The next morning after our arrival at Helensville, we go down to the wharf, close behind the hotel, and embark on board the steamer Lily. This vessel is the only regular means of communication, at present, with the young settlements lying round the Kaipara. She is a much larger craft than the Gemini, but she is of the same ancient and ruinous character. One would have thought that, on these new waters, such craft as there were must necessarily be new also.[4] Such does not appear to be the case, however, for the steam service on the Waitemata and the Kaipara is conducted by very second-hand old rattle-traps. Where they were worn out I know not. Bad as they are, they are considered a local improvement, for, until quite recently, settlers had to depend on small sailing-boats, that plied very irregularly.

The Kaipara is a name applied rather indiscriminately to a river, a harbour, and to a tract of country. The Kaipara river is that on which Helensville stands. It waters an extensive valley, and, flowing north-westerly, falls into the Kaipara Harbour, some miles below Helensville. It is tidal to a short distance above the settlement.

The harbour is a vast inlet of the sea, almost land-locked, since its entrance, the Heads, is only about three or four miles wide. Opening from the harbour are sundry great estuaries, resembling the sea-lochs of Western Scotland. They are the Kaipara, the Hoteo, the Oruawharo, the Otamatea, the Wairau, the Arapaoa, and the Wairoa. Several of these have branches. Thus the Pahi, to which we are going, branches out of the Arapaoa. They are fed by creeks—that is to say, by freshwater rivers, as one would call them at home. The tidal estuaries are here called rivers; and the freshwater streams, of whatever size, creeks.

All these waters have the generic name of the Kaipara. The united water-frontage is said to be over a thousand miles; and nearly two million acres of land lying round are comprised within the so-called Kaipara district. Ships of heavy tonnage can get up to Tokatoka on the Wairoa, to Te Pahi and Te Otamatea, and within a short distance of Helensville, these places being, respectively, from twenty-five to thirty-five miles from the Heads. Smaller vessels can, of course, go anywhere. The Wairoa creek is navigable for schooners and cutters for more than eighty miles, as well as its tributaries, the Kaihu, Kopura, Tauraroa, and Maungakahia.

We have come into a district admirably adapted for pioneer settlement. For nature has supplied water-ways in every direction, and thus the first great difficulty in opening up a new country, the want of roads, is obviated. Here, indeed, as we shall find, no one walks to his township, or rides to see a neighbour, he jumps into his boat and rows or sails wherever he wants to go.

As the Lily steams down the Kaipara, we get a better idea of the bush than our previous day's coach-ride had given us. There is no more of the brown and shaggy gum-land, but, instead of it, such glorious woods and jungles and thickets of strange beautiful vegetation. Mile after mile it is the same, the dense evergreen forest stretching away over the ranges as far as one can see. Here it is the light bush, woods of young trees that have grown over what were once the sites of Maori cultivation; there it is the heavy bush, the real primeval forest.

One great feature of the Kaipara tidal estuary is the quantity of mangroves. Immense tracts are covered with water at high tide, and are left bare at low tide. These mud-banks are covered with mangroves in many places, forming great stretches of uniform thicket. The mangrove is here a tree growing to a height of twenty or thirty feet, branching thickly, and bearing a dark, luxuriant foliage. At high water, the mangrove swamps present the appearance of thickets growing out of the water. When the tide recedes, their gnarled and twisted stems are laid bare, often covered with clinging oysters. Below, in the mud, are boundless stores of pipi (cockles), and other shell-fish and eels.

The channel of the river is broad and deep, but often, to save some bend, the Lily ploughs her way along natural lanes and arcades among the mangroves. It is a novel experience to us to glide along the still reaches among these fluviatile greenwoods. We are embosomed in a submerged forest, whose trees are uniform in height and kind. All round us, like a hedge, is the glossy green foliage, sometimes brushing our boat on either side. And we scare up multitudes of water fowl, unused to such invasion of their solitudes. Wild duck, teal, grey snipe, shags, and many kinds that no one on board knows the names of, start from under our very bows. Not gay plumaged birds, though, for the most part; only now and then a pair of kingfishers, flashing green and orange as they fly, or the purple beauty of a pukeko, scuttling away into the depths of the swamp.

By-and-by we emerge into the expanse of the harbour. Once out in it we could almost imagine ourselves at sea, for, from the low deck of the Lily, we only see the higher grounds and hill-tops round, looking like islands in the distance, as we cannot descry the continuity of shore. And now we have leisure to make closer acquaintance with the boat that carries us.

