SAFETY FIRST.
NEVER DIVE INTO WATER WITHOUT  KNOWING ITS DEPTH.

THE NAVIGATORS.
[This is the first of a series of articles that will tell you something about the old days in New Zealand. It is very interesting to look 
back
over our country's past just now, as next year, in 1940, New Zealand will be one hundred years old, an event that we are calling 
The Centennial. It was in the year 1840 that, by the Treaty of Waitangi, Zealand became recognized as a British possession.]
Our first story is of the navigators who explored New Zealand and brought word of it to Europe. There is a very 
interesting story to tell
of how the Maoris first found New Zealand, for they were seamen, too, and sailed for hundreds of miles
in a couple of canoes tied together, but this is a long story by itself, and I have space now to say only what the white sailors did 
on their voyages.
Captain Abel Janszoon Tasman, a Dutch sailor, commanded the two ships that first discovered our country for 
white men. He
was sent out in 1642
from Java, which had been a colony of the Dutch  for more than a hundred years. His ships were the 
Heemskerck and
the Zeehaen, manned by one hundred and ten good sailors altogether. The Dutch already knew about parts of 
Australia, and  they
knew, too, that no one had ever before sailed down into the south part of the Pacific. There might be anything 
there, some big
continent full of  gold and silver and precious stones. At least, that was what they hoped to find.
Like Captain Cook after him, Tasman was a  poor boy who worked his way up from an ordinary sailor to the 
rank of
captain. He and his men were used to long voyages, which in those days  of sailing ships might easily last 
so long that
even twelve months' supply of food would run out. Their first discovery was the south part of the island now called Tasmania. 
They went ashore, but saw no
men. After that they sailed on towards the east, into strange seas. On 13th December, 1642, they
sighted the Southern Alps in the South Island, on 
which no white man had ever set eyes before.
 There was too much danger in the big rollers
pounding on the shore for them to land, so they 
sailed north up the coast, where they saw fires on 
shore, letting them know there were men living in
the country. The two ships put down their anchors
in what we call Golden Bay. Several Maori canoes out from the land to see what sort of people   
these strange ships
had in them. They were too shy to come on board when the Dutchmen showed them cloth and knives that 
they
might have liked to have. But when one of the boats from the Heemskerck was rowing over to the Zeehaen with 
a message,
one the Maori canoes suddenly rammed it, and seven men in it were attacked most fiercely by the armed 
warriors. Four of
the Dutchmen in the boat were killed, while the other three escaped by  swimming to one of the ships. 
Tasman called
this place "Murderers Bay" and was glad to sail away north up the coast.
He tried to land on the Three Kings Islands just to the north of New Zealand, but the surf was too high for 
it to be safe.
Tasman did not land anywhere at all on our coast; but he had seen enough to know that it was a much bigger 
place than the
little coral islands of the South Seas. He gave names to several points on the coast, like Cape Maria van Diemen, 
named after the
wife of the Dutch Governor of Java. Tasman called New Zealand " Statenland" to begin to with, but 
after he got home
somebody changed the  name to "New Zealand," which fortunately is the name our country has since 
borne.
The Dutch sailed round some of the coast of Australia in other ships, but they never went east
to New Zealand again, partly because there were
no rich cities to trade with there, partly because the
Maoris had attacked Tasman. It was more than a
hundred years before any white man came this way again. In 1768 the Government of England sent out the
Endeavour to carry a special party of astronomers to the South Seas to watch the transit of the
planet Venus across the sun. This was an important thing
to watch, since in those days men did not know how far away the sun was from the earth, and they hoped to find 
this out by
sending these men to work at Tahiti. The man selected for the command of the Endeavour was Captain James 
Cook.
Cook had worked his way up in the Navy from being 
a common A.B., or able-bodied sailor, to the position of sailing master, in charge of sailing a
man-of-war, but not in command of her. This was
the highest post a common sailor could ever reach in the Navy in those days, but for a man as clever as
Cook the rule was broken, and he sailed in full command of the Endeavour.
After they had carried out their work at Tahiti, Cook
and his party sailed away south on the second part of his task. The British Government wanted to find out 
if there was any
truth in that old tale of a Great Southern Continent. Cook sighted New Zealand on 7th October, 1769. The 
place he saw first is
called Young Nick's Head, in honour of Nicholas Young, the boy who first noticed land from
the ship's masthead. This coast, near Poverty Bay, had never before been seen by any white man, as Tasman had 
cruised only along
the west coast of the North Island. Cook was pleased to have a good country for his men to land and find 
fresh vegetables and pure water.
Captain Cook explored the New Zealand coast
right round. From what he had heard of Tasman's visit, the country might still have been the edge of a  
continent as big as
Australia. He landed in many places, getting on well with the Maoris, who would in those days do anything for a 
present of a few nails
or an old shirt. Sometimes he had to fire his guns over their heads to keep them in order, and he was often very much annoyed at 
the way they stole  things from the ship. The Maoris of course, had never seen such wonderful things before, and, like little 
children, they wanted everything they saw.

WHITE MAN AND MAORI.

Cook made a few mistakes in charting the coast, due to misty or stormy weather. For instance, he did 
not discover
that Stewart Island was an island he also thought, from its appearance from the sea, that Banks 
Peninsula was an
island. The Mr. Banks, after whom he named it, was a famous naturalist on board the Endeavour, who was 
able to
describe all the New Zealand plants to people in England.
In December, 1769, a French ship also came to Zealand. This was the Saint Jean Baptiste, commanded by 
de
Surville. If, therefore, Cook had arrived about two months later than he did, de
Surville would have forestalled him in rediscovering Zealand. De Surville came from India, and, like 
Tasman, he was
looking for people to trade with. Curiously enough, he and Cook were very near 
each other for about a week off Doubtless Bay, far south of North Cape. In fact, the two boats must 
have passed, but
they never sighted each
other, and de Surville believed that he had been
first to see New Zealand since Tasman's visit. He landed, but he behaved harshly to the Natives, and soon left for South America.
The next visitor to New Zealand was also a
Frenchman, Marion du Fresne. He came in May, 1772, and had two ships, the Mascarin and the
Marquis de Castries. He landed, setting up a camp ashore for his sick men, but soon the Maoris took
advantage of his trust in their friendliness, and on 12th June, he and the twenty-six men on shore with him were killed and eaten. 
It is said that the Maoris  killed the Frenchmen on account of de 
Surville's bad treatment of
them. Marion's ships fired on the Maoris and burned their homes and canoes, but all this could not bring 
back their friends,
and it was a bad thing for the future friendship of Maoris and white people.
Captain Cook came again in 1773. He was making a thorough survey of the most southerly seas and Queen 
Charlotte's Sound
was a very good base for him, which he called at twice during the year. He had two ships this time, the Adventure
the Resolution. Again in 1777 on his third voyage, Captain Cook put in to Queen Charlotte's Sound. 
His two ships on
this voyage were the Resolution and the Discovery. He had brought out pigs, boats, and poultry for the Maoris, as well as 
the axes and nails
they found so useful. Cook sailed away to the North Pacific, where he was
unfortunately killed at Hawaii in a fight with the
Natives of those islands. So passed the greatest of all the navigators that ever visited New Zealand, and one of the greatest of all 
time.  
In November, 1792, an English captain, George
Vancouver, who had been a midshipman on board one of Cook's ships, called in at Dusky Sound. Vancouver
discovered the Snares Islands south of Stewart Island. In February of 1793 a Spanish scientific party 
under the
command of Don Alejandro Malaspina visited some of the New Zealand ports. At that time most of South America was under 
Spanish rule.
It is doubtful if many of these voyagers, except de Surville and Marion du Fresne, would have 
visited New Zealand, if
Captain Cook had not 
shown them the way. By 1788, however, there was a convict settlement at Sydney and another at a
Norfolk Island,
halfway to New Zealand. The fame 
of the New Zealand flax had been spread by earlier visitors, so that in 1793 a British 
warship was sent over
from Norfolk Island to try to get hold of some Maoris to teach the convicts how to use   our flax. 
The commander just went ashore and grabbed the first two Maoris he came across. This turned out to be even sillier than 
it was cruel, as the men knew nothing of how to work flax, because 
they were chiefs and had always left that sort of work to their women and slaves.
There are only two more navigators that I shall talk about now. One was the Frenchman Dumont 
D'Urville, who in
1826 began sailing round the north of the South Island on the Astrolabe.
Not only did he discover French Pass, but he also made very careful maps of the coast, which no one but 
Cook had done
at all well before. He came again in 1840, and was not very pleased to find that 
New Zealand belonged to 
Queen Victoria.
You must
remember that the French very nearly had New
Zealand instead of the British.
The other of these two great navigators was Captain G. L. Stokes, commander of the Acheron. 

THE "ASTROLABE " IN HEAVY SEAS.

In that ship he surveyed the coasts during 1851 to 1854 and made the careful maps on which we rely to-day 
to
know where places are and for sailing our ships.
Perhaps you have not liked all the names and dates in this story, and perhaps there are rather
many of them. They are needed, however, to tell us 
which men came here first and which did most to help found the prosperous country we live in.
You need not try to learn them all, but it you keep your School Journal you 
can always look them up.
If Tasman and Cook and others, too, had not cheerfully endured great 
hardship, our country,
would not have been known to the Old World for many, many years after it 
was, and there is no telling whose land it might have been to-day.
-Supplied by the National Historical Committee.

THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU PA.
For more than a hundred miles south of Auckland authentic tradition and 
history give a living interest to the main
highway that penetrates the heart of Waikato. The road along which so 
many motorists speed to-day is rich in human
associations, and it is this kind of background that so greatly heightens 
the charm of beautiful scenes. In more than
usual measure the romance of stirring deeds steeps a cross-section of the 
Upper Waikato, ten miles or so of the old
army trail that is now part of the main route to wonderful Arapuni. This 
highway, at six miles beyond Te Awamutu,
crosses the exact ground of famous Orakau Pa,* the scene of the most 
heroic defence of a beleaguered position in
the whole of the Maori wars.
Orakau was a Maori Thermopylae. Here, for three days (31st March and 1st 
and 2nd April, 1864), a band of men and
women belonging to various tribes resisted the British and Colonial 
troops. It was the final battle of the Waikato War.
There were three hundred and ten Maoris, whose chiefs had resolved to 
make a last stand against the conquering
army of General Cameron. Half their number lay dead on the field and in 
the swamps and fern on the final day of the battle.
"Let me die here," said the old chief Te Paerata, striking his spear-staff 
into the ground at Orakau when the chiefs held
council about the most suitable site for a pa. He was not the leading 
war-chief of the tribes, but his gesture fired the
gathering of warriors with a determination to make that spot the fighting 
ground. Orakau was one of the homes of his kinsmen.

*Orakau means "Rakau's Place" or "The Place of Trees."

 It was a beautiful place; there were several villages there, many groves of peaches, and fields of corn and potatoes. Long before 
the war the Maoris sent wheat from there all the way to Auckland, and flour, too, was produced, for the tribes of this district had 
their own flour-mills driven by water-power. So, there on the mound called Rangataua, on the slopes of Orakau, the three 
hundred built their earthworks and awaited the shock of battle.

