XVI A HOMELIKE TOWN
Napier, Hawke's Bay, is apparently totally different from any other town that I have seen in Australasia. It has a character entirely its own, which indeed is not an unfamiliar feature of New Zealand towns, many of which still bear the impress of their pious founders. A fine breakwater and a good pier within its shelter awaits the steamer, which lies cosily alongside, although it was obvious from the magnitude of the mooring chains and girth of the rope springs by which the ship was secured, that there were occasionally some lively times here under certain conditions of wind and weather. But the feature which was most impressive was a precipitous cliff, which, only about fifty yards from the shore end of the pier, rose a sheer 300 feet into the air, as if defying all further ingress to the country. A good road wound around the base of this cliff—as good a road, indeed, as any we can boast of at home—and I noticed presently that a low, concrete sea-wall had begun to skirt it. Then the side-walk of asphalt was planted at intervals of about six or seven yards with the beautiful Norfolk Island pine, a species of araucaria, but not nearly so grotesque as the "monkey puzzle" tree. As we walked on the cliff to shoreward sloped downward, and gave pretty views of houses perched here and there amid embowering foliage, until presently we turned a corner, and lo! I was in Tunbridge Wells, at the corner of the Pantiles looking towards the Pump Room. The illusion was almost perfect, in spite of the many wooden houses which alternate with the stucco-fronted ones here, as elsewhere in New Zealand. And then another peculiarity obtruded itself, the naming of the streets, which has been done upon an original plan, the main thoroughfares being called after celebrated Indian generals and administrators, to keep company with Lord Napier, Hastings, Clive, &c., while the streets which run at right angles to them commemorate great poets and authors—Tennyson, Browning, Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens, &c. And splendid streets they are, as far as the roadways and footpaths are concerned, the buildings being all of the usual character in the other towns which I have mentioned. The town wears an air of solid prosperity, but is quite sedate and satisfied in its appearance, as if bustle and growth were neither looked for or, indeed, much desired. Of course it does grow, but very slowly, and I for one think of it as of other Antipodean towns, that if hurried growth means, as it too usually does, a large accession of the submerged tenth, then it is much better that it should hasten as slowly as it is doing.
But to my mind the chief glory of Napier is its frontage on the magnificent bay. From the landing-place an asphalted esplanade, fronted by the low sea-wall before mentioned, runs for over two miles in an almost perfectly straight line. Over the wall the foreshore of shingle slopes gently down to near the sea, where it is carpeted with fine sand, making it an ideal watering-place. There are houses of varying character, but none at all pretentious, on the shore side of this esplanade for nearly its whole length, facing the open Pacific and fully exposed to the winds from the east, which bring in at times an enormous swell from the widest ocean of all, there being nothing in the nature of obstructing land between it and the west coast of South America. But of course the tremendous prevalent westerly gales which assail the west coast of New Zealand so furiously are not felt here, this being the sheltered side of the islands. Still, I could imagine that an amazing spectacle of assailing seas must be sometimes witnessed from the windows of those houses, and that the broad, smooth esplanade must at times be anything but a pleasant place for a promenade.
As I before noticed about Gisborne, Napier is built upon a level plain bounded by the ranges, so that whichever direction the eye travels along the straight, wide roads it meets with either the sea or the hills, an impression always being given of restricted area, of living on a ledge, as it were, beyond which exit could only be gained by climbing high hills or going out to sea. But it must be remembered, first, that the area is far less restricted than it seems, there being land enough for all the expansion there appears likely to be for many years to come, and next, that although New Zealand is undoubtedly a hilly country, it is only in the interior that the hills attain any great magnitude, and that, as I have before noted, those hills are of great value in the pasturage of sheep. As in Gisborne, one may look in vain for any evidence of hustle, of determination to go ahead. A Sabbath calm even at noon of every day seems to pervade all the streets. Nobody is in a hurry, nobody seems to consider that haste in anything is necessary or desirable. And they are doubtless right; but it is curious that men who have lived in this calm atmosphere for thirty or forty years should be anxious to impress the visitor with what they have grown to believe is the fact—that the city is growing very fast. With all my admiration for New Zealand and her institutions, I must say that as far as growth is concerned she appears to me almost at a standstill, especially when compared with provincial towns at home which might be named by the score. I should not have mentioned this but that every one with whom I converse seems to be under the same curious misapprehension, based I suppose upon the fact that they have lived here so long, or have only travelled to similar or even smaller places that they know every brick and plank in the place, and watch the erection of each new edifice, however tiny, with an almost parental solicitude.
The railway runs from here to Wellington, but except for places en route is but little patronised, owing to the fact that in the splendid steamers which call here and are replete with every modern comfort the traveller may leave Napier late in the afternoon and be alongside the wharf at Wellington early in the morning—a method of travel which in a country where the inhabitants are as peripatetic as they are here, is of course immensely favoured. But as yet the harbour is not sufficiently commodious or safe to invite ocean-going liners, and considering the enormous expense which the making of an harbour in an unprotected roadstead (for Napier is nothing more) entails upon a very small population, I doubt very much whether the present generation or even the next will see one completed. It is to me a really marvellous thing how these tiny communities do shoulder burdens of this kind though, and an almost tragical interest attaches to the way in which such a painful mass of expenditure is sometimes wasted entirely.
