In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER VIII ON THE ROAD TO AUCKLAND

ON the 7th of Febru­ary, at six o’clock in the morn­ing, the sig­nal for de­par­ture was giv­en by Gle­nar­van. Dur­ing the night the rain had ceased. The sky was veiled with light gray clouds, which mod­er­at­ed the heat of the sun, and al­lowed the trav­el­ers to ven­ture on a jour­ney by day.

Pa­ganel had mea­sured on the map a dis­tance of eighty miles be­tween Point Kawhia and Auck­land; it was an eight days’ jour­ney if they made ten miles a day. But in­stead of fol­low­ing the wind­ings of the coast, he thought it bet­ter to make for a point thir­ty miles off, at the con­flu­ence of the Waika­to and the Waipa, at the vil­lage of Ngar­navahia. The “over­land track” pass­es that point, and is rather a path than a road, prac­ti­ca­ble for the ve­hi­cles which go al­most across the is­land, from Napi­er, in Hawke’s Bay, to Auck­land. From this vil­lage it would be easy to reach Drury, and there they could rest in an ex­cel­lent ho­tel, high­ly rec­om­mend­ed by Dr. Hochstet­ter.

The trav­el­ers, each car­ry­ing a share of the pro­vi­sions, com­menced to fol­low the shore of Aotea Bay. From pru­den­tial mo­tives they did not al­low them­selves to strag­gle, and by in­stinct they kept a look-​out over the un­du­lat­ing plains to the east­ward, ready with their load­ed car­bines. Pa­ganel, map in hand, took a pro­fes­sion­al plea­sure in ver­ify­ing the min­utest de­tails.

The coun­try looked like an im­mense prairie which fad­ed in­to dis­tance, and promised an easy walk. But the trav­el­ers were un­de­ceived when they came to the edge of this ver­dant plain. The grass gave way to a low scrub of small bush­es bear­ing lit­tle white flow­ers, mixed with those in­nu­mer­able tall ferns with which the lands of New Zealand abound. They had to cut a path across the plain, through these woody stems, and this was a mat­ter of some dif­fi­cul­ty, but at eight o’clock in the evening the first slopes of the Hakar­ihoa­ta Ranges were turned, and the par­ty camped im­me­di­ate­ly. Af­ter a four­teen miles’ march, they might well think of rest­ing.

Nei­ther wag­on or tent be­ing avail­able, they sought re­pose be­neath some mag­nif­icent Nor­folk Is­land pines. They had plen­ty of rugs which make good beds. Gle­nar­van took ev­ery pos­si­ble pre­cau­tion for the night. His com­pan­ions and he, well armed, were to watch in turns, two and two, till day­break. No fires were light­ed. Bar­ri­ers of fire are a po­tent preser­va­tion from wild beasts, but New Zealand has nei­ther tiger, nor li­on, nor bear, nor any wild an­imal, but the Maori ad­equate­ly fills their place, and a fire would on­ly have served to at­tract this two-​foot­ed jaguar.

The night passed pleas­ant­ly with the ex­cep­tion of the at­tack of the sand-​flies, called by the na­tives, “nga­mu,” and the vis­it of the au­da­cious fam­ily of rats, who ex­er­cised their teeth on the pro­vi­sions.

Next day, on the 8th of Febru­ary, Pa­ganel rose more san­guine, and al­most rec­on­ciled to the coun­try. The Maories, whom he par­tic­ular­ly dread­ed, had not yet ap­peared, and these fe­ro­cious can­ni­bals had not mo­lest­ed him even in his dreams. “I be­gin to think that our lit­tle jour­ney will end fa­vor­ably. This evening we shall reach the con­flu­ence of the Waipa and Waika­to, and af­ter that there is not much chance of meet­ing na­tives on the way to Auck­land.”

“How far is it now,” said Gle­nar­van, “to the con­flu­ence of the Waipa and Waika­to?”

“Fif­teen miles; just about what we did yes­ter­day.”

“But we shall be ter­ri­bly de­layed if this in­ter­minable scrub con­tin­ues to ob­struct our path.”

“No,” said Pa­ganel, “we shall fol­low the banks of the Waipa, and then we shall have no ob­sta­cle, but on the con­trary, a very easy road.”

“Well, then,” said Gle­nar­van, see­ing the ladies ready, “let us make a start.”