REWI MANIAPOTO

The chief in supreme command was Rewi Maniapoto. Shrewd and war-seasoned, 
he saw the weakness of the position, so open and vulnerable; and he suggested a stronger and more strategic site, nearer the bush; 
but, with Te Paerata, the voice of the people was for Orakau. Most of the garrison were from distant parts. The backbone of the 
defence was a strong party of the Urewera or Tuhoe tribe, who had come more than a hundred miles from their 
mountain homes to fight the pakeha. Another
body of warriors came from the western shores of Lake Taupo.
Rewi's own tribe, Ngati-Maniapoto, sent a war-party of fifty men. Their 
chief was a man of about forty-five at this time,
of rather small, compact build, quick-moving, of keen and fiery temper. 
He was the popular fighting hero of the
Kingites, with a war-path story that went back to the days of the old 
inter-tribal wars, when he marched to battle in
Taranaki though still quite a boy in years. Once Rewi decided to accede 
to the general wish and join issue at Orakau
with the British, he threw himself into the defence of the fort with all 
his fiery energy and warrior skill.
The Maori redoubt, a small and really insignificant earthwork, was about 
eighty feet in length by forty feet in width. It
was a rectangular entrenchment with inner and outer trenches, some 
interior dug-outs and shallow covered ways, and
a parapet, outside of which a post-and-rail fence round part of the 
little fort made a further obstacle, but a flimsy one.
The sods of earth were reinforced with a packing of fern. There was no 
palisade of timber.
The diggers were working there as busy as bees under Rewi's direction, 
when a military surveyor at Kihikihi descried
through his theodolite telescope the flashing of the spades and shovels 
in the sunshine, and reported it to the
commander of the troops. The principal incidents of the three days' siege 
that followed have been dramatized in "Rewi's Last Stand," a moving picture produced by Frontier Films, Limited. 
Some of the descendants of the defenders of the pa assisted in the making of
the film. 
"We were at prayers outside the pa in the early morning," said Tupotahi, 
Rewi's cousin and lieutenant, in describing
to me the siege and defence. " Our minister, Wi Karamoa, was praying to 
Jesus Christ to protect us against the
anger of the pakeha. We had our hands over our eyes, when I glanced up and 
saw the look-out on the parapet
beckoning to me and pointing, and there, looking in the direction of 
Kihikihi I saw the fixed bayonets of the soldiers
glittering in the sun. The army was marching against us. I waited until the 
prayers were over, and then gave the
alarm. So we ran to our stations, each tribe, loaded our guns, and prepared for the battle."
For three days and two nights the Maoris held the fort, a noble three 
hundred and ten against six times their number
of well-armed, well-fed soldier foes. "We lived in a circle of fire and 
smoke," said Paitini, a man of the Urewera, who was severely wounded there. There was a supply of food, but the water was 
exhausted by the end of the first night. To
the rifle fire of hundreds of British and Colonial soldiers, a bombardment 
with two six-pounder Armstrong guns was
added, and on the third day hand-grenades were thrown into the pa from the 
head of a flying-sap dug up to the
northern outwork. Ringed with a line of steel, earthworks battered by 
shell-fire, men, women, and little children
tortured with thirst, the valorous band held out; there was no thought of 
surrender. The defenders ran short of ammunition for their double- and single-barrel guns, so short that in the night firing they 
used small pieces of apple and
manuka wood as bullets, saying their lead for the day-time; and they even 
broke up the legs of their iron cooking-pots to serve as projectiles.
On the second morning of the siege a thick fog enveloped the battlefield. The straits of the 
defenders were so serious
that Tupotahi made request of the council of chiefs that the pa should be abandoned under cover of 
the fog. The
runanga debated this, and decided to hold the fort. This was the announcement made by Rewi, which 
clinched the
decision: "Listen to me, O chiefs of the runanga and all the tribes! It was we who sought this 
battle, wherefore then should we retreat? This is my thought: Let us abide by the fortune of war. If we are to die, let us die in 
battle; if we are to live, let us survive on the field of battle."
" So," said Tupotahi, continuing his narrative, "we all remained to continue the fight. The fog presently lifted from the battlefield, 
and then again 
began the firing."
By that evening the sufferings of the garrison had become intense. Dead and wounded were lying about 
the pa. The
wounded were crying for water. A young warrior, Hitiri (son of old Te Paerata) crept out through the 
British lines in the
darkness, and brought a calabash of water from a spring near the swamp on the east side of the pa. 
Rewi now considered it advisable to evacuate the place in the night. But the Taupo men and the Urewera were stubborn in their 
decision to remain and continue the fight to the death. " So be it," said Rewi.
(To be continued.)
-JAMES COWAN.

SAFETY FIRST.
KEEP WITHIN YOUR DEPTH TILL YOU  CAN SWIM WELL.

WHALING AND SEALING
[This is the second article in the series dealing with early New Zealand.]
A hundred and fifty years ago, when, of course, there was neither gas nor 
electricity, people used whale-oil for lighting their houses.
Although hunting whales was a profitable business, the British Government 
was so much afraid of not having enough whale-oil, it paid a
bounty of more than a pound for every ton of whale-oil brought into 
England. Americans did a great part of the catching, because one sort
of whale, the Right whale, was common along their coasts. Another kind, 
the Sperm whale, was more valuable, but it kept out to sea and
was more difficult to catch. Nevertheless, the Americans became skilful 
in hunting it down.
 After 1783, when the American Colonies became independent of Britain, it was much harder to get whale-oil in England, though 
whales were being hunted in the seas near Greenland. A firm of shipowners, Messrs. Enderby, who had always taken
part in the whale-oil trade, began about 1800 to send out ships to the South Seas to see if there
were profitable whaling-grounds where Englishmen
could fish without depending on Americans. Messrs.
Enderbys' ships brought back encouraging reports
of the numbers of whales and seals they had seen
in the south. One serious obstacle had still to be
overcome. The famous East India Company had
by its charter the sole right among British merchants
of trading in the South Seas. Though "John
Company," as this old-established concern was
commonly called, did not send out whaling-ships
itself, it did not like the thought of anyone else doing it. But the British shipowners were able to
point out that there was not  nothing to prevent ships
of other nations going whaling within the area of the company's charter and that its selfishness would simply give all the trade to 
foreigners. Then the East India
Company agreed to let British ships into the South Seas.
By 1810 a number of British ships were coming out to hunt whales in the 
South Seas, which included a great many
islands and coasts besides New Zealand. They had to be fitted out for a 
voyage of two or three years. If they did not
get enough whale-oil the first year, the ships stayed away until they had 
all their casks filled, so that the sailors might
be four years away from their families. In those days the food on ships was 
very poor - salt meat and biscuits for the
most part - a diet that produced the dreadful disease of scurvy on long 
voyages. The whalers formed the habit,
therefore, of calling in at any land they came to and buying fresh 
provisions from the natives. New Zealand became a
favourite resort for this sort of refreshment, and the Bay of Islands 
became a port of call for whalers. The Maoris began
to know the needs of the ships, and grew crops of potatoes and raised pigs 
especially to sell to visiting ships.
The more the whalers knew New Zealand the better they liked it. They began 
to make camps on shore, and from
these hunt the Right whales that cruised up the coast. It was easier to 
boil down the whale's oily blubber on shore,
and it was pleasanter living on land after months in the cramped quarters 
on board ship. But they did not stay
permanently on the land.
Catching whales was one of the most dangerous of all trades. The whale had 
to be speared by means of a hand-flung
harpoon from a small boat rowed up close to its side. The blow from the 
harpoon always stung the whales into violent movement. They began by plunging to the depths of the ocean and then came up 
and swam away as fast as they could, towing the boat whose harpoon was in them miles away from its ship. Meanwhile the men 
hauled up nearer to the wounded, giant, till, when it was exhausted, they could pierce it with a steel lance. The death of the whale 
was a moment of great danger, since it lashed the water with its huge tail and often stove in a boat. There was usually 
another boat at hand to pick up the men from the water, but a large number of whalers lost their lives in this dangerous trade.

WHALING OFF NORTH CAPE.

Once the whale was dead there was a new problem: how to get it back to the 
ship. Sometimes the ship sailed
nearer. If the winds were unfavourable, the sailors might have to tow the 
enormous carcass of the whale several miles
to the ship, a hard task for tired men in small rowing-boats. The whale was 
cut up as it lay at the ship's side, the
thick layers of blubber being cut off it and hauled up on deck with the aid 
of a block and tackle on one of the masts.
This process was called " cutting in."
The next task was boiling down the strips of blubber. Each ship had three 
or more try-pots, huge iron cauldrons
mounted in brick, amidships. The blubber, cut up small, was boiled down 
into oil inside them, the fire underneath
being kept going with scraps of blubber. Few sailors were very eager to 
eat any part of the whale, though some people considered the tongue something of a delicacy. The oil was put away in casks. 

WHALERS OFF THE BAY OF ISLANDS.

These were partly made on board, an experienced cooper sailing on each 
whaling-ship to do the work.
While whalers were cruising off the coast of New Zealand, Sydney 
shipowners had discovered that there were islands farther south which abounded in seals. In the years between 1810 and 1820 
English and Australian ships discovered and worked the Auckland, Campbell, Macquarie, Bounty, and Antipodes
Islands, as well as small groups like the Snares and Solander's Islands nearer Stewart Island. All these gave a rich harvest while 
the supply lasted. The seals were killed for their skins principally, but some 
varieties, like whales, were boiled down for their oil.
In a few years the sealers had killed so many seals there were too few left 
to make it worth while to visit those far off
islands. Seals are still scarce there and are only occasionally seen on the 
coast of New Zealand, where once they
were very plentiful. Seals are protected now in New Zealand by law and 
nobody may kill them.
The sealing-ships used to leave gangs of men on the islands or coast where 
they were to hunt. 

THOM'S WHALING-STATION AT PORIRUA.

often the men were left for several years in these bleak spots, living as best 
they could on seal meat, fish, and birds. They made themselves huts with skins of seals, if the shipowners had not built a wooden 
hut for them. Sealers first landed
at Dusky Sound in New Zealand, and later there were gangs at work at several places round Foveaux Strait and on Stewart 
Island. The Maoris made many attacks on them, and soon it was only passing whaling-ships that caught seals in this 
neighbourhood.
In 1827 the first permanent shore station was established at Te Awaite, 
near Tory Channel, by John Guard. Guard and his men lived all the year round at their station, going out in their small whale 
boats to catch
the Right whales cruising up through Cook Strait. Within a few years 
there were stations round Foxeaux Strait, at
Otago Harbour, at Waikouaiti to the north, at Peraki on Banks Peninsula, 
at Port Underwood and other bays in the
Marlborough Sounds, on Mana and Kapiti Islands, and at the New Plymouth 
Sugarloaves. The men built comfortable
houses and cultivated gardens in their spare time. Some even imported 
sheep and cattle and farmed on land they had
bought from the Maoris. The Maoris traded with them and sometimes worked 
in the station catching or boiling down
the whales. Thus the two races came to know each other better.
After the settlement of New Zealand by white people, the number of whales 
began to decline. The whalers found it
harder and harder to get a living. In 1838 there had been French, 
American, British, and even German and Portuguese
ships hunting whales off the New Zealand coasts. Ten years later the 
overseas whalers had practically given up
coming, and a few shore stations carried on a reduced trade. Right and 
Sperm whales became scarcer every day.
Whaling was diminishing throughout the whole world, though, curiously 
enough, there were plenty of whales left.
These were all Finners or Humpbacks, varieties that had always been too 
swift to be taken by men in small boats
using hand-flung harpoons. They are the whales hunted to-day by the great 
Antarctic whaling steamers. The modern
whaling industry was made possible by the invention by the Norwegian, 
Sven Foyn, of a harpoon gun. This was first
used in 1886 in the Northern Hemisphere.
Modern whalers use fast steamboats, called whale-chasers, instead of the old 
rowing-boats, and bring their catches back to a factory ship, which may be as big as 20,000 tons. The factory 
ships have many different kinds of boilers,
and practically every part of the whale is made into oil of one quality or 
another. The harpoon gun is a deadly weapon.
In the old days the whalers might lose their lives in the struggle with the 
giant sea monster, but to-day man has a
complete advantage over the largest whale. It has even been necessary to 
restrict the number and size of the whales
caught for fear of all the whales in the plentiful Antarctic seas being 
destroyed.
Until a few years ago there were two stations in New Zealand still actively 
engaged in catching whales, one at Whangamumu in the Bay of Islands, and the other at Tory Channel in Marlborough. Now 
only the Tory Channel Station is at work. It catches about fifty whales a year by means of fast launches with a special light 
harpoon gun mounted in the bows. These whales are mostly Humpbacks. This last remaining station is very near the spot where 
the first shore station was established over one hundred years ago. Thus whaling is New Zealand's oldest industry.
-Supplied by the National Historical Committee.