The Lily is a queer craft. Though old and rickety, she gets through a considerable amount of work, and is sufficiently seaworthy to fight a squall, when that overtakes her in the harbour. Not that a gale is by any means a light affair, in this wide stretch of water. When one is blowing, as it sometimes does for two or three days at a time, the Lily lies snugly at anchor in some sheltered cove, and settlers have to wait as patiently as may be for their mails or goods. She knows her deficiencies, and will not face stormy weather, if she can help it.

Three times a week she visits certain of the Kaipara settlements, returning from them on alternate days. The arrangement is such that each township gets—or is supposed to get—one weekly visit from her. She is a boat with a character, or without it, which means about the same thing in the present instance. She has also a skipper, who is something of a character in his way.

The Pirate, or Pirate Tom, as he is indifferently called, is a gentleman of some importance locally, for he is the channel of communication between the Kaipara settlers and the outside world. He is a man of ferocious aspect, black-bearded to the eyes, taciturn, and rough in demeanour. In his hot youth, he is credited with having borne his part in certain questionable proceedings in the South Sea, and hence his appellation.

Freights run very high on the Lily, and it is by no means certain how far the Pirate may be concerned in keeping them so. He is apt to be captious, too, as regards the transit of cargo, and will refuse to do business if it is his whim, or if any particular individual happen to offend him; for he is lord paramount over the river traffic, and well does he know how to turn that to his own advantage. Apparently, he considers that he does you a personal favour if he carries you or your goods, and you have to keep on his good books, lest he should not condescend to do either.

Besides the playful way in which he manipulates the commerce of the district, Pirate Tom has another mode in which he adds to his gains. At some of the river townships and stations there is no hotel, or store, where liquor can be obtained. The only immediate facility that settlers and bushmen at such places have for procuring it, is such as is afforded by the boat. The Pirate is always ready to dispense the vile compounds he call spirits to all comers—sixpence per drink being his price, as it is the established tariff of the colony. It is held to be manners to ask him to partake himself, when any one desires to put away a nobbler; and the Pirate, being an ardent disciple of Bacchus, was never yet known to refuse any such invitation. He also sells, at seven shillings a bottle, the most atrocious rum, brandy, or "square" gin.

To assist him in the management of his craft, the Pirate has under him an engineer and a Dutch lad. The former of these has, of course, his special duties; the latter is cook and steward, sailor, landing-agent, and general utility man. He goes by the name of "The Crew." To beguile the tedium and monotony of constant voyaging, "The Crew" is wont to exercise his mind by conversation with such passengers as there may be. He is of a very inquiring disposition, and asks leading questions of a very personal nature. Seeing that I am a new-chum, he begins to ask me my name, age, birthplace, who my parents were, where I formerly lived, what I did, what my cousins and aunts are, their names, and all about them, and so on, a series of interminable catechetical questions on subjects that, one would think, could not possibly have any interest for him. This would be gross impertinence, were it not that "The Crew" is perfectly unconscious of giving any offence. He only asks for information, like Rosa Dartle; and this questioning is his idea of polite sociability.

Among the points of interest about the Lily, the most noticeable are the engines with which she is supplied. These are fearfully and wonderfully contrived. How such rusty, battered, old-fashioned, rough-and-ready machinery can be got to work at all, it is hard to say; but it does. Of course the engines are continually breaking down, or bursting, or doing something or other offensive. But whatever may happen, the Pirate and his two aids consider themselves equal to the emergency, and make shift to tinker up the mishap somehow. Such unlooked for examples of misapplied force are constantly occurring, the consequence being that repairs are as often called for. Thus it is that the engines present a very extraordinary and uncommon appearance. Report has, perhaps, added somewhat to the truth, but numerous legends are current in the Kaipara about the Lily, her engines, and her captain.

These amateur artificers are not in the least particular as to the materials they use for effecting their repairs, nor are they given to considering the relative differences of the metals. On one occasion, rust had eaten a hole through the boiler, and leakage ensued. Promptly they set to work, and soldered the lid of a biscuit-tin over the weak place. Then the boat went on as usual.

Once again, so it is said, something or other gave way—some screw, or cock, or lever failed to act. The boat became unmanageable, could not be stopped, or slowed, or done anything with. In short, she ran away. But Pirate Tom was not to be imposed on by any such feeble tricks. He immediately steered the Lily slap into the nearest bank and tied her up to a tree. Then the three went on shore, with a bottle of rum and a pack of cards, and sat down at a respectful distance to await the progress of events, and to enjoy a game of cut-throat euchre.

