Nature did not furnish New Zealand much better with fresh-water fish than with quadrupeds: her allowance of both was curiously scanty. A worthless little bull-trout was the most common fish, and that white men found uneatable, though the Maoris made of it a staple article of diet. Large eels, indeed, are found in both lakes and rivers, and where they live in clear, clean, running water, are good food enough; but the excellent whitebait and smelts which go up the tidal rivers can scarcely be termed dwellers in fresh water; and for the rest, the fresh waters used to yield nothing but small crayfish. Here our acclimatisers had a fair field before them, and their efforts to stock it have been on the whole successful, though the success has been chequered. For fifty years they have striven to introduce the salmon, taking much care and thought, and spending many thousands of pounds on repeated experiments; but the salmon will not thrive in the southern rivers. The young, when hatched out and turned adrift, make their way down to the sea, but never return themselves. Many legends are current of their misadventures in salt water. They are said, for instance, to be pursued and devoured by the big barracouta, so well known to deep-sea fishermen in the southern ocean. But every explanation of the disappearance of the young salmon still lacks proof. The fact is undoubted, but its cause may be classed with certain other fishy mysteries of our coast. Why, for instance, does that delectable creature the frost-fish cast itself up on our beaches in the coldest weather, committing suicide for the pleasure of our gourmets? Why does that cream-coloured playfellow of our coasters, Pelorus Jack, dart out to frolic round the bows of steamships as they run through the French Pass?
AT THE HEAD OF LAKE WAKATIPU
But if our acclimatisers have failed with salmon, fortune has been kind to their efforts with trout. Forty years ago there was no such fish in the islands. Now from north to south the rivers and lakes are well stocked, while certain waters may be said with literal truth to swarm with them. Here, they are the brown trout so well known to anglers at home; there, they are the rainbow kind, equally good for sport. At present the chief local peculiarity of both breeds seems to be the size to which they frequently attain. They are large enough in the rivers; and in many lakes they show a size and weight which could throw into the shade old English stories of giant pike. Fish of from fifteen to twenty-five pounds in weight are frequently captured by anglers. Above the higher of these figures, catches with the rod are rare. Indeed, the giant trout of the southern lakes will not look at a fly. Perhaps the best sport in lakes anywhere is to be had with the minnow. Trolling from steam-launches is a favourite amusement at Roto-rua. It seems generally agreed that in the rivers trout tend to decrease in size as they increase in numbers. The size, however, still remains large enough to make an English angler’s mouth water. So it has come about that the fame of New Zealand fishing has gone abroad into many lands, and that men come with rod and line from far and near to try our waters. Fishing in these is not always child’s play. Most of the streams are swift and chilling; the wader wants boots of the stoutest, and, in default of guidance, must trust to his own wits to protect him among rapids, sharp rocks, and deep swirling pools. He may, of course, obtain sport in spots where everything is made easy for the visitor, as in the waters near Roto-rua. Or he may cast a fly in the willow-bordered, shingly rivers of Canterbury, among fields and hedgerows as orderly and comfortable-looking as anything in the south of England. But much of the best fishing in the islands is rougher and more solitary work, and, big as the baskets to be obtained are, the sport requires enthusiasm as well as skill. Moreover, rules have to be observed. Licences are cheap enough, but the acclimatisation societies are wisely despotic, and regulate many things, from the methods of catching to the privilege of sale. In the main, the satisfactory results speak for themselves, though of course a certain amount of poaching and illegal catching goes on. In certain mountain lakes, by the way, one rule—that against spearing—has to be relaxed; otherwise the huge trout would prey upon their small brethren to such an extent as to stop all increase. So occasionally an exciting night’s sport may be enjoyed from a boat in one or other of the Alpine lakes. The boatmen prepare a huge torch of sacking or sugar-bags wound round a pole and saturated with tar or kerosene. Then the boat is rowed gently into six or eight feet of water, and the flaring torch held steadily over the surface. Soon the big trout come swarming to the light, diving under the boat, knocking against the bow, and leaping and splashing. The spearman standing erect makes thrust after thrust, now transfixing his prey, now missing his aim, or it may be, before the night’s work is done, losing his footing and falling headlong into the lake, amid a roar of laughter from boat and shore.