SAFETY FIRST.
ON A COUNTRY ROAD KEEP TO THE EDGE OR ON THE GRASS STRIP.

THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU PA.
(Continued from page 50.)
The third morning of the siege of Orakau Pa, April the second, 1864, dawned 
in the haze that presages a hot day, Tupotahi now
proposed to Rewi: " Let us charge out before it is day. If we go now we may fight our way through the soldiers." Rewi smiled 
grimly, and bade Tupotahi consult the other chiefs. " We shall remain here," they declared; " we shall fight on." The morning
haze swept away; the roar of the Armstrongs and the crack of rifles and 
carbines answered the bang of the Maori shotguns,
The story of the afternoon of that day imperishably remains as an 
inspiration to deeds of courage and fortitude. Nowhere in
history did the spirit of pure patriotism blaze up more brightly than in 
that earthwork redoubt, torn by shellfire and strewn with
dead and dying. The grim band of heroes proudly refused the surrender 
demanded by General Cameron. That dramatic scene is
re-enacted in " Rewi's Last Stand," the film produced near the actual scene 
of the battle by Frontier Films, Limited, Te Awamutu, New Zealand.
To the General's request, delivered by the interpreter from the head of the 
sap, the reply was made by a chief who was Rewi's mouthpiece: " Peace will never be made, never, never! " A further reply, in 
words that will forever live, was delivered:
"Friend, I shall fight against you for ever and
ever! " (In Maori, " E hoa, ka whawhai tonu ahau ki a koe, ake, ake! ") *  
The interpreter, Mr. Mair (afterwards Major Mair), replied: " That is 
well for you men, but it is not right that the women
and children should die. Let them come out."

ENSIGN MAIR DELIVERS GENERAL CAMERON'S MESSAGE.

A voice asked : " How did you know that there were women and children 
here? "
Mair replied: " I heard the lamentations for the dead in the night."

*The current popular version of the Maori reply is:
Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake! " (" We shall continue to fight for 
ever and ever and ever !") However, the Maori survivors' narratives I have gathered do not give those exact words. The reply, 
according to these informants, was in the first person singular. The chief who answered Mair spoke, of course, for the whole 
garrison.

A brave young woman, the chieftainess Ahumai, daughter of Te Paerata, called out to the interpreter:
"If the men are to die, the women and children will die also! "
So went on the hopeless fight, but not for much longer. Rewi gave the word; 
his warriors loaded their guns with their
last cartridges, and, with the women and children in their midst, they 
charged out in a body, going at a steady trot at
first, until the amazed soldiers (of the 18th and the 40th Regiments) 
opened a fearful fire upon them. That retreat
through the fern and swamp to the Puniu River and beyond, before the 
pursuing troops, headed by the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry, and the Forest Rangers under Jackson and Von Tempsky, was 
full of deeds of gallantry and
self-sacrifice. Rewi himself was surrounded by a small body-guard of his 
devoted kinsmen.
When the sun went down on Orakau a hundred and sixty Maoris lay dead on the 
battlefield, and on the line of retreat
to the south side of the Puniu River. There were many poignant and touching 
incidents. When the pa was rushed by the troops an old warrior lay dead with his gun pointed over the parapet. 
One leg had been shattered earlier in the siege and he had had it bound up with flax-leaves and sticks for splints, so that he could 
prop himself up against the bank and go on fighting. A young man kept back some of the pursuers, the Forest Rangers, by 
repeatedly turning and kneeling and presenting his gun at them. When at last he was shot dead it was found that the reason he had 
not fired was because his gun was empty all the time. He was trying to cover 
the retreat of his old people. A half-caste
girl captured had an arm broken by a bullet. The heroic young woman Ahumai 
suffered several bullet wounds during
the retreat.
Of the British, seventeen were killed and thirty-five wounded. The dead and wounded soldiers and the wounded Maoris were 
carried in transport carts back along the rough road to Te Awamutu camp. Most of the Maori dead were buried where they fell, 
scattered over more than a mile of country. Nearly forty men and women were buried in their trenches; the spot is in the field on 
the north side of the road as you drive over 
Orakau. Their parapets were just tumbled in on them. Defeated, but unconquerable.
More than half of the the Urewera or Tuhoe contingent were either killed or 
wounded. Thirty of their dead were left on
the field; three of these were women who had accompanied their husbands on 
the war-path. One of the survivors,
Paitini te Whatu, who was severely wounded and whose father was killed, 
described to me thirty years after the battle
the sorrowful reception of the defeated warriors when they returned to the 
Ruatahuna Valley, in the heart of their mountain land. A great apakura, a lament for the dead, was chanted by all the assembled 
tribesfolk as the survivors entered the village square and stood in silence with bowed heads.
There is a lament of Ngati-Maniapoto for their dead in Taranaki in 1860 that was also applied to Orakau:-
The land is swept and desolate, Mournfully rolls the tide of Puniu, The 
waters sob as they flow.
Rewi's tribe, however, suffered few casualties. The Urewera and Taupo clans lost most heavily.
A noble and touching tribute to the defenders of Orakau appeared in a New 
Zealand newspaper (The Press, Christchurch) on April 16, 1864, when the story of the siege and the capture of the pa became 
known in the Colony. This was 
an editorial article written by that eloquent and warm-hearted pioneer, James Edward Fitzgerald, one of the founders of the 
Canterbury settlement. The principal part of the article was as follows:-
". . . Without food or water they waited the final assault, when the 
messengers of peace made them the last offer – their lives and good treatment if they would but surrender to a fate which was 
inevitable. No human situation can be
conceived more desperate or more hopeless - their lands gone, their race 
melting away like snow before the sun, and now their own turn come at last; with enemies surrounding them on all sides, and 
nothing but certain death staring
them in the face, this is the last answer which they give to a proposal of 
peace and surrender: " Friends, this is the
reply of the Maori -' We will go on fighting for ever, for ever, for ever! ' 
" We make bold to say that in whatever tongue
the colonization of the New Zealand islands by the Anglo-Saxons be written, 
this reply of the last of the Waikatos will
be held for a memorial of them, and men will ask in after times, was it 
good to destroy a race who could so defend
their native land? . . .
But if there be anything in the whole miserable story to excite the 
admiration of a generous mind, it is this sad spectacle of those grim and tawny figures, gaunt with the watching and weariness, 
the wounds and nakedness of a
long campaign in the bush, staring over their ragged palisades on the hosts 
of their conquerors from whom escape was impossible, and wailing out their last chant of death and defiance: 
ake, ake, ake - for ever, for ever, for ever!"
-JAMES COWAN.

A VISIT TO THE MOON.
Let us charter a rocket to take us to the moon,  so that we can actually walk on its surface.
Our rocket must be shot off at a high speed - 6.93 miles a second, at least - for if it starts at lesser speed 
it will merely fall
back to earth, like the shot from an ordinary gun. If it starts with a speed of exactly 6.93 miles a second it 
will just get clear of the
earth's gravity pull, but after it has got clear it will have no appreciable speed left to carry us on our 
journey. Let us start with a
speed of seven miles a second, then it will still have a speed of one mile a second left after it is clear of the earth's pull, and we 
shall reach the moon in a little over two days.
We take only a few seconds to pass through earth's atmosphere, which is relatively hardly thicker 
than the thin skin
of a plum or a peach. As we pass through this, we gradually leave behind us all the particles of 
air, dust, water vapour, and
so on, which scatter the sun's light and make  the sky look blue. As the number of these particles 
decreases, we see
the sky assuming in turn the colours - blue, dark blue, dark violet, and black grey.
Finally we leave the earth's atmosphere beneath us, and see the sky become jet black, except for the 
sun, moon,
and stars. These look brighter they did from the earth, and also bluer -  because none of the blue 
light has been subtracted from
them to make a blue sky. And the stars no longer twinkle at us as they did on earth, because there is no 
atmosphere to disturb the even flow of their light. They seem now to stab our eyes with sharp steely needles of 
light. If we look
back at our earth, we shall see about half of its surface shrouded in mists, clouds, and showers. But in front 
the whole surface
of the moon shines out
perfectly clear; it has no atmosphere to scatter the sun's light, and no fogs and rains to obscure the illumination of its surface.
Naturally this clearness persists after we have arrived on the moon's surface, and far exceeds
anything we have ever experienced on earth. Our
atmosphere is the cause of the soft tones which add so much to a terrestrial landscape - the oranges and reds 
of sunrise and
sunset, the purples and greens of twilight, the blue sky of full day, the purple haze of the 
distance. Here on the moon
there is no atmosphere to break up the sun's rays into their different colours and scatter them - the blue to the 
sky, the red to the
dawn, and so on.
There are really only two colours-sunshine and shadow, white and black; everything in the
sunshine is white, everything else is black. We feel as
though we were in a cinema studio, lighted only by one terribly powerful light - the sun. A valley stays 
utterly in the dark
until the moment when the sun rises over the surrounding mountains; then full day comes with all the 
suddenness of turning on an electric light.
It is clear that, if we want to step out of our rocket and walk about on the moon, we must bring our own air 
with us; we shall
need an
oxygen apparatus, such as the climbers on Mount Everest had. We may perhaps think that the
weight of this will make walking or climbing very arduous, but as soon as we set foot on the soil of the moon, we
shall find that the contrary is the case. The moon contains less than an eightieth part
of the substance of the earth, and so exerts a gravity pull that is much smaller than the earth's - in fact, it is only about a sixth as 
great.
For this reason we find we can carry extraordinary weights without fatigue, and as our
bodies seem to weigh almost nothing, we can jump to great heights. We feel so athletic that we may even 
try to break our
own jumping records. It ought not to be difficult to break both our own and everybody else's; a good high jumper ought

MOUNTAINS ON THE MOON. (Notice the black shadows.)

to jump about thirty-six feet, and the long jump of a fair athlete ought to be at least a hundred and twenty feet. If we feel inspired 
to play  cricket, the ball will simply soar off our bat, so  that, if it is not to be 
entirely a batsman's game, the
pitch and field must both be six times the size they
are on earth. Unfortunately all this will make the game six times as slow, and perhaps cricket played six 
times as slowly
as on earth would not be much of a game after all.
Because there is no atmosphere on the moon there can be no seas, rivers, or water of any kind.
We think of water as a liquid which does not boil until it reaches a temperature of 212 degrees, but if ever 
we picnic high up on
a mountain we find our mistake. We soon discover that water boils more easily and at a lower 
temperature there than
on the
plain below. The reason is that there is less weight of air up on the mountain to keep the tiny 
particles of the liquid pressed down, and so prevent them
flying off by evaporation. If there were no air pressure at all, the water would evaporate no matter
how low its temperature, and this is precisely what would happen on the moon. Clearly then, we shall find
no water on the
moon; we must take drinking-water with us, and it will not be well to pour it out and leave it 
standing; if we do, it will
have disappeared by the time we want to drink it - its particles will have danced off, one by one into space. 
Knowing that there is neither air nor water on the moon, we shall hardly expect to find men or animals, trees or flowers. And in 
actual fact the moon has been observed night after night, year after 
year for centuries,
and no one has ever found any trace of forests, vegetation, or life of any kind. No changes are detected beyond the
alternations of light and of dark, of heat and of cold, as the sun rises and sets over the arid landscapes. The moon is a dead world 
- just a vast reflector poised in space, like a great mirror reflecting the sun's beams down on to us.
-Adapted from " Through Space and Time," by SIR JAMES JEANS. (Cambridge University Press.)