Dur­ing the ear­ly part of the day, the thick brush­wood se­ri­ous­ly im­ped­ed their progress. Nei­ther wag­on nor hors­es could have passed where trav­el­ers passed, so that their Aus­tralian ve­hi­cle was but slight­ly re­gret­ted. Un­til prac­ti­ca­ble wag­on roads are cut through these forests of scrub, New Zealand will on­ly be ac­ces­si­ble to foot pas­sen­gers. The ferns, whose name is le­gion, con­cur with the Maories in keep­ing strangers off the lands.

The lit­tle par­ty over­came many ob­sta­cles in cross­ing the plains in which the Hakar­ihoa­ta Ranges rise. But be­fore noon they reached the banks of the Waipa, and fol­lowed the north­ward course of the riv­er.

The Ma­jor and Robert, with­out leav­ing their com­pan­ions, shot some snipe and par­tridge un­der the low shrubs of the plain. Ol­bi­nett, to save time, plucked the birds as he went along.

Pa­ganel was less ab­sorbed by the culi­nary im­por­tance of the game than by the de­sire of ob­tain­ing some bird pe­cu­liar to New Zealand. His cu­rios­ity as a nat­ural­ist over­came his hunger as a trav­el­er. He called to mind the pe­cu­liar­ities of the “tui” of the na­tives, some­times called the mock­ing-​bird from its in­ces­sant chuck­le, and some­times “the par­son,” in al­lu­sion to the white cra­vat it wears over its black, cas­sock-​like plumage.

“The tui,” said Pa­ganel to the Ma­jor, “grows so fat dur­ing the Win­ter that it makes him ill, and pre­vents him from fly­ing. Then he tears his breast with his beak, to re­lieve him­self of his fat, and so be­comes lighter. Does not that seem to you sin­gu­lar, Mc­Nabbs?”

“So sin­gu­lar that I don’t be­lieve a word of it,” replied the Ma­jor.

Pa­ganel, to his great re­gret, could not find a sin­gle spec­imen, or he might have shown the in­cred­ulous Ma­jor the bloody scars on the breast. But he was more for­tu­nate with a strange an­imal which, hunt­ed by men, cats and dogs, has fled to­ward the un­oc­cu­pied coun­try, and is fast dis­ap­pear­ing from the fau­na of New Zealand. Robert, search­ing like a fer­ret, came up­on a nest made of in­ter­wo­ven roots, and in it a pair of birds des­ti­tute of wings and tail, with four toes, a long snipe-​like beak, and a cov­er­ing of white feath­ers over the whole body, sin­gu­lar crea­tures, which seemed to con­nect the oviparous tribes with the mam-​mifers.

It was the New Zealand “ki­wi,” the _Apteryx aus­tralis_ of nat­ural­ists, which lives with equal sat­is­fac­tion on lar­vae, in­sects, worms or seeds. This bird is pe­cu­liar to the coun­try. It has been in­tro­duced in­to very few of the zo­olog­ical col­lec­tions of Eu­rope. Its grace­less shape and com­ical mo­tions have al­ways at­tract­ed the no­tice of trav­el­ers, and dur­ing the great ex­plo­ration of the As­tro­labe and the Zelee, Du­mont d’Urville was prin­ci­pal­ly charged by the Acade­my of Sci­ences to bring back a spec­imen of these sin­gu­lar birds. But in spite of re­wards of­fered to the na­tives, he could not ob­tain a sin­gle spec­imen.

Pa­ganel, who was elat­ed at such a piece of luck, tied the two birds to­geth­er, and car­ried them along with the in­ten­tion of pre­sent­ing them to the Jardin des Plantes, in Paris. “Pre­sent­ed by M. Jacques Pa­ganel.” He men­tal­ly saw the flat­ter­ing in­scrip­tion on the hand­somest cage in the gar­dens. San­guine ge­og­ra­pher!

The par­ty pur­sued their way with­out fa­tigue along the banks of the Waipa. The coun­try was quite de­sert­ed; not a trace of na­tives, nor any track that could be­tray the ex­is­tence of man. The stream was fringed with tall bush­es, or glid­ed along slop­ing banks, so that noth­ing ob­struct­ed the view of the low range of hills which closed the east­ern end of the val­ley. With their grotesque shapes, and their out­lines lost in a de­cep­tive haze, they brought to mind gi­ant an­imals, wor­thy of an­te­dilu­vian times. They might have been a herd of enor­mous whales, sud­den­ly turned to stone. These dis­rupt­ed mass­es pro­claimed their es­sen­tial­ly vol­canic char­ac­ter. New Zealand is, in fact, a for­ma­tion of re­cent plu­ton­ic ori­gin. Its emer­gence from the sea is con­stant­ly in­creas­ing. Some points are known to have risen six feet in twen­ty years. Fire still runs across its cen­ter, shakes it, con­vuls­es it, and finds an out­let in many places by the mouths of gey­sers and the craters of vol­ca­noes.