NORTH FIORD, LAKE TE-ANAU
The merest sketch of sports and amusements in New Zealand demands more space for the horse than I can afford to give. My countrymen are not, as is sometimes supposed, a nation of riders, any more than they are a nation of marksmen; but the proportion of men who can shoot and ride is far greater among them than in older countries. The horse is still a means of locomotion and a necessity of life everywhere outside the towns, while even among townsmen a respectable minority of riders can be found. How far the rapid increase of motors and cycles of all kinds is likely to displace the horse is a matter for speculation. At present, perhaps, the machine is more likely to interfere with the carriage-horse than the saddle-horse. Nor will I hazard an opinion as to the place that might be held by New Zealanders in a competition between riding nations. Australians, I fancy, consider their stockmen and steeplechase-riders superior to anything of the kind in our islands. And in a certain kind of riding—that through open bush after cattle, amongst standing and fallen timber—I can scarcely imagine any horsemen in the world surpassing the best Australian stock-riders. On the other hand, in a hilly country, and on wet, slippery ground, New Zealanders and New Zealand horses show cat-like qualities, which would puzzle Australians, whose experience has been gathered chiefly on dry plains and easy downs. Comparisons apart, the Dominion certainly rears clever riders and good horses. A meet of New Zealand harriers would not be despised even by Leicestershire fox-hunters. To begin with, the hare of the Antipodes, like so many other European animals there, has gained in size and strength, and therefore in pace. The horses, if rather lighter than English, have plenty of speed and staying-power, and their owners are a hard-riding lot. Gorse fences, though not, perhaps, so formidable as they look at first sight, afford stiff jumping. And if a spice of danger be desired, the riders who put their horses at them may always speculate upon the chances of encountering hidden wire. The legend that New Zealand horses jump wire almost as a matter of course has only a foundation of fact; some of them do, many of them do not. Nor are the somewhat wild stories of meets where unkempt horses with flowing manes and tails and coats never touched by brush or curry-comb, are bestridden by riders as untidy, to be taken for gospel now. Very few of those who follow the harriers in New Zealand at all resemble dog-fanciers bestriding mustangs. True, they do not dress in the faultless fashion of those English masters of fox-hounds whose portraits flame on the walls of the Royal Academy. Some at least of them do their own grooming. Yet, speaking generally, the impression left is neat and workmanlike, and is none the worse for a certain simplicity and even a touch of roughness. The meets are pleasant gatherings, all the more so because they are neither overcrowded, nor are there too many of them. Much the same may be said of the polo matches, where good riding and good ponies are to be seen. Twenty years ago trained ponies could be bought in the islands for £25 apiece. Now they, in common with all horseflesh, are a good deal more costly. However, sport in New Zealand, though more expensive than of yore, is still comparatively cheap, and that, and the absence of crowds, are among its chief attractions.
As in other countries, there are tens of thousands of men and women who never ride a horse, but who find in horse-racing—or in attending race-meetings—an absorbing amusement. The number of race-meetings held in both islands is very great. Flat-racing, hurdle-racing, steeplechasing, and trotting,—all these can assemble their votaries in thousands. Sportsmen and others think little of traversing hundreds of miles of land or sea to attend one of the larger meetings. Ladies muster at these almost as strongly as men. As for the smaller meetings up-country, they, of course, are social gatherings of the easiest and most cheerful sort. In bygone years they not seldom degenerated towards evening into uproarious affairs. Nowadays, however, race-meetings, small and large, are marked by a sobriety which, to a former generation, might have seemed wasteful and depressing. To a stranger the chief features of the races appear to be their number, the size of the stakes, the average quality of the horses, and the working of the totalisator. This last, a betting machine, is in use wherever the law will allow it, and is a source of profit both to the Government and the racing clubs. The Government taxes its receipts, and the clubs retain ten per cent of them; hence the handsome stakes offered by the jockey club committees. The sum that passes through these machines in the course of the year is enormous, and represents, in the opinion of many, a national weakness and evil. In defence of the totalisator it is argued that the individual wagers which it registers are small, and that it has almost put an end to a more ruinous and disastrous form of betting, that with bookmakers. It is certainly a popular institution with an odd flavour of democracy about it, for it has levelled down betting and at the same time extended it. Indeed, it almost seems to exhaust the gambling element in New Zealand life; for, as compared with other nations, my countrymen are not especially addicted to throwing away their money on games of chance.
Passing from what is commonly called sport to athletic games, we tread safer ground. One of these games, football, is quite as popular as horse-racing—indeed, among boys and lads more popular; and whatever may be its future, football has up to the present time been a clean, honest, genuine game, free from professionalism and excessive gambling. The influence of the New Zealand Rugby Union, with its net-work of federations and clubs, has been and still is a power for good; and though it is true that the famous and successful visit of the “All Black” team to Great Britain has lately been parodied by a professional tour in England and Wales, there is still hope that professionalism may be held at bay. For, as yet, the passion for football, which is perhaps the main peculiarity of New Zealand athletics, is a simple love of the game, and of the struggles and triumphs attending it. The average New Zealand lad and young man looks for nothing but a good hard tussle in which his side may win and he, if luck wills it, may distinguish himself. As yet, money-making scarcely enters into his thoughts. The day may come in New Zealand, as it has in England, when bands of skilled mercenaries, recruited from far and near, may play in the name of cities and districts, the population of which turns out to bet pounds or pence on their paid dexterity. But, as yet, a football match in the colony is just a whole-hearted struggle between manly youths whose zeal for their club and town is not based on the receipt of a weekly stipend.
