Part 4

Another passenger is a little man who rides running horses in races. The Australians are very fond of racing, and the favorite riders are noted and prosperous men. All of them are small; this man has a wife almost twice his size. Some of them become as noted as Nat Goodwin, the actor, and marry as often. A little intelligence and coolness at a critical moment will often win a race, and the noted jockeys are usually men of intelligence. The man showed me a number of scars, the result of accidents. In racing in Australia, the horses jump hurdles, and often fall.... At 3 o’clock this afternoon we passed the “Three Kings,” barren islands without a light, which have caused many shipwrecks. An hour later we sighted the coast of New Zealand, and followed it throughout the night.... This evening we had a concert in the music-room, lasting two hours. This is a great country for amateur singing; every traveler seems to carry music, and on the slightest provocation will go to his room and get it. In addition to singing and piano-playing, we had four recitations; the recitation habit seems respectable here.... A New York traveling-man says the fashions in New Zealand and Australia are always a year or two behind New York, and that goods going out of style in the United States are just coming in here. Goods that are unsalable in New York, because they are out of fashion, may be picked up at low prices, and sold here at a good profit, according to the New York traveling-man, who has been visiting Australia and New Zealand for fifteen years.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 12.—At daylight this morning we passed into a land-locked gulf, and continued in it all the way to Auckland. At 8 o’clock, while at breakfast, the suburbs of Auckland began to appear, but we did not get through the custom-house and go ashore until two hours later. We hurried to the Grand Hotel, where we had ordered rooms by wireless, paying two dollars for the service. The manager said he had not received the message, therefore had not reserved the rooms. While he was talking, he excused himself to attend to a telephone call. On his return, he said our wireless message had just been telephoned him from the ship. That is the service you get from the much-advertised wireless. Later I met an officer of the ship on the street, and he said I was entitled to a return of my money, but I will never get it; on paying for the service two days ago, I was compelled to sign an agreement not to ask for my money back in case no service was rendered.... The manager of the Grand recommended the Royal, which is under the same management. At the Royal we found a woman clerk so polite that we liked the place at once. When she called a boy to show us our rooms, she called him “Buttons.” This young man took us up in a primitive elevator, which stuck, and the servants were compelled to pull us out. When we finally reached our rooms, we liked them, and probably we are as well off here as we would have been at the Grand.... All the hotels in Auckland, with five unimportant exceptions, are owned by a Jew named Ernest Davis. He owns hotels in other places, and they are all compelled to sell Hancock beer, as Davis also owns the Hancock brewery. One hears a good deal here about the five free hotels of Auckland. Freedom in this case means freedom to sell any beer the manager chooses to buy. In the United States, breweries own saloons, but I have never before heard of breweries owning hotels.... The Royal is very modest in its charges; we pay ten shillings and sixpence per day each for accommodations. This means $2.62 a day for room, three regular meals, early morning tea, and supper at 10 P. M. And the hotel is really good; I do not care for anything better, although the rooms are old-fashioned, and the elevator does not work half the time. When you want anything, you step into the hall and push a button marked Maid’s Bell. When the maid appears, you order hot water for shaving, or whatever it may be you need. There are four bathrooms near my room, which include needle and douche baths. The New Zealanders are fond of bathing, and there is never a lack of bathrooms in their hotels.... I have before referred to the fact that women out here wear afternoon and evening dresses in the morning; I believe I would have noticed the custom had not Adelaide called my attention to it. When the ship landed this morning, a pretty woman we admired, dressed in white satin and white kid slippers for the occasion.... On our way up-town, we passed a store labeled the Clobbery. The stock seemed to consist of gents’ furnishing goods. Perhaps an English friend can tell you where the word Clobbery comes from; I never heard of it before.... After dinner, we walked about the streets of Auckland. Adelaide wore what is known at home as a “Peter Thompson suit,” and it attracted so much attention that I asked her to return to the hotel and change it. There were great crowds on the streets, and they seemed to think Adelaide was a member of a lady brass band of which I was director. She took off the “Peter Thompson,” and put on a gray suit made by a man tailor in Kansas City, but she still looked funny to the people, for they continued to stare at her. She wore a Panama hat for which I paid $12 (marked down from $20), and I thought she looked pretty well, but she was a sight to many of the people of Auckland.... We heard a brass band, and walked that way. It turned out to be a Salvation Army band of thirty men. The players wore red coats, and played like professionals. The men and women in the procession were much more decent-looking than members of the Salvation Army at home. There were no guitars, and no tambourines; the music was furnished by an excellent band of thirty men. It was a very respectable outfit in every way, and finally disappeared into a theatre. In Auckland, Sunday theatricals are prohibited, and religious services are held in every theatre twice on Sunday. In the early evening, while on the streets, we encountered the big Salvation Army band again; also, the Mission band. I was told that the Mission was much like the Salvation Army, except that it was more modest. The Mission had a good band of twenty-four men, and a little organ, which two men carried. After a selection by the band, there was singing, with organ accompaniment. The song was entitled, “Just the Same Jesus,” and was so simple, and repeated so often, that I was soon able to sing it with the others. The leader asked for people to give their experiences, and a good many stepped into the middle of the ring, and talked briefly and modestly. One old fellow was a particularly good talker, and said he had been a soldier in the Civil War in the United States, and traveled all over the world, but had always found Jesus his friend in time of trouble. As each speaker ceased, the same song was sung, “Just the Same Jesus,” and I joined with the others in the singing. Presently the leader came to me, and said:

