Part 14 (1/2)
CHAPTER XVII.
The Maori Dog.--A Romantic Island.--Sinking of a Maori Fort.--Volcanic Destruction.--A Country of Boiling Springs.--Idleness.--A Lazy Race of Savages.--Native Religion.--A Fitful Geyser.--Sophia, the Famous Guide.--A Funeral Dance.--The ”Haka” Performance.--Maori Improvidence.--Rubbing Noses.--Native Babies.--Church-Going and Card-Playing.--The King's Country.--Eloquent Aborigines.--A Sanitarium.--Sulphur Point.--Future of New Zealand.
The funeral wailings of the natives during the day were not sufficient to fill the measure of uncanny noise; so at night--those wonderfully bright moonlight nights!--the dogs seemed to feel it inc.u.mbent upon them to take up the refrain, and they howled frightfully by the hour together. The Maori dog is quite different from any other specimen of the canine race; he is a mongrel of decidedly conglomerate character,--the most remarkable fact about these creatures being that no two of them are at all alike, or seemingly of the same breed. Why the Maoris keep these dogs we cannot conceive; they certainly have no food to spare for them, and the poor creatures look nearly starved with their thin bodies and protruding ribs. At Ohinemutu every cabin had at least one dog, and frequently three or four of these animals were seen lying before the entrance. They rushed out and barked fiercely at the pa.s.sing stranger, but there the hostile demonstration ended. Dogs are not more numerous, in proportion to the population, in Cairo or Constantinople, nor more neglected, than here. We suggested to one of the half-castes that it would be possible to utilize these animals for food, but he shook his head knowingly and said, ”No, no; him got no meat on him bones.” Their pigs run wild, and feed themselves on fern-roots and sweet weeds; but their dogs, not being herbivorous, fare hardly for food.
Unable to sleep on account of these canine disturbers of the night, we rose long before daylight on the third day of our visit to Ohinemutu, and awaking a couple of natives, took a row-boat over to the island of Mokoia, which is situated about four miles from the mainland, toward the centre of Lake Rotorua. This island is itself a sleeping volcano, lying now placidly enough upon the bosom of the waters, but originally thrown up from the bottom of the lake in some past century. Though the natives evidently thought us crazy to abandon a comfortable bed at such an hour, we only gave them the necessary direction and sat down quietly in the stern of the boat. It was just sunrise as a landing was effected on the island, when a sight was enjoyed which had not been antic.i.p.ated. As the monarch of day showed his face above the volcanic hills, the effect was superb. Mokoia is a well-wooded island, and on the side farthest from Ohinemutu there is some level fertile land occupied by natives; indeed, there is here quite a Maori village. It was once a favorite missionary station, but as such was long ago abandoned. It is a sort of second edition of the villages lying about the Lake House on the mainland. When the missionaries were here they planted fruit-trees, which are still thriving and annually productive of pears, apples, peaches, and the like. One of the boatmen spoke English after the Maori fas.h.i.+on, and wanted to relate the love-story of the island, the Hinemoa legend; but we knew it already. We did listen, however, to the story of the blood-thirsty chief Hongi, who came hither when Mokoia was the stronghold of a prosperous tribe, and putting them to the sword, killed one half and more in a terrible hand-to-hand fight; after which he and his followers feasted on their bodies for weeks. We got back to the Lake House by mid-day.
The faulty and incomplete traditions of the natives concerning the last eruption previous to that of about a twelvemonth ago which occurred in the Hot Lake District, are entirely unsatisfactory; but the late terrible one which destroyed the beautiful pink and white terraces at Tarawera by one sudden throe of Nature, and by which nearly two thousand square miles of territory were sensibly affected, we know all about. The destructive demonstration lasted only six hours, but during that time the amount of lava, volcanic bombs, stones, and fiery substances thrown out by the burning mountain is beyond calculation. This volcanic outburst seemed to us just what might be expected at Ohinemutu at any moment. What signifies it that matters have remained in their present condition for perhaps a thousand years? The liability to an outburst is none the less on that account. Such is the history of all eruptions: centuries elapse of comparative quiet and seeming immunity from serious danger,--and then comes a great and awful explosion! Confined steam, boiling water, and burning sulphur must somewhere and somehow find vent at the surface. The seething and subdued roaring which never ceases are a constant warning to this effect. And yet here both Europeans and natives live on, and give the possible contingency never a thought.
Within pistol-shot of where these notes were originally made, there was before our eyes a half sunken point jutting out into Lake Rotorua which has ”gradually subsided”--ominous words--so that but a small portion remains in view. In former times a _pah_, or fort, stood upon this point, the fate of which is briefly told. One stormy night a hoa.r.s.e rumbling noise was heard, of more than usual significance, followed by a shrill sound of hissing steam. The trembling earth opened on the border of the lake, and the pah with all its people sank instantly into the raging fires below. No native can be induced to put foot upon what is left of this peninsula at the present day. The place is _tapu_. The visitor explores it alone, while his guide remains at a wholesome distance. Plenty of boiling springs, sulphurous vapor-holes, and seething mud-pools were found distributed over the place where the Maori pah and its people were engulfed.
