‘Good-night all,’ shouted Jo.
Hin and I sat on two sacks of potatoes. For the life of us we could not stop laughing. Strings of onions and half-hams dangled from the ceiling—wherever we looked there were advertisements for ‘Camp Coffee’ and tinned meats. We pointed at them, tried to read them aloud—overcome with laughter and hiccoughs. The kid in the counter stared at us. She threw off her blanket and scrambled to the floor, where she stood in her grey flannel night-gown, rubbing one leg against the other. We paid no attention to her.
‘Wot are you laughing at?’ she said, uneasily.
‘You!’ shouted Hin, ‘the red tribe of you, my child.’
She flew into a rage and beat herself with her hands. ‘I won’t be laughed at, you curs—you.’ He swooped down upon the child and swung her on to the counter.
‘Go to sleep, Miss Smarty—or make a drawing—here’s a pencil—you can use Mumma’s account book.’
Through the rain we heard Jo creak over the boarding of the next room—the sound of a door being opened—then shut to.
‘It’s the loneliness,’ whispered Hin.
‘One hundred and twenty-five different ways—alas! my poor brother!’
The kid tore out a page and flung it at me.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘Now I done it ter spite Mumma for shutting me up ’ere with you two. I done the one she told me I never ought to. I done the one she told me she’d shoot me if I did. Don’t care! Don’t care!’
The kid had drawn the picture of the woman shooting at a man with a rook rifle and then digging a hole to bury him in.
She jumped off the counter and squirmed about on the floor biting her nails.
Hin and I sat till dawn with the drawing beside us. The rain ceased, the little kid fell asleep, breathing loudly. We got up, stole out of the whare, down into the paddock. White clouds floated over a pink sky—a chill wind blew; the air smelled of wet grass. Just as we swung into the saddle Jo came out of the whare—he motioned to us to ride on.
‘I’ll pick you up later,’ he shouted.
A bend in the road, and the whole place disappeared.
(1912)
Katherine Mansfield, from The Notebooks
A woman never ever knows when the curtain has fallen.
—O.W. [Oscar Wilde]
Urewera—Kaingaroa Plains.
On the journey the sea was most beautiful—a silver point etching and a pale sun breaking through pearl clouds. There is something inexpressibly charming to me in railway travelling. I lean out of the window—the breeze blows, buffeting and friendly against my face, and the child spirit, hidden away under a thousand and one grey City wrappings, bursts its bonds & exults within me. I watch the long succession of brown paddocks, beautiful with here a thick spreading of buttercups, there a white sweetness of arum lilies. And there are valleys lit with the swaying light of broom blossom; in the distance grey whares—two eyes & a mouth with a bright petticoat frill of a garden creeping round them. On a white road once a procession of patient cattle wended their way, funereal wise—and behind them a boy rode on a brown horse—something in the poise of his figure, in the strong sunburnt colour of his naked legs reminded me of Walt Whitman. Everywhere on the hills great masses of charred logs—looking for all the world like strange fantastic beasts, a yawning crocodile, a headless horse, a gigantic gosling, a watchdog—to be smiled at and scorned in the daylight, but a veritable nightmare in the darkness. And now & again the silver tree trunks, like a skeleton army, invade the hills.
At Kaitoki the train stopped for ‘morning lunch’—the inevitable tea of the New Zealander. The F.T. [Fellow Traveller] and I paced the platform, peered into the long wooden saloon where a great counter was piled with ham sandwiches & cups & saucers, soda cake and great billys of milk. We did not want to eat & walked to the end of the platform & looked into the valley. Below us lay a shivering mass of white native blossom, a little tree touched with scarlet, a clump of toi-toi waving in the wind & looking for all the world like a family of little girls drying their hair. Late in the afternoon we stopped at Jakesville. How we play inside the house while Life sits on the front door step & Death mounts guard at the back.
After brief snatches of terribly unrefreshing sleep I woke and found the grey dawn slipping into the tent. I was hot & tired and full of discomfort—the frightful buzzing of mosquitos, the slow breathing of the others seemed to weigh upon my brain for a moment and then I found that the air was alive with birds’ song. From far and near they called & cried to each other. I got up & slipped through the little tent opening on to the wet grass. All around me the willow still full of gloomy shades, the caravan in the glade a ghost of itself—but across the clouded grey sky the vivid streak of rose colour blazoned in the day. The grass was full of clover bloom. I caught up my dressing gown with both hands & ran down to the river, and the water flowed on, musically laughing, & the green willows—suddenly stirred by the breath of the dawning day—swung softly together. Then I forgot the tent and was happy ………………………………………………………… So we crept again through that frightful wire fence—which every time seemed to grow tighter & tighter, and walked along the white soft road. On one side the sky was filled with the sunset—vivid, clear yellow and bronze green & that incredible cloud shade of thick mauve. Round us in the darkness the horses were moving softly with a most eerie sound. Visions of long dead Maoris, of forgotten battles and vanished feuds stirred in me—till I ran through the dark glade on to a bare hill—the track was very narrow & steep. And at the summit a little Maori whare was painted black against the wide sky. Before it two cabbage trees stretched out phantom fingers, and a dog, watching me coming up the hill, barked madly. Then I saw the first star—very sweet & faint—in the yellow sky, and then another & another like little holes—like pinholes. And all round me in the gathering gloom the wood hens called to each other with monotonous persistence—they seemed to be lost and suffering. I neared the whare and a little Maori girl and three boys sprang from nowhere & waved & beckoned. At the door a beautiful old Maori woman sat cuddling a cat. She wore a white handkerchief around her black hair and [a] vivid green & black cheque rug wrapped round her body. Under the rug I caught a glimpse of a very full blue print dress, with native fashion, the skirt over the bodice.