“You are evidently a religious man, and a stranger. Won’t you make a few remarks?”

[Illustration: Maunganui River

Pool of Bathers, Whakarewarewa

A Galaxy of Maori Beauty

A Maori Girl

Native House, New Zealand]

I excused myself, and he then asked the band to play.... When we walked up the street, in front of every theatre we found men announcing special religious services. In front of the theatres, also, were choirs singing religious songs as the people went in, precisely as at a street fair in America, a party of the performers will come out to the front to assist the ticket-seller in attracting a crowd. The New Zealanders are evidently a very religious people; I have been hearing church bells all day. Everything is closed tight except drug stores and restaurants.... Both bands I have mentioned had only brass instruments; no clarinets. In each one I noticed that there were cornet players who could play an octave higher than the score, and thus get what we used to call “the clarinet tone” when I played in brass bands in country towns. I have never seen as respectable a Salvation Army outfit as I saw in Auckland, and the Mission outfit was still better looking.... As in Australia, January is like July or August in New Zealand; snow is unknown about Auckland. All the vegetables and fruits are at their best here now, and the bathing-beaches are crowded.... On the “Sonoma” I heard the steward say that when anything came from New Zealand, it was always the very best. We have found the butter particularly excellent, and the mutton is better than the turkey.... An American I met today says that in New Zealand it is no uncommon thing to see girls of fourteen with complete sets of false teeth; that something in the water here is very hard on teeth.