SAFETY FIRST.
AS THE DAYS GROW SHORTER WATCH YOUR STEP.

THE KING IN CAMP.
I was one of the King's guests at the Duke of York's Camp for Boys at 
Southwold, last Tuesday, an honour I shared
with more than four hundred people, and the day was so happy that I still 
feel myself glowing with pleasure. We were
of all sorts, but the majority of us were lads of eighteen. There were 
boys from Belfast and Birmingham, from Glasgow
and Glamorgan, from public schools and elementary schools, from workshops 
and factories of every kind; but they
were all alike in this: that they were the guests of their Sovereign from 
one Saturday to another.
A few oldsters were let into the camp for a few hours - I was one of 
them - but only on condition that they stood up and talked for three minutes, at the end of which time, if they were still talking, 
they were ruthlessly shot down. I was shot without compunction and amid rousing cheers.
The camp, as is now generally known, was founded by His Majesty when he was Duke of York. It is held on a large, municipal 
open space at Southwold, in Suffolk, which has the most enlivening air I have breathed for a long time; and every year the 
camp's founder takes part in its life.
On Tuesday of last week the King left the Royal Yacht, Victoria and 
Albert, which, demurely escorted by a destroyer,
had lain off the coast of Southwold all night, and came ashore on the 
Royal Barge. The sea was choppy, and the King
looked like having a wet landing, but he was put ashore without a drop of 
water, as far as I could see, falling on him.
This was how he was landed. A couple of old fishermen are employed to pull a rowing boat about the camp's bathing place; they 
are the camp lifeguards. About a hundred yards from 
the beach the Royal Barge was stopped, the King hopped out into the rowing boat, 
and was pulled ashore by the two fishermen.
A number of boys from the camp, who were bathing, swam out to guide the 
boat in, but the King, who was afraid they
might be hurt, called to them to keep off. But when the boat was close 
in, the boys caught hold of it and almost lifted
it on to the beach. The King jumped out, and he was immediately 
surrounded by a cheering crowd of his younger
subjects, who told him that he was a jolly good fellow, and photographed him, and then escorted him along the mile of rough 
road that led from the sea to the camp.

THE KING COMING ASHORE.

This was the most informal Royal progress I have ever seen. The King was 
in shorts and was bareheaded, and had
his shirt open at the throat. There was no fuss about his reception. 
Several policemen were present, but more, I think,
because they wanted to have a good look at the King than because they 
thought there was any need to keep order.
The crowd kept order, and allowed the " bobbies " to do a decent bit of 
cheering.
In the camp itself, to which no one not a guest of the King is admitted, 
we spent one of the happiest afternoons I have ever enjoyed. Four hundred boys live in this camp for a week, and 
their circumstances are remarkably varied, but
a visitor would be hard put to it to draw distinctions between them. They 
go to it to be comrades, and comrades they
become, and the example of comradeship is given to them by the King 
himself. In the camp the ease and friendliness
and obvious pleasure of His Majesty are instantly felt.
There was no display of ceremony, no formal reception, no parade of 
soldiery and armed guards, no mouthing or
gesticulation, no holding back the people. It was a King, not a Dictator, 
who had come ashore to spend the day with some of his young countrymen. He sat down to a lunch of lamb and green peas and 
potatoes and gooseberries and custard, with four hundred boys of eighteen; and he went out into the middle of the camp and sang 
their camp action songs as heartily as any of them, and made all the actions of the songs without " funking " once; and he 
enjoyed himself. One small incident shows how quick he is to observe and to act. 
When we were all settled in our positions to
be photographed, His Majesty saw two boy scouts standing a little 
forlornly, looking at us, and he stopped the
photographers. "Let's have these boys in," he called out, and never have 
I seen expression change so swiftly as it did
on those lads' faces.
The King himself was the founder of his camp, and some of the most 
entertaining characteristics are derived from him.
It was he who, walking about the camp one afternoon, heard two working 
lads singing an action song to themselves in
the shelter of some bushes. He went up and joined them, and he was so much entertained by their songs that he made them sing 
that night at the camp concert. The
songs are now part of the camp ritual. Everybody sings them and 
accompanies them with action. The King knows
them by heart and performs all the actions without a mistake.
The camp seems to run itself. Its discipline is strict, but it is 
administered so that there seems to be no discipline.

THE KING TAKING PART IN THE ACTION SONGS.

Nobody fusses anybody; nobody is continually calling 
upon anybody to remember this, that, or
the other; nobody is perpetually sweating himself and other people into a 
foam or hurling his arm at Heaven in
unending salutes. There are no prigs in this camp, nor any bullies. You 
go in to govern yourself. You respect your
Sovereign by respecting your neighbour. It is the happiest camp I have 
ever seen. It has a continuous entertainment, but no one need join in unless he wishes to, with the result that it goes on 
effortlessly, happily, most popularly.
The games include one called " Tooth and Nail or " Blood and Thunder " or 
any other name that you can give it of that
character. It is a mixture of rugger, and soccer, and basketball, and is 
the most exciting game, next to ice hockey,
that I have seen in my life. Forty people play in it, twenty a side, and it 
has only one rule. You must not kill a man
unless he has hold of the ball. It is bad form to slaughter a chap who is 
just running about. You may do anything else
in this game, and you will not be held up by a whistle. If, for instance, 
you take the fancy to run into the sea with the
ball, all right, old chap, that's an idea, but don't grouse if somebody 
goes in after you and ducks you. The King stood
in the crowd to watch this game.
Little boys and girls of Southwold ran up and peeped at him and said, "That's our King! " and ran away to play rounders. People 
sitting on their balconies overlooking the playing-field, pointed him out to their friends and said, "See that chap over there in the 
dark blue sweater, watching the game, that's 
our King! " All the afternoon people stood
around the camp, and when they caught a glimpse of His Majesty they 
cheered. " That's our King! " they said.
After tea His Majesty, looking very happy, went back to the beach and 
entered the old rowing boat; and he was pulled
out to the Royal Barge by the two old fishermen. One of them was a little 
slow in taking off from the beach as the
boat was pushed off into the sea, and the King pulled him aboard. The 
Royal Barge went back to the Royal Yacht, which then moved off towards
Yarmouth, accompanied by the destroyer. So ended a happy day; a happy King among his happy people. 
-ST. JOHN G. ERVINE, in "The Observer." (Adapted.)

SAFETY FIRST.
ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER PLAYING WITH A DOG.

SETTLEMENT IN EARLY NEW ZEALAND.
[This is the third of the articles in the series dealing with early New Zealand. New Zealand's approaching Centennial makes it 
especially interesting to look back at the past history of the Dominion.]
It was not till 1840 that many settlers were brought out by the New 
Zealand Company, but long before that date white men had been living
in New Zealand. It is generally agreed that about two thousand white 
people were in New Zealand before official immigration began. These
people might be divided into four main classes - the missionaries, then the 
whalers, the traders, and a large class of men who got on as
best they could, living usually on the hospitality of some Maori tribe.
 One of the unfortunate things about the earliest white contacts with New 
Zealand was that they were mostly with the extreme northern
districts. These are not so fertile as country farther south, and, 
although in the early days their beautiful kauri timber was much sought
after, they were not  suitable for farming. The missionary farms at Waimate and Kerikeri 
were well run, and the latter was the first place where a plough
was used in New Zealand. The Maoris themselves profited by the 
introduction of seeds and  plants to vary their old
diet; but their cultivation, of potatoes and vegetables, was horticulture 
rather than agriculture, even their wheat being
grubbed in by hand in the rich dark soil of old bush land. The 
missionaries felt their first impulse to farm on their own
account when their children began to grow up and need a profession. Some 
of them bought land, and their sons
looked after the cattle that grazed more or less wild on the unfenced 
ground.
The whalers and sealers had begun to buy land from the tribes who 
occupied the places where they had their stations.

THE MISSION STATION AT KERIKERI.

This was partly to he sure of the protection of the local chiefs, partly to be able to raise some fresh food. Bell, who settled at the 
well-known whaling haunt, Mana 
Island, early in the " eighteen-thirties," was perhaps as much farmer as whaler. He had bad luck with his flock of sheep, as the 
local chief, the warlike Te Rangihaeata, would kill some at any time he felt inclined to have a feast. Nevertheless, some wool 
from Mana Island was sold in Sydney in 1838 and proved of good quality. As late as 1840 there was trouble with Maoris 
plundering these flocks. At the same time
there were wild cattle on Kapiti Island; by the time the whalers were off 
the coasts some two hundred cattle were
running wild on the island.

STAGE FOR A MAORI FEAST.

Sailors would go ashore and shoot them, but the local chiefs, the famous Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, when he was not 
living at Mana, insisted that a musket be paid for every 
carcass taken on board a ship, a high price to
pay for fresh meat.
In the South Island early settlement was confined to a small area round the 
whaling stations - that is, at Cloudy Bay
(Port Underwood), Otago Harbour, Banks Peninsula, and Preservation Inlet. 
There were runaway sailors living at
Codfish Island, off Stewart Island, as early as 1827. In 1839 there were 
cattle running on Banks Peninsula belonging
to Captain Rhodes, who had bought the Peninsula from a man who claimed to 
have bought it from the Maoris before
Captain Langlois, the Frenchman. This is interesting, because the French 
claim to Akaroa was based on the land
that this French whaling skipper thought he had bought in 1838.
The trading part of the population was established principally at the Bay 
of Islands and along the Hokianga River. The
Bay of Islands was a busy port of call for the whalers of all nations, the 
business of supplying the ships with fresh
food being considerable. Besides whalers, purely trading ships called 
during the " eighteen-thirties "; it was a favourite
course for ships going to England from Australia to call at New Zealand for 
a cargo of flax or timber, and then go on to
England round Cape Horn with the prevailing westerly winds. This made the 
Bay of Islands the most active part of New Zealand at the time.
The Hokianga River had a difficult bar, but once the ships had made their entrance, perhaps with the aid of John Martin, the pilot 
who lived at the Hokianga heads, they could go more than twenty miles up the river. This was a great convenience to anyone 
wanting to ship the timber for which the place was famous. It developed a considerable trade
in timber, relatively much more valuable in those days when ships were made 
entirely of wood and in every bad storm
broke spars and even masts, which had to be replaced.
Some sawyers were settled on the river, small men
 who had to put themselves under the protection
 of the Maori tribes. There were also much more
 substantial settlers, like Captain Thomas McDonnell,
 a retired naval officer who had a ship-building yard at Te Horeke and was a regular supplier of the
 British Admiralty with masts and spars. The white
 men at Hokianga nearly all worked hard, whereas
 the inhabitants of Kororareka, the Bay of Islands
 settlement, were often idle and badly behaved in
 spite of the good example of the missionaries.