The engineer bet Pirate Tom a note—colonial for a sovereign—that the engines would blow up, and the latter laid on the chance that the rebel craft would spend herself kicking at the bank. After churning up the mud, plunging at the bank, and straining at her tether for an hour or so, the Lily quieted down, all her steam having worked off. So the Pirate won and pocketed the engineer's note; and then the party adjourned on board again, to resume their ordinary avocation of tinkering up.

In the log of the Lily there is supposed to be an entry, which would seem to indicate that the Pirate is not invariably so lucky as on the last-mentioned occasion. It is his rule never to spend any more money on repairs than what cannot possibly be avoided. There was an unsafe steam-pipe, which might easily have been replaced at a trifling cost; but, of course, the Pirate would spend nothing on it, and relied on his own usual resources. One day the steam-pipe burst, when a number of passengers were on board, and a woman got her legs scalded. After that, the Pirate found it absolutely necessary to get a new steam pipe; and was, besides, heavily mulcted in an action brought against him by the injured lady. The entry referred to probably runs like this:—

On the whole, Pirate Tom did not take much by his economy on that occasion. But the lesson was not of any lasting use. He will go on in his old way, and will take his chance of accidents.

The defects of the Lily do not cause us any annoyance, on this occasion of our first voyage aboard of her. She is on her best behaviour, for a wonder, and neither breaks down, nor bursts up, nor runs away. We steam over a great stretch of the harbour, noticing here that strange effect, when the distant land seems to be lifted above the horizon, and to have a belt of sky between it and the water.

Then we pass into river after river, proceeding up each some miles, to the townships, or stations, where we have to call, then descending into the harbour again, only to go on to the entrance of yet another river. The scenery is very varied, and there is much in it to attract our regard. Sometimes we pass below lofty bluffs, by wild rocky shores and islets, sometimes along great stretches of mud-bank or mangrove swamp.

The land on all sides is a primitive wilderness for the most part. Range after range sweeps and rolls away, while ravines and gullies and basins open upon the rivers, with tumbling creeks or graceful cascades pouring through them. One might suppose that some giant of yore had ploughed out this country and left it. A newly-ploughed field must seem, to an ant's vision, something like the contour of this to ours.

The land is richly wooded. Here and there we see the heavy bush, mammoth trees soaring up, overhung with creepers and ferns; but the heavy bush is chiefly at some distance from the waterside. What we see most of here is the light bush; dense thickets of shrubs, and smaller trees, resembling our remembrance of the denes and copses of England, or Epping and the New Forest.

To us new-chums it seems absurd to call this bush "light," but we can see that it is so by comparison with the primeval forest, where the tree-trunks run from ten to forty feet in girth. Once upon a time, when they numbered millions, the Maoris inhabited these shores pretty thickly. They preferred to be near the water, as settlers do now, for the same reason of convenience in communication, and also because fish was a chief article of their diet. All the land near the rivers has been at some time under their cultivation, and the light bush has grown up upon it since.

So late as fifty years ago, the Ngatewhatua tribe, who were lords of the Kaipara, were very numerous; but were then nearly exterminated in a war with the Ngapuhi of the north. Still, numerous as they may have been then, they could not have held the immense tracts here under cultivation. That must date from a more remote period. But the places where their villages stood, in the early part of this century, are now buried under such a wealth of scrub and shrubbery, as to show very clearly how rich is the soil and how fruitful the climate.

We see at last what we have long been looking for, hitherto to no purpose, namely, Maoris and their habitations. Brown, gypsey-like people they appear in the distance, wearing ordinary clothes like Europeans, only dirty and ragged usually. Here and there we pass a cluster of their wharÈs, low down near the beach—brown huts of thatch-like appearance, for they are made of raupo grass. Some of them are very neat, with carved and painted doors and fronts. Near them is usually some fenced-in cultivation, and possibly a rough-grassed clearing, on which may be a few cattle or horses. There are always pigs and dogs visible, and brown naked children disporting themselves on the beach, where canoes are drawn up, fishing nets spread out, and a scaffolding erected to dry shark-meat upon.

Few and far between are these evidences of the native race, and few and far between, also, are evidences of the new nation that is supplanting it. Frere, the statesman, speaking of Spain, said—he loved it because God had so much land there in His own holding. If he could say that of Spain's bare sierras and bleak barrancas, what would he not have said of this land, whose splendid woods and forests clothe the hills and fill the glens with verdure.

Here and there we lie off some settler's station, a white wooden homestead, perhaps with a few outbuildings beside it, perhaps alone; round it the pastures won by the axe and the fire, a mere bite out of the boundless woods behind. At such places "The Crew" paddles ashore in the dingey, or possibly a boat comes off to us, bearing two or three bushmen, who, may be, think that the opportunity for getting a nobbler ought not to be suffered to pass by.