MONDAY, JANUARY 13.—The meals and rooms at the Hotel Royal are so good that we are almost ashamed to accept them at $2.62 per day each. The taxi system here is also very agreeable. In most cities, taxis are disreputable-looking vehicles you are almost ashamed to ride in. Here they are new automobiles of different makes, and they cannot be distinguished from private vehicles. Today we rode about in a Cadillac of 1913 model that had been in service only three weeks. The charge was $3.12 per hour. At home the Cadillac costs about $2,000; here it costs a third more. The driver told us he paid forty cents a gallon for gasoline (known as petrol here); we pay about eighteen cents a gallon. An exposition will be opened here in nine or ten months, and the buildings are being erected in a park adjoining the city. We went out in the Cadillac to see them, and it was very pleasant to hear the sound of the open muffler again, for Auckland is a very hilly city. One park we visited consists of four hundred acres, and it was given to the city by Sir John Logan Campbell. Before he died, citizens of Auckland erected a statue in his honor, and he was present at the unveiling, which seemed to me rather unusual. From the top of a mountain in this park, we could see across New Zealand. The country is nearly a thousand miles long, and has an average width of one hundred and fifty miles, but at Auckland the width is only seven miles. The city will soon extend across the isthmus, and there is already talk of digging a canal.... Auckland is accustomed to giving. One of the handsomest and largest structures here is a Y. M. C. A. building, and near it is a Y. W. C. A. building. The campaign in which the money was raised for these two buildings must have been a strenuous one.... Workingmen’s clubs are common here. I have often wondered that we do not see them in the United States.... A few days ago, the New Zealand Press Association, which answers to our Associated Press, sent out a telegram which offended labor-union men. Thereupon the firemen in an Auckland ferry service went on strike, and greatly inconvenienced the public. The firemen had no quarrel with their employers, but quit work because their dignity had been offended by the newspapers. The newspapers of Australia and New Zealand criticise the labor unions much more freely than do the newspapers of the United States. Here business houses are compelled by law to close on certain days, and the workingmen have become so powerful that they have divided into two parties, and are fighting each other. Many New Zealanders have told me that the big fight is yet to come, and that this fight will be between the people and the labor unions.... I went into a meat market today, and inquired prices. A rib roast of beef costs twelve cents a pound; a sirloin roast, fourteen cents. Round steak costs thirteen cents a pound; the butcher told me he rarely sold a sirloin steak, but when he does, he gets twenty cents a pound for it. Leg of mutton sells for twelve cents a pound, and mutton chops, thirteen. Pork chops are sixteen cents a pound, and ham and bacon twenty-four cents. The butcher makes a difference in price when a customer has meat delivered and charged. Butchers at home do not make this distinction; the man who pays cash, and carries his purchase home, is charged as much as the patron who runs an account, and has everything delivered. The beef here is inferior to ours; there is no such thing in New Zealand as corn-fed cattle.... We also visited a dry-goods store, and, so far as Adelaide was able to judge, prices were not much lower than at home. Besides, everything seemed out of style.... In Atchison, market gardeners sell tomato and cabbage plants growing in boxes. Today we saw plants grown in exactly the same way in front of Auckland grocery stores, as this is the season for making garden here.... I have never seen better-looking horses anywhere than I see in Auckland. They are usually of the Clydesdale strain. All sorts of live-stock seem well fed and well bred.... This is a poor trip, compared with the trip through Japan, China, India, etc. There the people dress and look different; here the people are so much like those at home that we do not seem to have been away, if we can forget the pronunciations.... In the poorer quarters of Auckland, we saw a meal advertised for twelve cents. It consisted of tea, bread and butter, and fish.... Anything that sells for a nickel at home, is six cents here. I had my shoes shined at a street stand today, and the price was six cents. There is no five-cent piece in English currency, but there is a six-cent silver piece. There is nothing here answering to our ten-cent piece except the sixpence, which is worth twelve cents. There are five and ten-cent stores here, but their prices are six and twelve cents.... When we want a guide, we get a boy from the hotel, who is known as “Buttons.” At meal-times, his business is to go through the dining-room, and take orders for liquor. He also sings in the vested choir in the largest Episcopal church in town. We passed his church yesterday, and he offered to take us in and introduce us to the pastor, but we were compelled to decline the honor, owing to lack of time. Wherever I go, I employ boy guides. They know the interesting places, and point them out, but have no problems to discuss as men have.... A sign we see here frequently is “Private Bar.” What is a private bar? Does it mean a bar operated by a man who has a saloon for his own private use, and a bartender who waits on no one else?... In