Although by the late eruption, so far as is known, only one hundred and six persons--natives and Europeans--were destroyed, it included a whole Maori village which was instantly blotted out of existence, as was the pah on the peninsula jutting into the lake. The particulars of the late awful visitation, unequalled in the history of New Zealand, were sad and harrowing to listen to. There were instances where persons, still alive, were dug from the ashes and debris miles away from the crater, after being either buried, or partially so, for one and two days, though none of them survived more than a few hours after exhumation. We were told of an aged Maori whose cabin was miles distant from the burning mountain, who was exhumed after twenty-four hours' burial. He was over one hundred years of age, and survived three days after being recovered.
As to those far-famed and beautiful natural curiosities the Terraces, so completely is the configuration of the country changed for many miles in all directions, that it is quite impossible to discover their former site. An area covering nearly thirty square miles is now but one sad picture of desolation, strewn with ashes and lava, to look upon which was both depressing and awe-inspiring. One bowlder was pointed out to us which must weigh at least a hundred tons, that was thrown a quarter of a mile from the mouth of the crater.
The country over which the boiling springs and geysers occur is about a hundred and twenty miles long by seventeen or twenty wide, their activity varying somewhat at different localities. The fiery region extends beneath the sea after reaching the coast at the Bay of Plenty, being doubtless connected with several remote islands of the Pacific Ocean,--the immediate vicinity of Ohinemutu being apparently the centre of thermal development. It is only necessary in many places to make a hole a few feet deep by thrusting one's walking-stick into the ground, to bring forth a vigorous demonstration of the hissing steam. On first rising from sleep in the morning and looking out upon the remarkable scene, the low-lying dense clouds of vapor all about the hamlet give one the idea that the activity of the underground forces is greater in the night than during the day; but this is probably not the case. Except occasionally, when owing to some great unknown disturbing cause an unusual explosion takes place, the result varies but little at the surface from one year's end to another.
Is idleness infectious? One dallies with time in the midst of these strange phenomena, wandering among the native huts and their lazy, bronzed inhabitants, studying their gypsy life in all its phases.
Everything is not quite agreeable, but all is quaint, novel, and interesting. We were shown some of the native carving which was executed a hundred years ago, mostly in the form of war-clubs and idols. There were images representing strange human beings of both s.e.xes; but they were always grotesque, and often disgusting. There was not even an approach to excellence or a spirit of art observable in any of them. A certain consistency is discovered in the manners and customs of this people who live so nearly after the style and laws which governed their ancestors, and which have been carefully preserved for hundreds of years. Superst.i.tion is born in a Maori. He is a professed Christian,--that is, in most cases,--and accepts the Bible; but he is apt to give it his own interpretation: yet for that matter how many white religionists there are who do the same! These children of Nature follow their ancestral traditions modified by Christian influences. The original religion of the natives, if we can give it that name, consisted in a dim belief of a future state, quite undefined even in their own minds. It was largely a sort of ancestor wors.h.i.+p, according to the missionaries, with a vague idea of some Being higher and better than anything human or finite. The sorcery which was universally practised among them filled up a certain measure of religious conviction and observance; nor is this by any means disused among them to-day. Many of the tribes can read and write, and educational facilities are freely offered to the rising generation by the English Government.
Whakarewarewa--we can write but not p.r.o.nounce the name--forms another active volcano point, and is situated about four miles from the Lake House. For three days, whenever the eyes wandered in that direction, we had seen the hamlet, which occupies a side-hill, steaming away vigorously, and sometimes got a glimpse of the boiling water spouted high in air. The road thither lies over a perfectly level way in the midst of a plain which was doubtless overflowed by the lake in former times, and which is still so much under water as to be nearly navigable for a small boat. Here we found another tribe of Maoris surrounded by geysers, boiling pits, hot, spluttering, and unwholesome-looking mud-pools, with steam-holes innumerable. What a region of perpetual ferment it is! How busy must be the fiery agencies constantly operating in Nature's subterranean laboratory! Soon after entering the hamlet we pa.s.sed a clear, blue boiling-pool of great depth, which is improved by the whole community for cooking purposes. In the sides of this out-of-doors stone and earthen cavity indentures had been made, where iron pots and wicker screens could be placed for boiling vegetables and other food.
The action of the largest geyser here was fitful and irregular, subsiding for a few seconds now and then, and again bursting forth with renewed power, throwing a column of boiling water thirty feet into the air with startling effect. We were told that this geyser when in operation often sent up such a column to the height of sixty feet. Much wandering over the earth's surface and knowledge of terrestrial affairs has taught us not to accept unchallenged the statements of even such worthy guides as our veracious Sophia. The fact as confirmed to us by ocular demonstration was quite startling enough, and exaggeration was certainly needless. This erratic geyser emerges from a large opening eight or ten feet in diameter worn through the split rock, and is of unknown depth,--a successful attempt to sound it being impossible, as the spray would envelop the operator and scald him to death.
