Makes islands of the two Americas,
She’ll hold the bleak old headland for her own,
And round its pitch she’ll fade away and die.—
John Anderson, in Nautical Magazine.
The “Mayflowers” of New Zealand.
THE Mayflower is a name which every school-child in the United States is taught to reverence. In this part of Colonial Clippers I shall deal with the Mayflowers of New Zealand—the beautiful sailing ships which brought the settlers from the Old Country to the wonderful New Country.
The memory of these ships and their swift passages round the Cape and through the roaring forties is still green in the hearts of many a man and woman who travelled out to an unknown land with a stout heart and nothing much else, and is now a prosperous and happy member of a great nation. Only lately there was a reunion of all those who had travelled out in one of these ships, that the anniversary of their great adventure might be suitably kept. The name of this ship has already been mentioned in these pages. The Chariot of Fame; a name of comfort and good omen it must have been to those who heard the whistle and scream of the mighty westerlies in her rigging on many a dark and sobbing night when the heart of the exile is low and the spirit of the brave pioneer begins to quiver.
Truly running down the easting in a little 1000-ton clipper with a hard driving skipper and big fisted, stony-hearted mates was a fine bracer for the emigrant, who had perhaps never seen salt water up to the date of sailing and who was bound to a country which could only be wooed and won by a clear brain, stout heart and strong arm.
At first the ships in the New Zealand trade were not even 1000 tons in burthen, being mainly little 400 and 500-ton ships and barques, which mostly flew the flag of Shaw, Savill & Co.