LEG FOUR
CHAPTER I
Our first stop in New Zealand was at Bluff, a small port nearly a thousand miles eastward across the Tasman Sea from Hobart. Though composed of only a few hundred people, this place, nevertheless, commands the attention of a traveler, as it is one of the most southerly outposts of civilization, there being no white habitation between Bluff and the South Pole. Tons of cheese and butter were here loaded into the ship, brought by rail from Invercargill, eighteen miles inland, the commercial center of a thrifty farming district.
Abel J. Tasman, in 1642, was the first white man to discover New Zealand. He was frightened away by a warlike and fearless race of natives, but mapped out the coast line roughly, and named the country Staaten Island, which Dutch officials altered later to New Zealand. Captain James Cook, in 1769, was the first to land on New Zealand soil, which he did after much dickering with the Maoris; it then became a British possession.
While traveling through Devereux Straits from Bluff to Dunedin, one of the three islands comprising New Zealand—Stewart Island—was to the south. It has an area of 665 square miles, a mild and pleasant climate, and was a favorite assembling place for American whaling ships twenty-five to thirty years ago. A Maori settlement, most of the natives being fishermen and oysterers, form the chief inhabitants. Oban, twenty miles from Bluff, is the principal town. The straits between South and Stewart Islands was red with prawns, and thousands of fowl were feeding off these crustaceans; the birds make their home on the latter island. Later we reached the Heads of Otaga harbor, passed Port Chalmers, and seven miles further the vessel docked at Dunedin, a stronghold of the Scotch.
In 1848, after a voyage of several months in sailing vessels, two ship loads of Scotch Presbyterians from Scotland sailed up Otaga harbor and disembarked at what is now known as Dunedin, where they formed a settlement. Scotch energy was at once put into action—some of the colonists building homes, others turning over the soil of this virgin country, then seeding the land, later harvesting their meager crops—all initial undertakings requiring more patience and persistence than afterward, when better supplied with tools and implements, and more familiar with natural requirements. From this small beginning— followed by periods of anxiety, disappointment and hardship, as settlers, with more courage than money, in most all new countries have endured in battling with the uncertain phases which confronted them—the pluck of these hardy pioneers is represented in Dunedin being the metropolis of southern New Zealand.
Losing time hunting for level land or gently sloping hills on which to establish a city was not the Scotch way of doing things. The hills are so high, steep and rugged where the citizens of this center live that electric power would fail to draw street cars up some of the inclines; hence steps are cut into the rocks, and walks, made of boards, lead up to many of the homes. Like the rocky hills within the municipality, Dunedin is solidly built. Dark graystone figures largely in building, and streets are good and well looked after. An electric street car system is another asset, and the railway station is one of the best government buildings in New Zealand. Numerous church steeples rising about the metropolis attest the well-known religious tendency of this race; an art gallery, museum, libraries, schools, colleges and other factors indicating intellectual advancement, are found here—14,000 miles from Scotland and the gateway to the Antarctic region—a credit to Scotland grit. Among the manufactures are woolen goods and farm machinery. Frozen meat exports from the Island Dominion, as this country is often termed, are large. This great industry had its inception here, the first cargo being shipped in a sailing vessel from this port in 1881. Burns' clubs, bagpipe bands—which thrill a Scot wherever found—and Caledonian societies have flourished here since its settlement. The bands keep things lively, appearing frequently in complete regalia, the pipers holding their own with any in Scotland.
Sixty thousand people live in Dunedin, these being mainly Scotch. Some of the early colonists came from Dundee and others from Edinburgh, Scotland. While settlers from the former were bent on naming their new home Dundee, those from the latter wanted the place called Edinburgh. A compromise was finally reached by their taking the first syllable of Dundee (Dun) and the first and second syllables of Edinburgh (Edin), calling the place Dun-edin.
Ho! An American flag was flying from the mast of an old three-masted schooner in Otaga harbor. Though I had traveled nearly 22,000 miles since leaving New York and had been at the main ports of three continents, this was the only occasion the Stars and Stripes was observed flying from a vessel.