The water from this geyser overflows a series of bowlders running down into a broad sulphurous basin, in which are many more boiling springs and yawning chasms, with here and there overheated flat stones upon which the natives bake their food. The bowlders and slabs over which the chemicalized waters flow, receive a yellowish deposit of sparkling silica, mixed with crystals of sulphur and gleaming sparks of black manganese, which all together form beautiful colors when the sun's rays break through the clouds of mist and play upon them. We were shown among the rocks a natural stone basin capable of holding thirty or forty gallons of water, into and through which the boiling waters could be conducted at will; and here, according to Sophia, her forefathers used to boil the heads of their prisoners into a palatable soup!
The action of the subterranean forces is more demonstrative here than at Ohinemutu, and the immediate sulphurous effect upon the atmosphere is much more dense. The matter thrown up from the depths consists of crystals of alum, soda, sulphur, a.r.s.enic, iron, and other chemicals, which form cones about the several chasms. After pa.s.sing in and out among these geysers, boiling rivulets, hot springs, and steam clouds, one is glad to reach an elevation where the atmosphere is comparatively clear and pure, and where a long breath may be drawn with a degree of comfort. Standing upon an elevation overlooking the whole strange scene, the air filled with heated spray, steam, and sulphurous gases, forming all together a dense vapor which clouded the sunlight, it was impossible not to recall the picture of Dante's Inferno.
Our cicerone here, as the reader has already been partially informed, was the famous Sophia, a Maori woman who has acted in this capacity for many years, and who, as she herself deposed, was the mother of fifteen children, twelve of whom were still living. Her tattooed face is well wrinkled by the hand of time, though her activity in climbing the different points of interest is marvellous. She speaks English well, is gentle in voice and remarkable for her good manners, taking great care that those whom she conducts through these novel scenes shall see and understand every object of interest. On the green borders of all this volcanic confusion, as we were leaving Whakarewarewa, a fragrant little bouquet of the wild blossoms of the manuka were gathered and offered to us by a Maori girl, who felt so much overpaid by the s.h.i.+lling tendered her in return as to hesitate to receive it.
On returning to Ohinemutu we found extensive preparations going on in the Maori hamlet for a grand dance as a sort of winding-up ceremony to the four days of wailing and feasting over the death of the chief, of whom the reader has already heard. It was curious to see into what a state of excitement the natives could work themselves by means of dance and song. It recalled the infatuation and frenzy of the whirling Dervishes of Cairo. Alcohol could not more thoroughly excite them or stimulate their brains. In these exercises the women far exceeded the men in their extravagance of behavior,--jumping wildly up and down, thrusting out their arms and legs with perfect abandon and apparent unconsciousness, distorting their bodies and features, and twisting themselves generally into most impossible shapes. A dull, monotonous drum-beat was the only musical accompaniment, which was produced from a hollow log, both ends of which were covered with sheep-skin. The perfect concert of action among the dancers was marvellous, the more so because no consecutive purpose could be divined. The most weird and picturesque scene we can recall as witnessed in the Lake District was the performance of one of these dances by moonlight; but it must be acknowledged that the exhibition was more striking than decorous.
Belonging to this tribe, and indeed to all that are visited by the whites, there is always a bevy of dancing-girls with a world of pa.s.sion in their bold, luminous eyes, and a reckless disregard of all delicacy in their behavior, ever ready to perform before strangers for money.
Some of these girls have very long, perfectly straight hair and a Jewish cast of features quite in contrast to the typical Maori faces. The indifference of parents to the conduct of their daughters is remarkable even for savages. One great objection to the _haka_, or native dance, is the beer-drinking which invariably accompanies it. The beer is brought from the hotel in an open bucket holding several gallons, and mugs being furnished, the performers partake freely, until by the time the dance draws to a close they are not in a condition to care much for the proprieties.
When one of these Maoris meets another after a long separation, the first thing is the mutual rubbing of noses, after which each of the parties begins to mourn and weep; but when they say good-by at parting, for however long a term, boisterous laughter is indulged in,--for it is a principle with them to speed the parting guest with feast, song, and hilarity. As the dead lies prepared for burial, the nearest relative first, and the closest friend after, rubs noses with the corpse. The natives here are in receipt of a considerable amount of money from the rents of lands, from pensions granted by the Government, and from acting in the capacity of guides, or as boatmen on the lake, and for performing other odd jobs for the whites. But they have no idea of economy or of saving anything for a time of need. The money which they receive goes as fast as it comes into their possession, and mostly for liquor and tobacco. When the money is gone, they will half starve themselves until a fresh supply comes in. After one of their continued wakes, at which food is so recklessly wasted, and all their spare cash expended in drinking and in other excesses, there follows a period of fasting, during which they live upon roots, berries, and stray bits of food picked up here and there. Such is their improvidence, that there are often times when they would absolutely starve were it not for the aid given gratuitously by the whites.