KORORAREKA BEACH IN 1844.

One of the reasons why the British Government took possession of New 
Zealand was the bad conduct of these white
settlers. The Maori chiefs had in 1835 formed an association called " The 
United Tribes of New Zealand," largely at
the suggestion of the British Resident, James Busby. But though this had been intended as a sort of government, the chiefs were 
too much divided amongst themselves to keep order among the white men or to prevent little wars among their own people. The 
Maoris were able to see how much good a real 
government could do them, and they actually asked that King William the Fourth should protect them. It was not till 1840, when
Queen Victoria was on the throne, that this request was granted. It is 
well to remember that the British Government
of the day was much more concerned to see that the Maoris were protected 
than to settle New Zealand with white
farmers.
In the meantime the white residents of New Zealand and the Maoris got on as 
best they could. During the " eighteen-thirties " a movement began that was to do great harm to the Maori people. 
White men were beginning to realize the
possibilities of New Zealand for farming settlement. They began to buy land 
from the Maoris, usually for prices much
below its real value, though men who bought special bits of ground - for 
instance, near Kororareka - had to pay quite heavily for it. Part of the trouble was caused by powerful chiefs selling land 
belonging to the whole tribe for presents
given only to them. The ordinary members of the tribe did not dare to protest against this unfair treatment. However, when the 
British Government had established its authority, it set up a commission which investigated all the claims of white men to have 
bought land from the Maoris, and gave them as much land as the price they had actually paid warranted.
The idea that New Zealand was to be a great farming country grew very slowly. The early settlers were more interested in their 
trade or their whaling than in developing the country. 
Edward Gibbon Wakefield and his New Zealand Company were the first to realize New Zealand's farming possibilities.
-Supplied by the National Historical Committee.

NATURES REVENGE.
It took millions of years to prepare the earth as a home for man, and the 
many ways in which he sees fit to lay it
waste reflect on him little credit. Through short-sightedness, 
carelessness, and selfishness, in the comparatively short time he has inhabitated the earth he has wrought untold harm and havoc 
to its surface. In a country as small as
New Zealand may be seen endless examples of despoliation of the land brought about in the brief hundred years that the white 
man has lived here.
This is not only a matter for sentimental regret; it is a problem which, if not attacked and solved, will result in large tracts of our 
rich and fertile country becoming eventually more or less sterile and useless, and no longer capable of supporting ourselves or 
those that come after us. It takes a terrible disaster like the Esk Valley flood in Hawke's Bay in 1938, when a beautiful fertile 
valley with prosperous productive farms was utterly devastated, to make us pause and think and then take steps to arrest, if 
possible, the harm that is being  done, and to avert future similar catastrophes.
First of all, let us study the causes of sudden and destructive floods, of 
which the Esk flood may be taken as an
example. The steep high hills bordering the river valley were originally 
clad with native forest. At the foot of the tall
trees grew the dense undergrowth characteristic of New Zealand bush, and 
covering and protecting the earth was a
thick spongy carpet of mosses, creepers, seedlings, and fallen leaves. 
Rain, however heavy and continuous, falling on
the forest was drunk up, and soaked up by the trees and floor covering. Any 
excess moisture seeped away and
trickled slowly down the hillsides, forming streamlets which, reaching the river gradually filled it, perhaps to its brim, but did not 
swell its volume so suddenly that it could not carry
away the surplus water without overflowing its banks.
That is what happened under natural conditions; then the white settler 
came and interfered with Nature's scheme.
With axe and fire he worked to remove the forest, even from the highest 
and steepest slopes, which could be of little
use to him; and now only a few small patches of bush remain on the once 
verdure-clad hills. On the steep faces there
was left, however, the surface soil, an inch depth of which, it is said, 
takes a thousand years to form. Well, animals
like sheep, goats, and cattle were put to feed on these upper slopes, and 
in a few years they ate, and destroyed with their feet, the green protective covering, leaving little or nothing to hold the precious 
soil together or bind the shingle
and support the stony glides. And to-day, when the rains come, what happens!
As there is no forest on the hills to soak up and control the water, instead of seeping gradually away, it pours in torrents down the 
naked slopes, fast flooding the river, whose banks are unable to hold the suddenly increased volume of water. The swollen river 
rushes and tears its way along, bursting its banks, covering the lowlands with
water, drowning stock, carrying away bridges, destroying homes and farms.
It is only, however, after the flood waters have subsided that the worst 
part of the damage is revealed. Those mountain
torrents brought down with them not only fine soil, but also masses of 
clay, gravel, stones, and rock. Great quantities
of the good soil, or fine silt, are carried by the river right out to 
sea, and so, very unfortunately, lost. The discoloration
of the sea at the mouth of a flooded river indicates only too clearly the vast quantity of soil that has been carried away. The 
coarser and rougher soil, the stones and debris are not carried so far, but are deposited by the river on the lowlands. In the case of 
the Esk Valley, this deposit is several feet deep, the farmers' good earth being
buried probably for all time beneath it. Fences are buried, buildings 
wrecked, but the greatest loss is, of course, that of the fertile farm lands.
Travelling through the hills that form the Esk's watershed, one sees great 
sears or slips where sheet erosion has
taken place, and the topsoil and vegetative covering have been carried 
away. In many parts a large proportion of the
previously green hillside is now clay or rocky bank, not only useless in 
itself, but a constant menace to any pastures
left on the lowlands. Future rains can easily dislodge this loosened clay 
and rock, tumbling it down into the flooded river, which will deposit it where it pleases, again burying farm lands and 
turning them into desolate wastes.
As has been said, the Esk flood has taught us a lesson, and now an effort 
is to be made to remedy the position and
to check the peril. Where the forest on the hills has not already been 
destroyed, it should be carefully preserved.
Even if the big timber is allowed to be removed, the smaller trees, 
undergrowth, and floor covering must never be touched. Where the forest has unfortunately already been removed, new trees 
should be planted. They will not be as
useful or as beautiful as the native forest, but they will serve to protect the surface of the hills and to control the
moisture. Another very important precaution is not to allow farm or wild 
animals on to the high country, where, by the
constant stirring of their feet and the nibbling of the low plants that bind the rocky slides, they loosen the surface and
start the trouble.
To preserve the forest where it is not already too late; the first thing to 
do is to prevent its worst foe - man with his mill and axe and fire - from having his own way. Then, besides the man whose 
avowed aim is to remove the forest, there is the one who through carelessness accidentally destroys the bush - he who in dry 
weather drops or throws from a
train window a burning match, or lights a fire close to the trees, or 
does not properly quench a fire in the bush. Any
one of us may be that thoughtless one who, perhaps without knowing it, 
becomes the author of a devastating forest
fire.
Other enemies of the native forest are such animals as deer, goats, 
opossums, and pigs. Some of these destroy the
carpet of moss and leaves that holds the moisture and feeds and keeps 
warm the roots of the trees. Others rub and
eat the bark off the tree-trunks, while others again feed on the leaves, 
break the branches, and trample down the
young saplings. If the forest is to remain, steps must be taken to rid it 
of these destructive pests.
Just as the native birds depend on the forest for food and shelter, so 
the forest depends on the birds for its very life.
The birds help the forest principally by waging war on the insects which, 
if left unchecked, would devour every leaf,
bud, flower, and shoot, and in so short a time as ten years, it is said, 
reduce the forest to nothingness. By scattering
the seeds and bearing the pollen from flower to flower, the birds also 
assist in the preservation and regeneration of the
forest. If, then, the forest is to be kept, the native birds must be 
protected and encouraged to breed. This is well worth
doing for the sake of the birds alone, which are themselves a gracious 
gift of Nature, and it becomes doubly important
when their valuable service to the native bush is considered.
Now that we understand that our forests are to be cherished and 
preserved, not only for their unique beauty and
usefulness, but also because in very many instances they are essential to our life on the land, we shall doubtless, as we grow up, 
use our influence in saving and protecting them. We will ponder, too, the wonderful ways of Nature, and pause to consider very 
carefully before we interfere with the balanced scheme devised in her infinite wisdom, and carried out with success through 
countless ages.

THE PUKEKO.
The pukeko is a large handsome and graceful bird frequenting our lagoons 
and swamps, and apparently revelling in
those moist surroundings. It is one of New Zealand's few large birds, and 
because of this and its attractive
appearance, not to mention its confiding friendliness, we should set a high 
value on it and do our best to protect it.
There is a short open season for pukekos, but a sportsman is hardly worthy 
of the name who would kill birds that for
fifty weeks of the year have been led to trust man's good intentions 
towards them, and are thus taken unawares when
suddenly attacked.
" Red-head " is one name given to the pukeko because of its massive 
bright-red beak and frontal shield. Its eyes and
long stilt-like legs are also a cherry red. The plumage of its breast is a 
beautiful indigo blue, and, as it flicks its tail at
each step, a white patch of feathers is momentarily revealed, the bird thus 
disporting itself in the colours of our
national flag. The rest of its plumage is glossy black, and the pukeko 
picking its way with drooped wings and
constantly flicking tail, through the reeds and rushes, must be regarded as 
a charming ornament of our country-side.
The bird is a fast runner and, although its large feet are not webbed, a 
good swimmer, and it can dive when
necessary. In flying it rises from the ground somewhat awkwardly, with wings flapping hurriedly and long legs dangling for a 
few moments before they are stretched out behind. Once under way, the pukeko flies moderately well, but does not usually make 
long flights.

THE PUKEKO.

It is a semi-nocturnal bird and may sometimes be heard flying at night and tittering its not very musical call. To escape from 
danger it takes to its legs rather than to its wings, running swiftly to cover with head lowered. All rails, of which the pukeko is 
one, skulk in 
this manner, and whether the pukeko, conscious of its showy red beak, is trying to hide it is a point upon which observers are not 
quite agreed.
The pukeko feeds chiefly on water weeds and vegetable matter, but it also 
eats worms, grubs, and insects. It has
been blamed for robbing the farmer of his wheat and oats, but careful 
investigations have gone to show that the bird is
not guilty of any serious charges, and that it more than pays for any 
small toll it may make on the crops by its
services in killing insect and grub pests. Meals are searched for and 
eaten in the morning and evening, the pukeko
hiding among the flaxes, reeds, and rushes during most of the day. At 
feeding time it may be seen working busily along the edge of the raupo, pulling up the roots of herbage with a sharp tug of the 
red bill, then like a parrot holding a
clump of vegetation in one claw and picking out the titbits.
The pukeko's simply built nest of short willow wands, dried or green 
grasses, and raupo blades is rounded and
shaped to the bird's needs, having been placed sometimes on the top of a 
rush bush, totally exposed to the sky, and
at other times at the base of a flax clump or rush bush, where it is to 
some extent sheltered from above. The large
eggs are stone-grey in colour with brown and mauve markings, and the 
number in a nest varies according to whether
it is being used by one or more hen birds. As many as seventeen eggs have 
been found in a nest, in which case each
mother bird took her share of the chicks as they were hatched.
The nests, being placed in swampy ground and sometimes surrounded by 
water, are safe from horses or cattle, the
boggy surface often not supporting even the weight of a man. Danger may 
come from above in the shape of a marauding hawk. The pukekos join forces 
against an attack, of this kind, and are usually
able to drive off the enemy.
At first, the almost naked chicks with their bald heads, great gaping 
mouths, and pink beaks are grotesque little
creatures. Soon they are clad in thick blackish-blue down tipped on the upper parts with silver; they are then like little balls of 
velvet.
PUKEKO EGGS AND CHICKS.