We have three or four townships to call at, places where the Government has set aside a certain tract of land for a future town. A township site is cut up—on paper—into allotments, which are sold, or kept in the Land Office until wanted. From what we see of the Kaipara towns, they are very much in embryo as yet. Te Otamatea, for instance, is a single house and nothing more. This is our ideal of a bush settlement; it is as it should be—not too much humanity and crowd. The house, a rambling, wooden building, is of a good size though, being an hotel and store. Round it are several hundred acres of grass. Sometimes it is very festive, for a large Maori kainga is not far off; and at Te Otamatea a race-course has been made, where the annual races of the Kaipara districts are held.

Altogether, we like Te Otamatea, with its beautiful situation and lovely views, better than Port Albert. This is a sort of bloated Manchester or Birmingham of the district. No less than six or seven houses are visible close together. If you count barns and byres, and such more distant houses as are visible from the steamer's deck, there must be over a dozen. It is horridly populous. Moreover, one sees here, so strongly marked, that uncouth rawness that attends incipient civilization. Nature has been cleared away to make room for the art of man, and art has not yet got beyond the inchoate unloveliness of bare utilitarianism. The beautiful woods have given place to a charred, stumpy, muddy waste, on which stand the gaunt, new frame-houses. Gardens, orchards, cornfields, and meadows are things to come; until they do the natural beauty of the place is killed and insulted. But what have we to do with sentimental rubbish? This is Progress! Bless it!

Of course we did not expect to get to our destination all in a minute, for Te Pahi is more than forty miles from Helensville, in a straight line. We started about five o'clock in the morning, but it is late in the day before we get into the Arapaoa. By taking advantage of the tides, the Lily manages to accomplish ten knots an hour. But the going in and out of different rivers, though we do not go far up any of them, and the various stoppages, short though they be, make it late in the afternoon before we sight Te Pahi.

We are coming up the broad Arapaoa, and before us we suddenly see Te Pahi, a vision of loveliness, "our" township, as we are already calling it. A high, wooded bluff, the termination of a hill-range behind, rushes out into the tranquil, gleaming water. Round the base of the bluff, on a little flat between it and the white shingly beach, are the houses of the settlement. Four families live here at this time; and besides their abodes, there are a row of three cottages, called immigrant barracks, a boatbuilder's workshop, and an assembly hall. The neatest, fairest, best, and to-be-the-most-progressive of all the Kaipara townships. We say this "as shouldn't;" but it is so.

The broad, lake-like expanse of water over which we are moving—four miles across from shore to shore—parts before Te Pahi. It stretches away to the left in a wide reach, to form the Matakohe, out of which opens the Paparoa, hidden from sight at this point. Before us, bearing to the right, is the Pahi river. It is a vista of woodland scenery, glorious in the rays of the declining sun. Its shores are steep, and broken into numberless little bays and promontories, all clothed with bush to the water's edge. Far up, the towering ranges close down and terminate the view.

On the left of our position the shore is not so high, and we can see a good deal of grass, with the white homestead of a settler's station. Beyond is what appears to be a chain of distant mountains. Looking to the right an exclamation bursts from our lips, for there is the loveliest view we have yet seen.

A deep, semi-circular bay falls back from the river, bordered with a belt of dazzling shingle. Beyond and round it rises a perfect amphitheatre, filled with bush more sumptuous and varied than any we have gazed upon all day. The range seems to rise in terraces, and just one abrupt gap about the centre discloses the peak of a conical hill behind. The whole is a perfect idyllic picture, not to be described in a breath; for this is the showplace of the Kaipara. It is Te Puke Tapu, famous in Maori history as the scene of a great battle.

Beautiful as this place is, it would doubtless soon have been marred by the pitiless axe and fire of the settler, but that it is sacred soil. The Maoris will not enter it, and they prohibit Europeans from transgressing within its boundaries. Nor will they sell the land, although its superb fertility has induced some settlers to offer almost fabulous prices. For, under those rich greenwoods, caressed and buried in ferns, lie scattered the bony relics of the flower of Ngatewhatua chivalry.

So much and more a fellow-passenger tells us, while we gaze at the view, inwardly wondering whether wandering artist will ever present this glorious landscape now before us to people at home. But the story must be reserved for another time, until we are able to do justice to it.

At last the Lily is lying right off the beach of Te Pahi township, and her whistle is echoing among the woods on the ranges above, scaring the shags, kingfishers, and rock-snipe on the oyster-beds and beaches. Very speedily, two or three people appear at the township, and one of them puts off in a boat to board us.