But I must bid farewell to pleasant, sunny Napier. It was Midwinter Day when I was there—the 21st of June—and the summits of the loftier ranges were lightly powdered with snow, but the air was mild and balmy, the sky cloudless, and the shade temperature at 9 a.m. 52°—a delightful day, which I was earnestly assured was not at all exceptional, but rather the rule, in this sweet and equable land. I am extremely glad to have made Napier's acquaintance, but I feel that, in spite of its being in the most progressive land on earth, it is, like other places which I have visited lately, a spot where men take life easily, where nothing is strenuous except football and horse-racing—two sports which out here seem to constitute the chief business of life for the majority of the male population, speculation coming next, commerce next, and production last of all. If this judgment sound too severe, I have only to say that I have no prejudices at all, I merely record my impressions with an entirely unbiassed mind.
We left Napier in the afternoon of this lovely day, skirting the coast at thirteen knots, to be reduced later on so as not to arrive in Wellington before daylight. We steam closely along the land, which everywhere presents the same rugged, irregular appearance of wooded ranges of hills, some of which indeed are high enough to be dignified by the name of mountains, these latter being now capped with snow. But I am not again likely to make the mistake of supposing that these rugged lands have no value, since I have learned their possibilities in sheep and timber, for both of which products New Zealand justly stands in the very front rank as regards quality. Nevertheless, I cannot help noticing that on this long stretch of coast between Napier and Wellington, there are only two tiny hamlets, there are scarcely any roads, nothing that could by any stretch of courtesy be called a harbour, and only a few little streams pouring their tribute into the Pacific Ocean. It is here, if anywhere, that the visitor realises the sparsity of the population, and by contrast the amount of energy that must be concentrated somewhere in order to have made New Zealand the much-discussed country that she is. It is worthy of note that with great wisdom the Government of New Zealand have established a tourist department under the charge of a Cabinet Minister, the Postmaster-General, Sir Joseph Ward.[3] Under him, as general manager or agent, is Mr. Donne, who is given control of a very large sum for advertising purposes, in order to bring to the notice of the pleasure-seekers of the world generally the wonderful possibilities for sport and pleasure that New Zealand presents. Owing to wise precautions taken in stocking the country with game and fish, which have been, and are, most carefully protected, New Zealand is a thorough sportsman's paradise, red deer and fallow deer abounding, and trout of extraordinary size swarming in the lakes and rivers. There must be something amazingly congenial in the climate of this little wonderland to British game, whether fish, fur, or fowl. For the trout especially, which having been brought here from home or from Canada, in the form of ova, are now often caught up to a weight of 20 lbs., while other game is equally hearty and plentiful. The Government issues licences to shoot and fish at a very cheap rate, and the restrictions are only against indiscriminate slaughter or wanton destruction of any kind.
Then the natural beauties of the country—its fjords like those of Norway, its Alps like those of Switzerland, its geysers and hot springs like those of Yellowstone Park—are extremely fascinating, while an additional charm is lent by the fact that all these wonders are easy of access, are at no great distance from each other, and that the charges are everywhere extremely moderate and the accommodation is exceptionally good. As indeed it must be, for the hand of the Government is extended over all in paternal care, and ill would it fare with any hotelier's prospects who should by rapacity or neglect of his guests do anything to hinder their efforts to make New Zealand a popular pleasure-ground. Then perhaps the greatest charm of all is the delightful climate. Even in midwinter, except in the extreme south, it can hardly be called cold, while in summer the climate is as nearly perfection as it can possibly be. The Union Steamship Company have also established a good service of steamers to the delightful South Sea Islands, with all their manifold charm, and Tonga, Fiji, or Samoa can be reached in a few days from Auckland through shining, slumberous seas and velvet nights, until, upon those Lethean shores, the peace of perfect rest descends to the wearied man or woman almost crushed out of existence by the mill-wheels of civilisation. Owing to the wise and fostering care of the Government of New Zealand of its oversea communications, it has, in spite of its Antipodean distance from the Old World; of its being, as it were, the very last outpost of civilisation on the confines of the globe, a splendid choice of routes thither, and by one of these routes, the dearest but certainly the most interesting, Auckland may be reached in well under a month from London. That is the route viâ New York, San Francisco, and Honolulu. For those who prefer to take the Australian Continent on their way and touch the East also en route, there are the Orient-Royal Mail, P. & O., and other lines according to choice, but at practically the same rates, while to others who have plenty of time and no objection to a long sea journey, there is offered an economical route in magnificent ocean steamers of the largest size either direct by New Zealand Shipping Company or Shaw Savill and Albion Line, or viâ Australia by half a dozen lines running thither round the Cape. In the former case the journey is made in about six weeks—a sumptuous rest cure for those who are good sailors; in the latter of course another week must be added in order to reach New Zealand from either Melbourne or Sydney.