[…]
Here, too, I meet Prodgers—it is splendid to see once again real English people. I am so tired & sick of the third rate article. Give me the Maori and the tourist but nothing between. Also this place proved utterly disappointing after Umuroa which was fascinating in the extreme. The Maoris here know some English and some Maori—not like the other natives. Also these people dress in almost English clothes compared with the natives [t]here, and they wear a great deal of ornament in Umuroa & strange hair fashions. I found nothing of interest here.
[…]
So we journey from their whare to Waiotapu. A grey day & I drive—long dust-thick road & then before us is Tarawera with the great white cleft. The poverty of the country, but the gorgeous blue mountain—all round us in a great stretch of burnt manuka.
We lunch and begin to decide whether to go to the Wharepuni—the men folk go but eventually come back and say that the walk was too long, also the heat of the day, but there is a great pah 1½ miles away. Then we go. The first view—a man on the side of the road, in a white shirt and brown pants waits for us. Opposite is a thick bark [?] Maori fence—in the distance across the paddock several whares clustered together like snails upon the green patch. And across the paddock a number of little boys come straggling along from the age of twelve to three—out at elbow, bare footed, indescribably dirty, but some of them almost beautiful, none of them very strong. There is one great fellow, Isaiah [?], who speaks English. Black curls clustering round his broad brow, rest almost langour in his black eyes, a slouching walk & yet there slumbers in his face passion might and strength.
[…]
After dinner they are happy & tired�
��the man comes from the hotel—yes, there are rapids to be seen, and a good track. They are not very far—she is gloomy & fidgety—they start, go through the gates, always there is a thundering sound from afar off. Down the sandy path & then branch off into a little pine avenue—the ground is red brown with needles. Great boulders come in their path, the manuka has grown over the path. With heads bent, hands out, they battle through. Then suddenly a clearing of burnt manuka and they [illeg.] cry aloud—There is the river. Savage, grey, fierce, rushing, tumbling, thrashing [?]—sucking the life from the still, placid flow of water behind—like waves of the sea, like fierce wolves. The noise is thunder & right before them the lonely mountain outlined against a vivid orange sky. The colour is so intense that it is reflected in their faces, in their hair. The very rock on which they climb is hot with the colour. They climb higher, the sunset changes, becomes mauve, & in the waning light all the stretch of burnt manuka is like a thin mauve mist around them. A bird, large & widely [?] silent, flies from the river right into the flowering sky. There is no other sound except the voice of the passionate river. They climb on to a great black rock & sit huddled up there alone—fiercely almost brutally thinking—like Wagner.
(1907)
George Phipps Williams and W.P. [William Pember] Reeves, ‘An Old Chum on New Zealand Scenery’
I believe it is acknowledged, as a fact, on every hand,
That our own adopted country is a most enchanting land;
And its friends maintain with raptures, which they find it hard to curb,
That its climate’s quite unequalled, and its scenery superb.
But the ordinary settler cannot easily express
His ideas on the subject of this wondrous loveliness;
And suppose you ask for details of the beauties that he sees,
I’m afraid that his description may not altogether please—
I have lived among the ranges, on a rough back-country run;
Seen the weather’s frequent changes, feed all scorched by summer sun,
Floods in all the snowy rivers, floods in all the rainy creeks,
I have seen the snow in winter wrap the country up for weeks:
I am used to hot Nor’-westers, I am used to wet ones, too,
And the cold Sou’-wester knows me; it has often soaked me through;
I have forded all the rivers, swum them when I knew I must,
After many wet encounters I regard them with distrust;
I have mustered all the country, driven sheep on ev’ry track,
Watched the dogs in ev’ry gully hold them fast or head them back;
I know all the lowest saddles, ev’ry terrace, ev’ry pass,
And the carrying capacity of all the native grass;
I am just a simple squatter, mortgaged to the hilt, I own,
And I boast an honest title to the scenery alone.
I am surfeited with mountains, terrace, gully, spur, and hill,
I have gorged myself with gorges, and of creeks I’ve had my fill—
So if knowledge of the subject could avail the tale to tell,
I should paint in glowing language all the scenes I know so well.
But the language ’tis that floors me, how can anyone expect
That my old Colonial phrases should with flowers of speech be decked?