the bar connected with the Hotel Royal are two girl bartenders, and they are good-looking, stylish girls.... A big store near our hotel is operated by “John Court, Limited.” That word Limited is frequently seen abroad, and seems to mean the same thing as “Incorporated” with us.... At home, we have a saying that oysters are good only in the months which have an “r” in them. Here, oysters are at their best in April, May, June, July and August, and out of season in the months which have an “r” in them.... In an early walk this morning, I saw a man riding a horse, and driving a big bunch of sheep and cattle through the streets. He was assisted by three of the cleverest shepherd dogs I have ever seen, and it was a sight well worth seeing. During the same walk I ran across a man who was selling rabbits from a cart. He told me the rabbits had been trapped the day before, and shipped to Auckland by rail. He sold two young rabbits for a shilling, or twelve cents each, and called out as he drove along: “Wild rabbits; wild rabbits.” In Australia, rabbits have become so numerous that they are a menace and a danger, but this Auckland rabbit-seller told me that in New Zealand the supply of rabbits is not equal to the demand.... New Zealand is not an old country; its history really dates from about 1840. Although Captain Cook, in 1769, discovered and explored the two islands composing New Zealand, its real history did not begin until almost a century later, when the native Maoris, after a war lasting eleven years, concluded a treaty with the English. Australia and New Zealand, although nominally English colonies, are as free and independent as any countries in the world.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 14.—We have devoted this day to a railroad journey from Auckland to Rotorua, the center of the Lake district. Here are located the geysers which are said to rival those in Yellowstone Park. Here are located, also, famous baths, and Rotorua is probably the most noted watering-place in Australasia.... The railway station in Auckland is located next to the postoffice, and very properly, since the government owns the railway as well as the postoffice. No trains are run at night, as a rule, and none on Sunday, except an important mail train between Auckland and Wellington. The railway is a narrow-gauge, and we traveled on it very comfortably from 10 A. M. until 6 P. M. At noon, luncheon was served in a dining-car, and at 3:30 P. M. the dining-car servants announced afternoon tea. When we gave our tickets to the conductor, he said “Thank you;” over here, when a hotel waiter shows you the bill of fare, and you say you will take soup, he always says “Thank you.”... For miles and miles we saw nothing but pasture land, and cattle and sheep; a hundred sheep, probably, to ten cattle. In a railroad journey of eight hours, we saw only half a dozen cultivated fields. These were devoted to oats and turnips. Oats were in the shock, and we saw several orchards containing ripe fruit. But mainly we saw pastures. The country is beautiful, and it is prosperous, but its prosperity comes mainly from sheep. At several places we saw this sign: “Poison laid for dogs.”... All the stations are named for the original Maori settlers, as many of our towns have Indian names. At many stations we saw the Maoris in considerable numbers.... I do not believe there is a shingle roof in New Zealand; the roofs of the cheaper houses are of corrugated iron while the roofs of the better class houses are of red tile. Nearly all the houses in the country have fireplaces, and most of them are built of sheet-iron. The winters here are very mild, and a little fire in a grate is all that is needed. New Zealand is a wonderful stock-raising country, because of its mild winters.... In the smoking-car of the train, the spittoons were holes in the floor, with a brass top of the regulation spittoon pattern.... In Australia and New Zealand you see the sign “No smoking” very much oftener than anywhere else in the world.... There is no prairie land in New Zealand. There is a bush to be cleared off all the farm land; I don’t know what it is, but it looks like scrub cedar. All along the route we saw this burning; that seems to be one method of clearing land here. And after the land is cleared, it must be heavily manured; at one country town I saw a store sign which announced dry goods, artificial manures, iron mongery, etc. There is as much evidence of prosperity here as in the best sections of the Middle West, and you wonder where it comes from, since you see almost nothing but sheep. I didn’t see a poverty-stricken looking house all day, nor at any of the dozens of stopping-places did I see anyone who seemed to be poor.. .. About 2 P. M. we approached the mountains, and traveled in them until we reached the summit, and ran rapidly down the other side. Near the top we encountered several sawmills, but they were rather small affairs. At 5 P. M. we began seeing, in the distance, steam ascending from geysers. At 6 P. M. we steamed into Rotorua. The railroad stops here, and all the passengers left the crowded train. There are dozens of boarding-houses and hotels; excellent accommodations may be had for $10.50 a week, and the Grand, the best hotel, charges only $3.12 a day for board and room. The baths rival the best in the most famous watering-places of the Old World, and many spouting geysers may be seen in an hour’s walk. In addition, Rotorua has a beautiful lake, and anyone can catch fish in it; so, little wonder that the town is growing rapidly.