They leave the nest almost as soon as hatched, and when only a day old they are adepts in the art of hiding. Running to the 
nearest tussock they remain flattened against it and are most difficult to see. There they remain without moving a muscle until the 
parent bird gives the signal " all clear."

In order to preserve the woodlands and garden beauty for which the Island of Madeira is famous, everyone who cuts down a tree 
is required by law to plant another in its place.

SAFETY FIRST.
NEVER TOUCH GUNS OR OTHER FIREARMS.

On the evening of the 18th May there were broadcast from stations of the National 
Broadcasting Service two messages of peace and goodwill, one from the children of
Wales and one, a reply,  from the children of New Zealand.
In introducing the speakers the Director of the National Broadcasting Service (Professor Shelley) said that the18th May was the 
fortieth anniversary of the first Peace Conference, a Conference which at The Hague in Holland first drew
the nations to ether to discuss the great problem of peace among the 
peoples of the world. On the 18th May for the
past eighteen years, said Professor Shelley, the children of Wales had 
broadcast in several languages a message of
goodwill to the children of the world. He then called upon Canon Davies to 
deliver this message:
" This is Wales calling! The boys and girls of Wales are calling the 
boys and girls of all the world !
"We rejoice to think that, above the tumult, on this one day of the year, 
we can greet each other as members of one
great family, the family of the nations of the future.
"The world is full of suffering, cruelty, and strife. And we are told 
that civilization may perish. Let us tell the world that
civilization shall not perish,
" More than ever the world needs what we alone can give - the confidence 
and the comradeship of youth.
" May we then, on this goodwill day, dedicate ourselves afresh to the 
service of our fellows in ever-widening circles, to the service of our home, of our neighbourhood, of our country, so that our 
country may better serve the world to
which we all belong.
"So shall we, millions of us, grow up to be the friends of all and the enemies of none."
In replying on behalf of the children of New Zealand, Dr. McIlraith, 
Chief Inspector of Primary Schools, said:
"Girls and boys of Wales
" Once again from afar has come your message of goodwill and a call to 
do our best to free the world from trouble and care.
To such a call we give a warm and ready welcome.
Though fear is in the hearts of many at the present time, we refuse to 
believe that the nations cannot live together in
peace and happiness.
Therefore we, the girls and boys of New Zealand, shall join with you living and working 
so that the day may come soon when the
peoples of all nations will cast away bitterness and hate and live 
together in peace and understanding, sharing the
good things which nature so freely gives, and determined to see that 
there is peace, with plenty and security for all."

LIFE ON BOARD EMIGRANT SHIPS.
The New Zealand Company was responsible for most of the settlement of our country in its first twenty 
years. Next year New Zealand celebrates its Centennial as a possession of
the British Crown and it is an effective contrast to look into the conditions of life on board the emigrant ships of 1840 and to 
compare them with the great luxury liners 
that will be bringing visitors to New Zealand to see the Centennial Exhibition and
the many other things we have to interest them.

THE LAST OF ENGLAND.
[From the painting by Madox Brown.

The New Zealand Company was founded firmly on the idea of class distinction. There were three classes 
on board its ships. There was the cabin or "cuddy," the first class, in which
the gentlemen who had bought land in the company's settlements travelled with their families. The 
cabin was usually aft, and the people in it had the advantage of looking out at the
wake of the ship through the wide stern windows. The first class also had accommodation in the waist 
of the ship.
Only the bigger ships carried a second cabin, though some ships, as in our own days, carried nothing 
but second - class passengers. The third class, or " emigrants," as they were
usually called, were accommodated amidships. They had their cabins built against the side of the 
ship, each about six feet square - the distance from floor to ceiling was never more
than seven feet - and the long space in the middle was occupied by tables at which the emigrants had 
their meals. The second cabin passengers fared little better than the emigrants,
though they usually did not have to do so much for themselves.
The emigrants, who had split up into "messes" of six people, had to collect and cook their own food. 
This usually meant queuing up for a place at the galley stoves to cook their
breakfast porridge, a process that might occupy as much as an hour. Hot water was served out to them 
by the ship's cooks for their coffee or tea. At dinner the meat and vegetables
served out to each mess were put into a net which was placed in the common pot with a wooden 
identification label carefully attached. There was plenty of food usually, and some
meat would probably be left over to have cold for tea with the ship's biscuits which filled up the 
odd corners. Many of the emigrants were fed a good deal better on board than they
wore at home.
The ship's surgeon had a large stock of special food, which he gave out to anyone who was in poor 
health. It is important to remember that scurvy was a thing of the past in 1840.
Captain Cook's experiments had shown how it could be avoided seventy years before. In that time, too, 
discoveries had been made of new methods of preserving food. Young
children suffered most, but it was rare for more than two or three to die on the three months' voyage.
The people in the " cuddy " were much better fed than the emigrants. Pigs, sheep, and fowls were 
carried so that they might enjoy fresh meat for the first part of the voyage. A cow
in milk was often shipped also, but it rarely lived long away from land. The cabin passengers spent a 
good deal of time reading or teaching their children. They organized debates,
balls, and games. A favourite diversion was climbing up into the rigging, where it was pleasant to 
sit on a fine day. The sailors always made a passenger " pay his footing" when he
first climbed one of the masts, traditional tribute usually cheerfully paid. Then Neptune came on 
board and held his riotous court when the ship crossed the Equator. But whatever
their amusements, the cabin passengers were far less comfortably quartered than the third-class 
passengers on modern boats.
The surgeon was in charge of the emigrants on behalf of the company. He was responsible not only for 
their health, but also their conduct. He organized a school in which the
emigrants who could read and write taught those who could not, both children and grown-ups. In those 
days ordinary people did not always have the same opportunity of going to
school as they have to-day. The surgeon also had to get the emigrants up on deck as often as weather 
permitted, or the
time they spent cooking, for cooking and eating meals occupied about half their day. The amidships 
space was kept clean by the emigrants, and they scrubbed out their cabins
regularly.
A ship was considered large in those days if it was over four hundred tons. Some of these ships 
carried 150 emigrants, besides twenty or thirty cabin passengers. Although life was
very cramped on board, the deck itself being littered with the pens of animals in the first part of the voyage, there were not many 
quarrels.

EMIGRANTS' HOUSES AT NEW PLYMOUTH.

The captain occasionally resented the authority of the surgeon, which in some matters overrode his own. The emigrants 
squabbled about their small possessions, but considering the discomforts there were to try the temper, it is amazing how seldom 
the surgeon had to call for the help of the "constables" he had appointed from among the emigrants.
The ships almost always sailed out round the Cape of Good Hope and then straight across to New Zealand in the " Roaring 
Forties." They sometimes touched at Madeira or at Cape Town, very 
welcome opportunities to go ashore and get fresh provisions. They avoided
Australia, because the company was always afraid the emigrants might desert when tempted by the 
offer of high wages in the older settlements. The sight of an occasional
rocky island, like Tristan da Cunha or St. Paul's Island, reminded the weary travellers that their 
journey would some day end. They looked out eagerly for flying fish, porpoises,
and whales to relieve the monotony of a voyage that might last four months.

NELSON IN 1842. 

The New Zealand Company had selected its emigrants very carefully regarding both their character and physique. It took great 
care of them
on the voyage out, and made elaborate preparations for their reception on arrival. "Barracks " were quickly erected at Port 
Nicholson to receive families that could not fend for
themselves. At Nelson the men went out first and put up buildings before their families followed 
them. At New Plymouth the company had suitable buildings built of raupo by the
local Maoris before the emigrant ships arrived. Arrangements at Otago and Lyttelton later on were 
even more carefully thought out. 
It paid the company well to take care of its people. They arrived full of health and hope, ready for 
the immense task they had set themselves of breaking in their new country.
Supplied by the National Historical Committee.

THE MIDDLE OF THE EARTH.
It is believed that the inner portion of the earth is really composed of heavier materials than the 
outer portion, but we cannot hope to obtain much information about it. The deepest
mine-shafts go down to a depth of several thousand feet only - equivalent to a mere scratch on the 
earth's surface. Near the surface the temperature increases rapidly inwards, about
1' F. for every two hundred feet. It may be inferred that the interior is hot. Active volcanoes and 
warm springs provide direct evidence of this internal heat.
Some information about the nature of the interior can be obtained from the study of earthquake waves. 
An earthquake is the result of a sudden displacement of a portion of the
outer solid crust of the earth usually occurring at some distance beneath the surface. Just as 
plucking a violin string sets it into vibration, so the sudden displacement starts
vibrations, which travel in all directions from the region of the disturbance.
By means of sensitive instruments, called seismographs, these vibrations can be detected thousands of 
miles away from the earthquake. Some of the vibrations or waves travel round the surface
of the earth; others travel through the interior. The waves are of two kinds, which have been called 
" push " and " shake " waves. In the " push " waves the vibrations take place to and fro along the
direction in which the wave travels. In the "shake" waves the vibrations take place in the direction 
perpendicular to that in which the wave travels.
The study of the way in which the various waves travel across or through the earth is difficult and 
complicated. From such investigations it is concluded that the earth has a hot liquid core with a
radius of about two thousand miles. It is believed that it is mainly composed of metals, principally 
iron, with probably a certain amount of nickel. Outside the liquid core is the solid crust of heavy
rocks. The lighter surface layer, composed mainly of granitic rocks, is estimated to reach to a depth 
of only forty or fifty miles.
-From " Worlds Without End," by M. SPENCER JONES. (Hodder and Stoughton.)

SAFETY FIRST.
LEAVE HOME EARLY TO AVOID HURRYING TO SCHOOL.

THE SOUTH POLE.
We had a great piece of work before us that day: nothing less than 
carrying our flag farther south than the foot of man
had ever trod. We had our silk flag ready; it was made fast to two 
ski-sticks and laid on Hanssen's sledge. I had given him orders that as soon as we had covered the distance to 88' 23' south, 
which was Shackleton's farthest south, the
flag was to be hoisted on his sledge. It was my turn as forerunner, and I pushed on.
There was no longer any difficulty in holding one's course; I had the 
grandest cloud-formations to steer by, and
everything now went like a machine. First came the forerunner for the 
time being, then Hanssen, then Wisting, and
finally Bjaaland. The forerunner that was not on duty went where he liked; as a rule he accompanied one or other of the sledges. I 
had long ago 
fallen into a reverie - what I thought about I
do not remember now, but I was so much preoccupied that I had entirely 
forgotten my surroundings. Then suddenly I
was roused from my dreaming by a jubilant shout, followed by ringing 
cheers. I turned round quickly to discover the
reason of this unwonted occurrence, and stood speechless and overcome.

ROALD AMUNDSEN.

