were informed, even illumined, with the glow of hope, the light of sanguine expectation.

Once landed on the shores of this magnificent appanage of Britain, so nearly lost to the empire, dull must he be of soul, narrow of vision, who did not feel his heart bound within him and each pulse throb at the thought of the gorgeous possibilities which lay before him. Before the labourer, who received a fourfold wage, and rejoiced in such plenteous provision for his family as he had never dreamed of in the mother-land. Before the farmer, who saw his way to opulence and landed estate, as he surveyed the transplanted food crops growing and burgeoning as in a glorified garden which "drank the rains of heaven at will." Before the professional man, whose high fees and abundant practice would soon absolve him from the necessity of professional toil. Before the capitalist, who saw in the steady rise of land-values, whether in town or country, an illimitable field for judicious investment, ending with an early retirement and at least one fortune.

The town sloped upwards from the sea, thus necessitating steep gradients for the streets. The main street, broad and well laid out, was more level at its inception, though Massinger saw by the hill immediately above it that he would not have to go far before his Alpine experiences would stand him in good stead. This was entirely to his mind; so, stepping out with determination, he reached the summit of Mount Eden. Here he paused, and indeed the pace at which he had breasted the ascent, after the inaction of the voyage, rendered it far from inexpedient to admire the view. What a prospect it was! He stood upon an isthmus with an ocean on either hand. Far as eye could range, the boundless South Pacific lay glowing and shimmering under the midday sun; on the hither side, the harbour with flags of all nations and ships from every sea.

The roadstead by which the Arrawatta had entered, appeared like a land-locked inlet. The outlines of the Greater and Lesser Barrier were plainly visible, as also the lofty ridge of Cape Colville; other islands and headlands loomed faintly in the shadowy horizon. Westward lay the great harbour of Manukau and the Waitakerei Ranges.

Weary with scanning the gulfs of the Hauraki and Waitemata, as also the far-seen ranges of the Upper Thames, holding stores of precious minerals, he allowed his eye to rest upon the fields and farmhouses, villages and meadows, overspreading the levels and sheltered beneath the volcanic hills. Under his feet what marvellous revelations of fertility met his gaze! The volcanic formation was evidenced by the shape of the conical eminences by which he was surrounded. He counted more than a dozen. In all, the extinct craters were perfect in form, though covered on side and base with richest herbage. In these he detected most of the British fodder plants, growing in unusual luxuriance. Observing the flattened summits and remains of graded terraces, he found on inspection that the hand of man had adapted these works of nature to his needs.

Scarped, terraced, and perfect of circumvallation, the remains of mouldering palisades indicated the abodes of a warlike people, who had in long-past days converted these hilltops into fortresses, affording effective means of defence, as well as a wide outlook, in case of invasion.

Here for generations, perhaps centuries uncounted, had this vigorous, agricultural, warlike people – for such by his course of reading he knew the Maori nation to be – lived and died, fought and feasted, garnered their simple harvest, and lived contentedly on the products of land and sea.

Proud and stubborn, brave to recklessness, they naturally became jealous of the gradually extending occupation of their land by the encroaching white race. But why should such a people not be sensitive, even to the madness of battle, against overwhelming odds? They had won their country from the deep, traversing wide wastes of waters in canoes but ill adapted for storm and tempest. They had discovered this fair region – cultivated, peopled it. Why should they not resist a foreign occupation to the death? And as he looked around on the magnificent prospect spread before, around, he could not help recalling the lines of the immortal bard —

"Where's the coward that would not dareTo fight for such a land?"

Returning to his hotel, he chanced to meet several groups of this much-exploited people, and was much impressed by the stalwart frames and bold, independent bearing of the men.

Many of the women, too, were handsome, and among the half-caste girls and young men were forms and faces which would have compared favourably with the finest models of ancient Greece. One young man of that colour attracted his attention. He had been reading on board ship that wonderful romance of Michael Scott's, wherein the spacious times of old, and the planter-life of the West Indian Islands, are limned with such prodigality of colour, such wealth of humorous perception, such power of pathos. As this young man came swinging along with a companion down the street, cigar in mouth, he could not help saying to himself, "There's the young pirate captain out of 'Tom Cringle's Log.'" He was taller even than that fascinating Spanish desperado, but there was a strong family likeness.

"What a man he is!" thought Massinger. "Six feet three or four, if an inch, broad-shouldered, deep-chested – a wondrous combination of strength and activity; supple as a panther, with the muscle of a Farnese Hercules. As to his features, the eyes and teeth are splendid, the complexion a clear bronze, hardly darker than that of Southern Europe."

