Chapter VIII · COACHING THROUGH THE NORTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND; ITS HOT LAKES AND GEYSERS. (continued 2)

The Tarawera, like all the Company's ships, is beautifully fitted with inlaid panels, stained glass skylights, and plush cushions. The social hall is a gallery with seats running round the saloon, containing an organ and piano at either end; but the cabins and saloon are aft, and the proximity of the screw terrible. The Union Steamship Company have a monopoly of the New Zealand ports, and own a large fleet of fair-sized steamers, all called by Maori names. We were coasting along the North Island during the night.

By ten o'clock the next morning we were alongside the wharf at Wellington, and drove to rooms at the "Empire Hotel," previously engaged for us. The outside was dingy and uninviting, and the inside not less so, though the people were most civil and anxious to please.

Mr. Tolhurst, the manager of the Bank of New Zealand, immediately called for us, and proposed taking us to the Cathedral Church for morning service, and afterwards to his house for luncheon.

Sunday is a particularly unfortunate day to arrive anywhere in the colonies, as it is a blank day as regards domestic service; our luggage, too, which had come from Auckland in the Southern Cross, was not obtainable. Sir William Drummond Jervois, the Governor, came and called during the afternoon, and very kindly insisted upon our removing the following day to Government House.

Monday, October 6th.—We were greeted by a typical Wellington day; a blowing and blustering wind raising clouds of dust in the streets. Wellington lies on a strip of land between the hills, which rise immediately behind the town, and the sea. For some reason it seems to be a funnel or trap-hole for the wind to blow through on all sides, and they say you can always "tell a Wellington man anywhere, by the way in which he clutches at his hat round the street corners." All the buildings and houses are of wood, on account of the frequent shocks of earthquake which visited Wellington at one time. Old inhabitants declare that they remember the time when the earthquakes were of weekly occurrence; and in the earlier days of the settlement they thought seriously of removing it elsewhere. The town has a busy, prosperous look in the principal street, called Lambton Quay, except on Saturday afternoon, when Wellington has a curiously deserted appearance, and every one goes out into the country.

Standing a little above the town are the cluster of Government buildings. The Government offices form the largest wooden building in the world, with the exception of the Sublime Porte at Stamboul. The Houses of Parliament are a Gothic structure, and Government House, with the garden, lies between. This is a large, comfortable house, surmounted by a wooden tower and flagstaff; and when inside it is almost impossible to believe that the large, lofty rooms, broad corridors, ball-room, and handsome staircase, belong to a wooden tenement.

We drove up there in the course of the afternoon, and Lady Jervois and Miss Jervois received us most kindly. We were introduced to the staff, who consisted of Mr. Pennefather, the private secretary, and Major Eccles, the aide-de-camp.

After dinner the governor went to a meeting for founding a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. C. went with him, and made a short speech, being on the council of the Society in London.

Later, we all went to a masonic ball; the grandmaster of the lodge and other masons, in their full insignia, receiving the Governor at the entrance, when we formed into procession to enter the ball-room, under the arch of intertwined masonic wands. C. met the past deputy-grandmaster, who had been entertained at the lodge of which he was master the year before last in London—so small is the world.

Tuesday, October 7th.—A tremendous storm and peal of thunder woke me at 6 a.m. Rain, storm, and wind seem to be more excessive in their quantities in New Zealand than in England.

We went to see Dr. Buller's very perfect collection of Maori curiosities, at his house on the Terrace; it is one of the finest extant. Portraits of Maori chiefs are hung round the room; there were feather mantles and native mats, the orange-painted staff of a chieftain, fringed with the white hair of the native dog, the sharp instrument used for tatooing, and some very beautiful greenstone meri meris. This meri is formed of a piece of greenstone about a foot long, and fined down and broadened out to a flat, thin edge. The merit meri is used by the chiefs to split open the skull of a rebellious subject.