At four in the af­ter­noon, nine miles had been eas­ily ac­com­plished. Ac­cord­ing to the map which Pa­ganel con­stant­ly re­ferred to, the con­flu­ence of the Waipa and Waika­to ought to be reached about five miles fur­ther on, and there the night halt could be made. Two or three days would then suf­fice for the fifty miles which lay be­tween them and the cap­ital; and if Gle­nar­van hap­pened to fall in with the mail coach that plies be­tween Hawkes’ Bay and Auck­land twice a month, eight hours would be suf­fi­cient.

“There­fore,” said Gle­nar­van, “we shall be obliged to camp dur­ing the night once more.”

“Yes,” said Pa­ganel, “but I hope for the last time.”

“I am very glad to think so, for it is very try­ing for La­dy He­le­na and Mary Grant.”

“And they nev­er ut­ter a mur­mur,” added John Man­gles. “But I think I heard you men­tion a vil­lage at the con­flu­ence of these rivers.”

“Yes,” said the ge­og­ra­pher, “here it is, marked on John­ston’s map. It is Ngar­navahia, two miles be­low the junc­tion.”

“Well, could we not stay there for the night? La­dy He­le­na and Miss Grant would not grudge two miles more to find a ho­tel even of a hum­ble char­ac­ter.”

“A ho­tel!” cried Pa­ganel, “a ho­tel in a Maori vil­lage! you would not find an inn, not a tav­ern! This vil­lage will be a mere clus­ter of huts, and so far from seek­ing rest there, my ad­vice is that you give it a wide berth.”

“Your old fears, Pa­ganel!” re­tort­ed Gle­nar­van.

“My dear Lord, where Maories are con­cerned, dis­trust is safer than con­fi­dence. I do not know on what terms they are with the En­glish, whether the in­sur­rec­tion is sup­pressed or suc­cess­ful, or whether in­deed the war may not be go­ing on with full vig­or. Mod­esty apart, peo­ple like us would be a prize, and I must say, I would rather forego a taste of Maori hos­pi­tal­ity. I think it cer­tain­ly more pru­dent to avoid this vil­lage of Ngar­navahia, to skirt it at a dis­tance, so as to avoid all en­coun­ters with the na­tives. When we reach Drury it will be an­oth­er thing, and there our brave ladies will be able to re­cruit their strength at their leisure.”

This ad­vice pre­vailed. La­dy He­le­na pre­ferred to pass an­oth­er night in the open air, and not to ex­pose her com­pan­ions to dan­ger. Nei­ther Mary Grant or she wished to halt, and they con­tin­ued their march along the riv­er.

Two hours lat­er, the first shades of evening be­gan to fall. The sun, be­fore dis­ap­pear­ing be­low the west­ern hori­zon, dart­ed some bright rays through an open­ing in the clouds. The dis­tant east­ern sum­mits were em­pur­pled with the part­ing glo­ries of the day. It was like a fly­ing salute ad­dressed to the way-​worn trav­el­ers.

Gle­nar­van and his friends has­tened their steps, they knew how short the twi­light is in this high lat­itude, and how quick­ly the night fol­lows it. They were very anx­ious to reach the con­flu­ence of the two rivers be­fore the dark­ness over­took them. But a thick fog rose from the ground, and made it very dif­fi­cult to see the way.

For­tu­nate­ly hear­ing stood them in the stead of sight; short­ly a near­er sound of wa­ter in­di­cat­ed that the con­flu­ence was at hand. At eight o’clock the lit­tle troop ar­rived at the point where the Waipa los­es it­self in the Waika­to, with a moan­ing sound of meet­ing waves.

“There is the Waika­to!” cried Pa­ganel, “and the road to Auck­land is along its right bank.”

“We shall see that to-​mor­row,” said the Ma­jor, “Let us camp here. It seems to me that that dark shad­ow is that of a lit­tle clump of trees grown ex­press­ly to shel­ter us. Let us have sup­per and then get some sleep.”

“Sup­per by all means,” said Pa­ganel, “but no fire; noth­ing but bis­cuit and dried meat. We have reached this spot incog­ni­to, let us try and get away in the same man­ner. By good luck, the fog is in our fa­vor.”

The clump of trees was reached and all con­curred in the wish of the ge­og­ra­pher. The cold sup­per was eat­en with­out a sound, and present­ly a pro­found sleep over­came the trav­el­ers, who were tol­er­ably fa­tigued with their fif­teen miles’ march.