Altogether he doubted if he had ever seen such a remarkable masculine specimen of personal grace and beauty. "This is truly a remarkable country," he soliloquized. "If the climate and soil can raise men like this, what may not be hoped from the introduction of a purely British race, with all the modern advantages of civilization?"

Thus pondering, he managed to discover his hotel, where he set himself resolutely to sketch out a plan of future operation, before completing which, he deemed it advisable to deliver some of the letters of introduction with which he had been plentifully supplied. One of the more immediate effects of this action was the outflow of an inordinate quantity of advice, from the recipients of which, as a newly arrived Englishman, he was deemed to be in urgent need.

These exhortations were compendious and exhaustive, but failed in effect upon him from their very affluence, so much of the suggestive information being in direct contrast to that which immediately preceded it.

Having admitted that he intended to purchase a large block of land for farm and grazing purposes, it was astonishing how much interest he excited among the mercantile or pastoral magnates to whom he had been accredited.

"Have nothing to do with that infernal New Zealand Company," said one grizzled colonist, "or you'll never cease to regret it. They're all in the same boat with certain British members of Parliament and the local political gang, to rob these poor devils of natives of their tribal lands. Title? They haven't a rag. Some artful devil of a Maori – and they are not behindhand in that line – pretends to sell the lands of his tribe, for a few barrels of gunpowder or cases of Yankee axes – of course signs a bogus deed."

"But isn't he their accredited agent?" queried our hero. "They would be bound by his act."

"Agent be hanged!" quoth the pioneer impetuously. "This allotment belongs to me; have I a right therefore to sell the whole town? Though, between you and me, there are men in business here who would have a try at it, if they could delude one of you innocent new arrivals into taking his word and paying over the cash."

"I trust I'm not quite so innocent," replied Massinger, smiling, "as to make purchases without due inquiry."

"Depends upon whom you inquire from," said his experienced friend. "Advice is cheap, or rather dear enough, when the giver has an axe to grind."

"Then how am I to find out, if no one is to be trusted in this Arcadia of yours?"

"Devilish few that I know of," rejoined the senior. "The Government officials and the Land Commissioners are, perhaps, the safest. They have some character to lose, and are fairly impartial."

"After what you have said, may I venture to ask counsel from you?" – instinctively trusting the open countenance and steady eye of the pioneer.

"Oh! certainly; you needn't take it, of course. Don't be in a hurry to invest; that's my first word. The next, buy from the Government; they have a title – that is, nearly always – and are bound to support you in it."

"But suppose their title is disputed? What will they do?"

"Take forcible possession, which means war. And Maori war – savages, as it's the fashion industry call them – is no joke. And mark my word, if they're not more careful than they have been lately, 'the deil will gae ower Jock Wabster.'" Here the speaker lapsed into his native Doric, showing that though half a century had rolled by since he first anchored in the Bay of Islands, and the Southern tongue had encroached somewhat, he had not forgotten the hills of bonnie Scotland or the expressive vernacular of his youth.

"But surely the tribe, whichever it may happen to be, could not stand against British regulars?"

"So you may think. But I was in the thick of Honi Heke's affair in '45, and I could tell you stories that would surprise you. You must remember that, as a people, the New Zealanders are among the most warlike races upon earth, inured for centuries past to every species of bloodshed and rapine, and bred up in the belief that a man is a warrior or nothing. Fear, they know not the name of. They are wily strategists, as you will observe, when you see their 'pahs,' and the nature of their primeval forests gives them an immense advantage for cover or concealment."

"Then you think there may be another war?" inquired Massinger, with some interest.

"Think! I'm sure of it. Things can't go on as they are. We're in for it sooner or later, and all because the Governor, who means well, lets himself be led by half a dozen politicians, in spite of the advice of the old hands and the friendly chiefs, our allies, who have as much sense and policy as all the ministry put together."

"But will not they always naturally lean to their own countrymen?"

"Far from it – that's the very reason. Most of these chiefs have tribal feuds and hereditary enemies, as bitter and remorseless as ever my Hieland ancestors enjoyed themselves with. Others, like Waka Nene, since they were Christianized by the early missionaries, have cast in their lot with the whites. They fought shoulder to shoulder with us, and will again, even if they disapprove of our policy."