To him we are shortly introduced by the Pirate, and handed over to his care, as candidates for a berth in the immigrant barracks. We discuss a nobbler, which is at once a farewell one with Pirate Tom, "The Crew," and the rest of our fellow-passengers, and an introductory ceremony with our new acquaintance, "The Mayor."

A merry, athletic, thoroughly healthy and hearty Englishman is our friend, the Mayor, always in a hurry and bustle of business, for his avocations are startlingly numerous. He is the oldest inhabitant of the township, and was called the Mayor when he dwelt there solitary, a few years ago. Now he is postmaster, storekeeper, justiciary, acting-parson, constabulary, board of works, tax-gatherer, customs officer, farmer, dealer in everything, town clerk, lawyer, doctor, and, perhaps, a score of things beside, as they reckon such in Te Pahi.

The Mayor hurries us and our traps ashore in his boat, and deposits us on the beach. Then he hastens back to the steamer, bidding us wait there, as "he'll be back to fix us before we can have time to wink." Half a dozen men and boys—the entire population—stand at a little distance, regarding us shyly, but inquisitively, with pocketed hands. Some young children are also apparent.

As we stand gazing about us, and wondering how to make acquaintance with the group, a little girl comes running up to us. It is always the superior sex, you see, even in the bush, that make the first advances. She offers us peaches, the little bright-eyed, sunny-faced thing; and readily submits to be kissed; indeed, appears to expect it. Then she prattles away to us in right merry fashion.

The little incident breaks the ice. The group of men come forward and enter into conversation. Perhaps a trifle constrained at first—for dwellers in the bush necessarily lose the readiness of people more accustomed to society—they show themselves anxious enough to be hospitable and welcoming. They are eager to know who we are, naturally, what we are going to do, and so forth. When it comes out that we have advented to join Old Colonial, we are admitted as chums at once, and formally accepted as free citizens of the soon-to-be prosperous and thriving town of Te Pahi.

By-and-by the Mayor gets back; and the Lily steams off again on her way to Matakohe, where she will anchor for the night, returning to Helensville next day. Old Colonial, it seems, is away up the river somewhere, but is expected at the township that night, as he knows that the steamer is due, and that we were likely to come by it.

And now what are we to do? Go to the immigrant barracks, we suppose, since they are expressly designed for the accommodation of such new-chums as ourselves. Barracks be hanged! Is it likely that we are to be allowed to go there while the Mayor has a comfortable house in which to receive guests? Not likely! Why, others of the citizens are intent on hospitality as well, and any of the four homes of the place may be ours for the present, if we will.

But the Mayor is not going to be choused out of his guests; don't you believe it! What is he Mayor and boss of the township for, he would like to know, if not to look after new-chums? Besides, on his own sole responsibility, he has turned the immigrant barracks into a warehouse for produce, since no immigrants ever seemed to be coming to occupy them. So, he is in a measure bound to take possession of us, don't you see? and, by Jove, he means to, what's more!

Then we walk along to the Mayor's residence, and a comfortable, well-furnished house it is, quite a surprise to us, who hardly expected home-comforts in the bush. But then the Mayor is a thriving man, and has a wife to look after him.

A cheerful, amiable lady bids us welcome, with a heartiness as though she were only too glad to see us, although it would appear as if her hands were full enough of housework already, without the additional care of looking after a couple of helpless, unready new-chums. But strangers are so rare up here, that much must be made of them when they do come; therefore, the fatted calf is killed, so to speak, and we are regaled in handsome fashion.

Later, after supper, there is a sudden arrival in the darkness of the night. We hear a stamping on the verandah outside, and a loud, lusty, half-remembered voice addressing the Mayor.

"Have they come, I say? Where are they, then?"

The door of the room we are sitting in bursts open, and a burly, bearded man, rough and savage enough in outward appearance, sooth to say, rushes in upon us. He seizes our hands in a grip that brings the tears to our eyes, he shakes them up and down with vehemence, and while we are trying to make out whether this Old Colonial can really and truly be our sometime schoolfellow, he exclaims—

"Well, this is good! I am glad to see you! Now we'll have a splendid time! Now we'll make this old place hum round! Oh, but this is glorious!"

Thus, and much more; and so, with the true, hearty good-fellowship of the bush, are we welcomed to our future home.

And now that we have arrived at the scene of our future work, let this chapter close. No need any longer to pursue our history as new-chums. In the pages that follow we will resume the story at a further date, when we have arrived at the full estate of settlers and colonists. Such thread of narrative as these sketches possess shall henceforth be unwound off another reel.