I find it impossible to express the feelings that possessed me at this 
moment. All the sledges had stopped, and from
the foremost of them the Norwegian flag was flying. It shook itself out, 
waved and flapped so that the silk rustled: it
looked wonderfully well in the pure clear air and the shining white 
surroundings. 88' 23' was passed; we were farther
south than any human being had been. No one moment of the whole trip 
affected me like this. The tears forced their way to my eyes; by no effort of will 
could I keep them back. It was the flag yonder
that conquered me and my
will. Luckily I was some way in advance of the others, so that I had time 
to pull myself together and master my
feelings before reaching my comrades. We all shook hands with mutual 
congratulations; we had won our way far by
holding together, and we would go farther yet - to the end.
We did not pass that spot without according our highest tribute of 
admiration to the man who, together with his
gallant companions, had planted his country's flag so infinitely nearer 
to the goal than any explorer before him - Sir
Ernest Shackleton's name will always be written in the annals of 
Antarctic exploration in letters of fire. Pluck and grit
can work wonders, and I know of no better example of this than what that 
man accomplished.
After much consideration and discussion, we had come to the conclusion 
that we ought to lay down a depot - the last one --- at this spot. The advantages of lightening our sledges were so great that we 
should have to risk it. Nor would
there be any great risk attached to it after all, since we should adopt a 
system of marks that would lead even a blind
man back to the place. We had determined to mark it not only at right 
angles to our course, but by snow beacons at
every two miles to the south.
We stayed here on the following day to arrange this depot. The warmth of 
the past few days seemed to have matured
our frost-sores and we presented an awful appearance. It was Wisting, 
Hanssen, and I that had suffered the worst
damage ,in the last south-east blizzard; the left side of our faces was one mass of bad sores. We looked like the worst type of 
tramp and ruffian, and should
probably not have been recognized by our nearest
relatives. The slightest gust of wind produced a
sensation like having one's face cut backwards and
forwards with a blunt knife.
 December 9th arrived with the same fine weather
and sunshine. True we felt our frost-sores rather
sharply that day, with 18.4' F. and a little breeze
dead against us, but that could not be helped. We
at once began to put up beacons, a work which was
continued with great regularity right up to the Pole.
 Every step we now took in advance brought us
rapidly nearer the goal; we could feel fairly certain
of reaching it on the afternoon of the 14th. It
was very natural that our conversation should be
chiefly concerned with the time of arrival. None of
us would admit that he was nervous, but I am
inclined to think that we all had a touch of that
malady. What should we see when we got there?
A vast endless plain that no eye had yet seen, and
no foot yet trodden, or . . . ? No it was an
impossibility; with the speed at which we had 
travelled we must reach the goal first, there could
be no doubt about that. And yet - and yet . . .
Whenever there is the smallest loophole, doubt
creeps in and gnaws and gnaws and never leaves
a poor wretch in peace.
 The weather during the forenoon of the 13th had been just as fine as before; in the afternoon we had some snow-showers from 
the south-east. It was like the eve of some great festival that night in the tent. One could feel that. a great event was at
hand. Our flag was taken out again and lashed to the same two ski-sticks as before. Then it was rolled up and laid aside to be 
ready when the time came. I was awake several times during the-night, and had the same feeling as I can remember when a little 
boy on the night 
before Christmas Eve - an intense expectation of what was going
to happen.
On the morning of December 14th the weather was of the finest, just as if 
it had been made for arriving at the Pole. By noon we had
reached 89' 53' by dead reckoning, and made ready to take the rest in one 
stage. A light south-east breeze had sprung up, and it had
clouded over so that we got no noon altitude, but the clouds were not 
thick, and
from time to time we got a glimpse of the sun through them. The going on 
that day was rather different from what it had been; some times
the ski went over it well, but at other times it was pretty bad. We 
advanced in the same mechanical way as before; not much was said, but
eyes were used all the more. Hanssen's neck grew twice as long as before in 
his endeavour to see a few inches farther. I had asked him,
before we started, to spy out ahead for all he was worth, and he did so 
with a vengeance. But however keenly he stared, he could descry
nothing but the endless plain ahead of us.
At three in the afternoon a simultaneous "Halt!" rang out from the drivers. 
They had carefully examined their sledge-meters, and they all
showed the full distance - our Pole by reckoning. The goal was reached; the 
journey ended. I cannot say - though I know it would sound
much more effective - that the object of my life was attained. That would be 
romancing rather too barefacedly. I had better be honest and
admit straight out that I have never known any man to be placed in such an 
exactly opposite position to the goal of his desires as I was at
that moment. The regions round the North Pole - well, yes, the North Pole 
itself - had attracted me from childhood, and here I was at the South Pole. Could anything more topsy-turvy be imagined?  
We reckoned now that we were at the Pole. Of course everyone of us knew 
that we were not standing on the absolute spot; it would be an
impossibility with the time and the instruments
at our disposal to ascertain that exact spot. But we were so near it that 
the few miles which possibly separated us from it could not be of
the slightest importance. It was our intention to make a circle round 
this camp, with a radius of 12 ½ miles, and to be satisfied with that.
After we had halted we collected and congratulated one another. We had good grounds for mutual 
respect in what we
had achieved, and I think that was just the feeling that was expressed in the firm and powerful 
grasps of the fist that
were exchanged. We then proceeded to the greatest and most solemn act of the whole journey - the planting of our flag. Pride and 
affection shone in the five pairs of eyes that gazed upon the flag as it unfurled 
itself with a sharp crack
and waved over the Pole.
I had determined that the act of planting it - the historic event - should be equally divided among us 
all. It was not for one
man to do this; it was for all who had staked their lives in the struggle, and held together through 
thick and thin. This
was the only way in which I could show my gratitude to my comrades in this desolate spot. Five 
weather-beaten frost-bitten fists they were that grasped the pole, raised the waving flag in the air, and planted it as 
the first at the
geographical South Pole. " Thus we plant thee, beloved flag, at the South Pole and give to the plain 
on which it lies
the name of King Haakon VII's Plateau." That moment will certainly be remembered by all of us who 
stood there-
December 14, 1911.
-From " The South Pole," by ROALD AMUNDSEN.

At first all goes well. It is a story about soldiers. That is quite clear. It is perhaps an invasion by a victorious enemy.
At any rate, the soldiers are coming. And the central point from which the story is being told is obviously a house in which are 
two people. A husband and wife? Or a mother and child? We cannot tell at first. So we go on reading, still full of confidence. 
Courage! The story as it develops will make all things clear.
But stay-" What are they doing with all that gear? " What indeed are they 
doing? It cannot be an invasion after all,
since we are told that they are only performing the usual manoeuvres. The 
local militia, perhaps; but that does not
account for the emotion of our two people in the house – "Why are you 
kneeling? "
No, the soldiers must mean something sinister and deadly to the people in 
the house. Let us forget that awkward
remark about " the usual manoeuvres,'' and go back to our original idea 
of a hostile force attacking. Then the story
should continue with their gradual progress (stanza by stanza) up the 
valley, sacking and pillaging as they go, until at
last they reach our house. They break down the door, they enter and 
(climax!) our hero and heroine are left to face the tender
mercies of the invader.  
That makes a fine swinging story; but something has gone wrong. Nothing 
of the sort happens. The soldiers appear to
be behaving very oddly. They do not stop at the doctor's (you would not 
perhaps expect that seeing that " they are
none of them wounded"); but they do not stop at the parson's, either; or 
at the farmhouse, which, since we are told
that the farmer is a clever man of business, might be presumed to be well 
worth plundering. No, they are making
straight for our house, and, what is more, they have evidently received 
orders to proceed at the double.
Then, what is happening behind that locked and bolted door? A very odd 
thing. We see now that the two occupants of
the house must be husband and wife, for the one has made vows to the 
other, to stay with her, to love and cherish
her. That must be the marriage vow. But does he stay with her at that 
moment when the need for his protection is so
great? He does not. He does not even say that he is sorry. He simply 
tells her that he must be leaving.
 We begin to wonder if our first idea of an enemy advancing was the right one. May it not be that the soldiers were soldiers of the 
king, and the
husband, being a reservist, tears himself away from
his young wife to answer the call of duty. This
would explain his conduct, and on these lines we can
make a kind of sense out of the poem. Our simple
story creaks a little here and there, but still remains
a story. The soldiers are friendly, though the
husband, knowing their errand, is naturally upset
when he first catches sight of   them. " I don't want to leave you, but I feel I ought to go," he says to his wife, as the regiment with 
which he is to join up arrives at the 
door. (It is odd, of course, that they arrive at the
double.)
There is still, however, the final stanza. We begin on it, and bang goes 
all the logic of our story! The friendly soldiers
break the lock and splinter the door.
"Their feet are heavy on the floor,
And their eyes are burning."
Surely they must be hostile troops, the advance guard of an invading army? 
But, if so, the story seems a queer sort
of muddle. Like a chameleon, it seems to change colour, stanza by stanza.
Now supposing we abandon all idea of a connected narrative in the poem, and 
let our imagination work upon each
stanza as it comes, not bothering about its exact and literal connection 
with what has gone before. There is, of
course, one obvious connection. We begin with the soldiers and the two 
people in the house, and we finish with them.
They are, in fact, continuously present throughout the whole poem. But we 
are not now looking for a clear connected
story. We are not worrying about the soldiers, as to whether they are an 
invading enemy or local troops drilling, or
about the exact relationship between the two in the house - mother and child, or husband and wife, or any other that may occur to 
us.
They lend us their eyes, and we share their anxious feelings at the first 
glimpse of a red-coat in the valley. We watch
the soldiers' movements. We see them change their direction, and, pretend, 
as we may, that it is only innocent
drilling, we have
a dreadful suspicion of the goal for which they are making. We see them 
pass by all the other houses - the doctor's, the parson's, even the farmer's "so cunning." Is he cunning 
because he has made money out of farming
or because, with soldiers about, he knows how to sell to friend or foe and 
make a good thing out of it ? No matter; we
do not stop to bother. What matters is that our suspicion is no longer a 
suspicion. They are coming, and that spells
tragedy. " Dear, I must be leaving." Whether he leaves her to answer the 
call of duty, or to fly like a coward, or to die
in defence of all that he holds dear, what difference can it make? In any 
case it means the breaking-up of that
peaceful little home. The soldiers are running now. You hear the crash of 
the door as the lock breaks and they force
their way in . . .
There the story ends; and reading it like this, letting our imagination run 
free and surrendering ourselves to the
mounting tide of feeling, what have we made of it now? At any rate, we have 
succeeded in making sense of it. It may
not be quite the same sense as we should have made out of a single 
old-fashioned ballad, but is it a worse kind of
sense, or less real, or less exciting?
The story is not of any particular pair of human beings or any particular 
body of soldiers, hence we do not need
precise names or labels. It covers any and every united pair, mother and 
child, husband and wife, man and maid; and
it covers any and all that follow the trade of war. Our simple 
straightforward ballad, our plain tale of adventure or daring
has vanished, but there is left a poem which, if we read it in the right 
way, gives us as much satisfaction, although of a different kind, as any " Young Lochinvar."
-Based on "Introduction to Modern Poetry," by MARTIN GILKES. (Blackie; 
price, 2s. 4d.)

SAFETY FIRST.
NEVER PUT CELLULOID NEAR A FLAME.

SAFETY FIRST.
BEFORE STEPPING OFF THE FOOT PATH, LOOK RIGHT, THEN LEFT.