"What an extraordinary people!" said Massinger. "And if war breaks out, as you think likely, what will become of the colonists?"

"They will have to fight for it. Murders and every kind of devilry will result. But we have fought before, and can again, I suppose. These islands are going to be another Britain; and even if there has been some folly and injustice, England always means well, and we are not going to give them up. 'No, sir,' as my American friends say."

"I rather like the prospect," said Massinger. "A good straightforward war is a novelty in these too-peaceful days. If I had any notion of leaving New Zealand, which I have not, this would decide me. Good morning, and many thanks. I will see you again before I decide on anything fresh."

"There's grit in that young yellow," quoth the ex-skipper, as he walked out. "Bar accidents, he's the sort of man to make his mark in a new country."

The man so referred to walked down the street, deeply pondering.

"I have got into the land of romance," thought he, "without any manner of doubt. What a pull for a fellow in these degenerate days! It raises one's spirits awfully. In addition to such a country for grass and roots as I never dreamt of it, to think of there being every probability of a war! A real war! It reminds one of the 'Last of the Mohicans,' and all the joys of youth. We shall have 'Hawkeye,' 'Uncas,' and 'Chingachgook' turning up before we know where we are. Oh! fortunati nimium– Halloa! what have we here?"

What he saw at that moment was something which had hardly entered into his calculations as a peaceful colonist. But it was strangely in accord with the warning tone of Captain Macdonald's last deliverance. A section of the Ngatiawa tribe, which had visited Auckland on the matter of a petition to the Governor concerning the violation of a reserve, the same being tapu under ceremonies of a particularly awful and sacred nature, were indulging themselves with a war-dance by way of dissipating the tedium necessitated by official delay. A crowd of the townspeople had collected at the corner of Shortland Street, while the tattooed braves were with the utmost gravity going through the evolutions of their horrific performance. Chiefly unclothed, they stamped and roared, grimaced and threatened, as in actual preparation for conflict. Musket in hand, they leaped and yelled like demoniacs; their countenances distorted, the eyes turned inward, their tongues protruded as with wolfish longing. Each man was possessed by a fiend, as it seemed to Massinger, who gazed upon the actors with intense interest. The performance, hardly new to the majority of the spectators, failed to impress one of them with due respect. He remarked upon the pattern tattooed on the thigh of a huge native in front of him to a comrade, ending with a rude jest in the Maori tongue. It was a mauvaise plaisanterie in good sooth. Turning like a wild bull upon the astonished offender, and furious at the insult offered to his moko– sacred as the totem of an Indian chief – the Ngatiawa dashed the butt-end of his musket against his breast, sending him on to his back with such violence that he had to be assisted to rise, stunned and bewildered. The Maoris wheeled like one man, and formed in line, while the leader shouted Kapai! as they marched through the crowd to their camp, chanting a refrain which no doubt might have been freely rendered, "Wha daur meddle wi' me?"

This incident impressed our Englishman more than weeks of description could have done, with the peculiar characteristics of the strange race among whom he had elected to dwell. Pride and sensitiveness, to the point of frenzy, were evidently among the attributes which had to be considered at risk of personal damage.

He was, however, surprised at the cool way in which the crowd had taken their comrade's discomfiture, and said as much to a respectable-looking man who was walking down the street with him.

"We're not afraid of the beggars," returned the townsman, "as we'll show 'em by-and-by. But it's no good starting before you're ready. That fellow was half-drunk, and it served him right. There's a big tribe at the back of these chaps, and they're in a dangerous humour about that cursed Waitara block. That's why the crowd wouldn't back the white man up. He's only a wharf-loafer, when all's said and done."

This explained the affair in great part. Doubtless a mêlée would have ensued if any hot-blooded individuals in the street had commenced an attack upon the Maoris. An obstinate and by no means bloodless fight must have arisen. Doubtless, in the end, the whites would have conquered. Then the tribe would have murdered outlying settlers, or attacked the town. The military would have been engaged. The war-torch, once applied, might have lighted up a conflagration over the whole island, necessitating an expenditure of blood and treasure which years of peace would have been insufficient to repay. All, too, occasioned by the idiotic folly of a worthless member of society.

Revolving such reflections, which, with other ideas and considerations, effectually excluded the image of Hypatia, Roland Massinger betook himself to his hotel, having discovered, as many a gentleman unfortunate in his love affairs has done before him, that this life of ours holds sensational interests, which, if not sufficing to assuage the pangs of unrequited love, yet act as a potent anodyne.