At Mr. Köhn's we found another collection of Maori South Sea curiosities. He is a German, and possesses within the recesses of his back premises on Lambton Quay some very wonderful South Sea curios, brought to him by German men-of-war. He has already sold one collection for 500l., and has sent some curiosities home to the museum at Berlin, against the authorities of which he has a righteous grievance, in that they were never even acknowledged! We saw battle-axes with red and yellow handles, spears, bows, and arrows barbed with poison from decomposed bodies, strings of white and black beads for money, war masks formed of skulls, made hideous with splashes of paint, and held inside the mouth by an iron bar, shells, and cocoa-nut matting, with fringes of the same worn round the waist, and considered "full dress" by the ladies of the South Sea Islands. But the most interesting thing of all was a rough coffin, covered with a strip of parchment, containing the burnt figure of a South Sea Islander. The skull had the most peculiar pointed formation, and was exactly an inch in thickness at the back of the head. The body had been stuffed and burnt, till the skin was black and hard as brick. On the face there was a ghastly grin. Another day we went to see the Museum, which Dr. Hector has been mainly instrumental in starting. The total absence of mammalia forms a remarkable feature of New Zealand, the only indigenous animals found being a bat and a small rat. There is a fine collection of native birds. Amongst them the kea, or green field parrot. This bird was formerly a vegetarian, but it now kills and eats sheep. Sitting on the back of the animal, it picks with his long beak till it pierces and reaches the kidney fat, which it eats, thus killing the sheep.

The members of both Houses of Parliament are at Wellington, the session being in progress. The flutter of excitement consequent on three changes of ministry during the last month is just subsiding. C. met and has had much conversation with Mr. Stout, the present premier, Sir Julius Vogel, the late premier, and present colonial treasurer, Sir George Grey, and all the other ministers and prominent political men of New Zealand. One day he was present at an interview between the Governor and the two Maori representatives in the House, who sought his advice as to whether they should go to England, and endeavour to obtain the Queen's assent to the abolition of the native court, and the principle of dealing with the native laws. His Excellency showed them in the clearest way that the Maoris of New Zealand had more than equal rights of making and altering laws, appointing and deposing governments, by their parliamentary representatives, and that the Home Government left the administration of New Zealand entirely in the hands of the inhabitants, including the Maoris, on equal terms.

Wellington does not possess so good a newspaper as some of the other places. Each town and province in New Zealand has its own local paper. This is necessitated by the distance, want of centralization, and means of communication; for instance, it takes seven days by steamer from Auckland to Wellington. These papers are all pretty much alike from Auckland to Invercargill. They have the same cablegrams and English news, and the same parliamentary and general intelligence; they only differ in local paragraphs. We thought the best daily papers were the New Zealand Herald of Auckland and the Lyttleton Times of Christchurch; and the best weekly paper the Canterbury Times, which is like our Queen and Field compiled into one.

Thursday, October 9th.—There was a ball at Government House in the evening, preceded by a large parliamentary dinner. About 300 invitations had been issued, and the guests were asked from 8.30 to 12 o'clock. Long before the hour named carriages were driving up, but this was accounted for by the scarcity of flys, each having to do duty for many families that night. The married women dance as vigorously as the girls, and it must be a pleasure giving a dance where all seem to enjoy it so thoroughly.

Monday, October 13th.—We said good-bye to the Governor and Lady Jervois, and left Government House with much regret, after a very pleasant visit of a week. The Hon. Robert Stout, Premier, the Hon. E. Richardson, Minister of Public Works, Mr. Ross, Mr. Wakefield, and other members of the House of Representatives were waiting on the wharf to wish us good-bye, and see us on board the Waihora.

Anchor was weighed at 3 p.m., and we steamed out of the deep, natural harbour, in which Wellington lies, through the narrow channel at its entrance into Cook's Strait. We were soon driven below by the cold wind, and passed a wretched night, sleepless and very ill, with groans from C. in the berth above, and sighs from me in the one below. We rose and dressed wearily the next morning, and waited about in the "social-hall," with cold blasts coming down through the open skylights, till the train at Lyttleton was ready, when we walked across to the station. Snow had fallen during the night, and the hills were plentifully besprinkled with white, and it was the wind blowing off them which had brought us such bitter cold. Lyttleton is the port for Christchurch, and half an hour in the train, passing through a long tunnel, brought us thither.