If you bid me of the features most remarkable to speak,
I should say a spur, a gully, then a swamp, and then a creek;
And again a little distance further on there would recur
First a swamp, and then a gully, then a creek, and then a spur.
I have no imagination, and I cannot well describe
More than what I see before me; I am not a sporting scribe
Nor a leading politician, nor a blatant auctioneer,
And the terms I use are such as poets would not love to hear.
What they call a brook or brooklet, or a streamlet, or a rill,
I do only, I confess it, call a creek, and always will.
Then there’s what we call a gully, which of course we take to mean
Just a small and narrow valley, in which bush is sometimes seen;
You perchance, were you a new chum, might describe this as a dell,
Bush gully suits me better, serves my purpose just as well:
Bush, too, means the native forest; you will never, I’m afraid,
Hear a self-respecting bushman call a bush a leafy glade,
Nor a copse nor shady bower; ev’ry kind of native shrub
Growing rank in wild profusion, he denominates as scrub;
I admit the name’s not pretty, but it’s hard to recognise
Objects that are so familiar under any other guise;
You must take things as you find them; if you like to buy the run,
You can give to all the country ev’ry name under the sun;
Call things what your fancy pleases, no one else will interfere;
Only think how much more graceful all the landscape will appear.
No more pigroots, whalebacks, hogbacks—these are names that shall not last;
Stony Creek, Starvation Gully, shall be relics of the past;
Negro-heads shall be rechristened. I for one will take no heed,
While to me there yet remaineth Negro-head, the fragrant weed.
Name the scrub from ‘Hooker’s Flora’, but to reckon do not try
All such lovely lucid names as Haastii or Hectori;
Also, don’t use Maori names whose syllables are more than four;
Words like Waimakariri are enough to break your jaw.
Thus in future nought shall ever jar on your artistic sense,
Though your pounds shall turn to shillings and your shillings turn to pence,
Though invading rabbits spoil you, and consume you as they grow,
Though in lambing your percentage be ridiculously low,—
You’ll have had the satisfaction, and no doubt it will be dear,
Of imparting a description of poetical veneer
To the scenes of which the former appellations sounded queer
In the quaint vocabulary of the hardy pioneer.
(1889)
Jessie Mackay, ‘Poet and Farmer’
The diamond dews begem the wings of morn;
The sable tui’s liquid notes are trilling;
The myriad voices of the day awake;—
(Susan, I guess that hog is fit for killing!)
The broad-leaf bends above the murmurous creek,
With silver ripples shining and receding;
The marshy star unfolds its golden eye:—
(That bed of onions wants a power of weeding!)
Now mounts my soul on wings of light conceit
To glacial heights where snowy billows harden!
I scorn the plain and all its sordid care;—
(Hi, there, you brute;—the calf is in the garden!)
Yet stay. Who lingers in these silvan shades,
More blest is he than Emperor or Kaiser:
Hark, infant prattle floats upon the breeze;—
(The imps are cutting gorse with my new razor!)
The incense of the dewy clover mead
Invites the happy roaming bee to suck it;
The queenly rose is throned in verdant bower;—
(Well, I must milk. Say, Susan, where’s the bucket?)
(1891)
Politics
Kate Sheppard, ‘Ten Reasons Why the Women of New Zealand Should Vote’
1. Because a democratic government like that of New Zealand already admits the great principle that every adult person, not convicted of crime, nor suspected of lunacy, has an inherent right to a voice in the construction of laws which all must obey.
2. Because it has not yet been proved that the intelligence of women is only equal to that of children, nor that their social status is on a par with that of lunatics or convicts.
3. Because women are affected by the prosperity of the
Colony, are concerned in the preservation of its liberty and free institutions, and suffer equally with men from all national errors and mistakes.
4. Because women are less accessible than men to most of the debasing influences now brought to bear upon elections, and by doubling the number of electors to be dealt with, women would make bribery and corruption less effective, as well as more difficult.
5. Because in the quietude of home women are less liable than men to be swayed by mere party feeling, and are inclined to attach great value to uprightness and rectitude of life in a candidate.
6. Because the presence of women at the polling-booth would have a refining and purifying effect.
7. Because the votes of women would add weight and power to the more settled and responsible communities.
8. Because women are endowed with a more constant solicitude for the welfare of the rising generations, thus giving them a more far-reaching concern for something beyond the present moment.
9. Because the admitted physical weakness of women disposes them to exercise more habitual caution, and to feel a deeper interest in the constant preservation of peace, law, and order, and especially in the supremacy of right over might.
10. Because women naturally view each question from a somewhat different standpoint to men, so that whilst their interests, aims, and objects would be very generally the same, they would often see what men had overlooked, and thus add a new security against any partial or one-sided legislation.
(1888)
Arthur H. Adams, ‘The New Woman’
The stone that all the sullen centuries,
With sluggish hands and massive fingers rude,
Against the sepulchre of womanhood
Has sternly held, she has thrust back with ease,
And stands, superbly arrogant, the keys
Of knowledge in her hand, won by a mood
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 19