CONQUEST WITH A CAMERA.
The conquest of the animal world - with a camera ! Does a camera seem to you so much less exciting than a rifle?
You will not think so if you are really fond of animals, for your love of wild creatures will make you want to see how they 
behave when they are alone and unmolested. No wild creature acts in his usual manner if he knows he is being watched or 
pursued, and many big-game hunters, using the rifle rather than the camera, have never 
seen a lion playful, or domestic, or making love. A frightened and enraged animal, making a last magnificent 
spring before the
bullet enters the brain, is the only picture such hunters carry away in their mind's eye.
The modern hunter of lions never uses a rifle unless he is in great danger. He carries away pictures 
not only in his
mind's eye, but -on his photographic plate for all the world to see. He watches the amusing scenes of 
animal life right
through to their end, knowing that he need not cut them short with the crack of his gun. It is little 
wonder that more
and more hunters are giving up the gun in favour of the camera.
Some of the most remarkable and successful photographs of wild creatures have been taken in the Kruger National Park in South 
Africa. This park is not the kind of park we see in our cities with trees and flower-beds and swans on a
pond. It is an area of fourteen thousand square miles of jungle country, where animals and birds live 
under natural
conditions and people may not harm or disturb them. Here in this tropical climate, steamy and 
oppressive for five
months of the year but beautifully warm for the other seven, a well-known photographer was able to go about quietly making 
friends with the wild creatures and studying them.
He took photographs of many animals, but no wild creature interested him 
so much as the lion. He soon discovered that lions are good-natured and rather lazy. So long as the photographer 
does not actually disturb them, they will
allow him to take a good many liberties. It is better to approach them in 
the heat of the day when they are resting, than in the early morning or evening. What is more, they take far less notice of a closed 
car than of a man on foot.
The drone of a car engine does not appear to disturb the beasts, and they 
have not learnt to associate the smell of petrol with the smell of man.

CLOSE-UP PHOTOGRAPH OF A LION.

Because of this a lion has seldom been known to charge a car. He may come right up to it, with friendly curiosity, anxious to 
know what sort of beast it is; but, unless the
motorist loses his head and shouts or blows his horn, the lion will soon 
walk away again. It is a frightened lion that is most likely to attack.
Old ideas about the photography of animals are changing. " Stalk him, 
take your photograph, and run! " photographers used to say; or " Snap him before he snaps you!" Lion 
photography is no longer like that. The
lion, when in a good temper, will allow one to take several photos of him. 
As for running, it is one of the most
dangerous things that one can do. A lion is like a dog: it will run after 
anything that runs away.
One day our photographer spent three-quarters of an hour photographing a 
lioness from a distance of about five yards.
He saw her lying under the shadow of some bush not far from  a large stone. 
If only she could be coaxed a little
nearer he might get some excellent photographs! He worked his way close to 
the stone and set up his camera. Then
he rubbed some biscuit in his hands to give it a human smell, and 
cautiously he pitched the biscuit on to the stone.
The lioness came closer and sniffed at the biscuit, and the photographer 
took his first picture. The lioness settled
down besides the stone, and there was silence for five minutes. Then the 
photographer whistled.
She flattened her ears and swung her tail - another picture! By making various 
sounds the camera-man was able to take her in several different poses. There was a further silence. Then came a rustle from the 
scrub and an impala
appeared, making his way to the water. Losing her interest in the 
photographer, the lioness now gave all her attention
to the chances of a kill. She stared at the impala, and her tail 
twitched - another picture, this time of a lioness preparing to attack! With good fortune a picture might have been secured of a 
lioness springing on her prey; but luck
deserted the camera-man. The impala took fright and ran; the lioness sank back again in the grass; and the photographer slipped 
quietly away.
It is one thing to believe that a lion is friendly, and quite another thing to approach him and find out just how friendly he is. Even 
the experienced photographer feels a 
little uneasy when he is at close quarters with
a lion. It is true that an attacking lion cannot be mistaken, but an 
inquisitive lion may cause one some anxious
moments, and to be at close quarters with a lion may be anything but fun.
One day some photographers in a car were at unusually close quarters not 
with one but with more than a dozen lions. On this occasion, however, the lions were attacking not the car but one another.

LIONS FEEDING.

A group or "pride" of lions usually keeps to its own particular stretch of 
country, where it lives and hunts and breeds,
and it does not expect other lions to invade that territory. It often 
happens, however, that numbers of lions are forced
by lack of water or food to leave their home and seek new feeding grounds. 
When they do this, they are almost
certain to come into conflict with the lions whose territory they have 
invaded.
Seven lionesses and as many cubs were seen coming into a part of the Park 
where they were strangers. The cubs were tired and panting as if they had travelled a 
long distance. The lionesses passed by without even glancing at the car; the cubs gave it little side looks, but took no open notice 
of it. The car followed at a
distance, the photographers wishing to get a photo of the whole group. It 
was clear that the lionesses were seeking
food and water for their young ones.
Then suddenly there was a deep roar from behind the car. Six full-grown 
lionesses sprang out of the bush and
advanced on the invaders. The cubs scattered and ran, while their mothers 
leapt forward to the fight. On both sides of
the car, the lionesses advanced and swirled round it. Then the battle 
began.
The air shook, the very car shook, with the roars of the combatants. So 
much dust was raised that it was difficult to
take photographs. The fight surged again and again round the car; a heavy 
body struck the radiator; a paw glanced off
the mudguard. From the shelter of the grass the cubs looked on with 
frightened eyes. The fight split into a number of
smaller fights. An aged lioness, one of the attackers, was set on by two 
of the defenders, and, old as she was, she
was more than a match for either of them singly. Attacked by both of them 
at once, she put up a long fight before she
was forced to retire severely wounded into the bush. Others of the 
attackers suffered likewise.
The attacking party slowly drew off; they called to their cubs, and began 
to move back along the way by which they
had come. The victors followed snarling. Sometimes it seemed as if the 
fight would break out again, but the defenders
were soon content to stand still and watch the others go. Not until they 
were well away did the defenders break into a long triumphant roar, the lion's roar of victory.
Then they turned, passed the car, slipped into the bush and disappeared.
Perhaps, after having been at arm's length for so long, the party in the 
car were not sorry to see them go.
-Adapted from "Conquest," in Longmans, Green, and Co.'s The Heritage of 
Literature Series.

THE NEW ZEALAND COMPANY SETTLEMENTS.
New Zealand became part of the British Empire in 1840, but it was not settled by the British Government. That task was 
performed by the New Zealand Company. This Company was more than a commercial business. It was run by men with a 
genuine and hearty enthusiasm for the idea of making a new 
British colony in a very attractive, if distant,
country. England had more people than could find employment. There was also 
more money than could profitably be
used in England. It was to everybody's benefit that both men and money 
should leave England to found a new Britain
overseas.
The New Zealand Company sold land to settlers at first in sections of 101 
acres at £I an acre; but while 100 acres
were in the country, one acre was in the town that was to be laid out as 
the centre of the district the Company
intended to develop. Although the New Zealand Company had bought some land 
in New Zealand before its settlers
left England, this afterwards proved unsuitable for use, and the first of 
the Company's settlements was placed at Port
Nicholson on land bought by Colonel William Wakefield. He was a younger 
brother of the great Edward Gibbon
Wakefield, who had much to do with the formation of the New Zealand 
Company. Colonel Wakefield had commanded
the Tory, the ship the New Zealand Company sent out in 1839 in advance of 
the main body of settlers to explore New Zealand and buy land from the Maoris.
The Company's ships began to arrive at Port Nicholson in January, 1840. 
The first settlement was made at Petone,
and called " Britannia," but it was soon found that this was a poor site. 
The beach was exposed to the full force of the
southerly gales, and the land behind it was very swampy. The Hutt River 
was rather deeper than it is at present, but even by using it as a thoroughfare it was difficult to penetrate far into the country 
behind.

DUNEDIN, 1858. SHOWING HIGH AND PRINCES STREETS.

Another disadvantage was that the country around was so hilly, and this hindered the development as it had been planned in 
England. Even 
when the settlement had been moved to
the present site of the town of Wellington, where there was a good 
sheltered harbour, it was still cut off from the
country round about. The idea of the Company in England had been to make 
the town the centre of a compact farming community, so that the farmers might not be isolated and lose all the benefits of 
community life.
The New Zealand Company had a local subsidiary Company at Plymouth, which 
in October, 1840, sent out the first of
two ships to found the settlement of New Plymouth. This became much more 
the sort of settlement the New Zealand
Company had intended. A small town served as a centre for a closely settled farming district behind it.

LANDING AT LYTTELTON, I850.

New Plymouth was, however, to be severely afflicted during the Maori Wars, and in 1860 most of the people took refuge in 
Nelson for several months.
Nelson, the third of the New Zealand Company settlements, was founded in 
1842. Like Wellington and New Plymouth, it was intended to be the centre of a farming district. By farming the New Zealand 
Company meant the close cropping and intensive arable farming of England; but at all the Company settlements it was very 
difficult to break in land for this sort of 
cultivation. It was either open fern land, with a closely-matted tangle of roots, which cost about seven pounds an acre to clear for 
ploughing, or it was heavy bush which was
much more expensive to clear for growing crops. At first the settlers took 
no notice of the open tussock lands in
various parts of the country.
It was not long, however, before men realized that the open plains of the Wairarapa and the Wairau would be excellent grazing 
for sheep and cattle, without anything being spent on them at all.

AUCKLAND, 1844, SHOWING THE CORNER OF SHORTLAND CRESCENT AND QUEEN STREET.

They began to import sheep from Australia, and pastoral farming began.
Otago (1848) and Canterbury (1850) were also New Zealand Company 
settlements, though the Company had a much
smaller share in sending out the settlers. Otago was a Presbyterian, and 
Canterbury a Church of England settlement.
Both of these were intended to be small farming communities, and both 
prospered as pastoral farming communities.
For many years New Zealand's main export to England was wool, for it was 
not till 1882 that the first cargo of frozen meat went to England.
In 1852 gold was discovered in the Thames district, and a few years later 
in Otago and Westland. Thousands of miners in search of a
fortune came from America and Australia; there were even Chinese on the 
goldfield. Although a great deal of gold was exported, when
shared out among so many miners, there was not enough to make many of 
them rich. When the miners saw there was no more gold to be
found easily, they took work on farms and followed other useful 
occupations. It was, however, many years before New Zealand became the
prosperous farming country it is to-day. The use of refrigeration to 
carry frozen meat and butter to England meant a revolution in New
Zealand farming. This invention alone has made possible the high standard 
of living we enjoy in this country to-day.
-Contributed by the NATIONAL HISTORICAL COMMITTEE.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
Dickens, in one of his letters, asks how it is that boys home for the holidays contrive to spend the whole day clumping downstairs 
in apparently at least six pairs of the thickest boots. This curious and interesting problem is at every holiday season presented to 
the British 
parent, as well as a thousand other strange habits of his male offspring. It is the
charm - or the curse - of boyhood never to he able to do anything in the way that it is done by the rest 
of the world. In this very matter of the stairs, for instance, the unvarying
singularity of boys is everywhere to be noticed. No boy can ever manage to accomplish a simple 
descent or ascent. His movements, whether going up or going down, are
conducted with an earnestness and vigour which it would be quite impossible for any grown-up person 
to imitate. Putting aside the glissade on the banisters or down the waxed
and varnished edges, the most ordinary system, at least for coming down,
is that which may best be described as the flying leap - four steps at a time, with an occasional 
cannon against the wall to vary the monotony of the descent.
If, however, there is sickness in the house, a boy of good feeling will abandon this method of 
hurling himself as a sort of human avalanche from the top landing to the dining-
room floor, and will adopt another plan. Probably he has been told to go quietly down, one step at a 
time, and he carries out part of the order to the letter. Seizing the banisters
with both hands, he jumps heavily from the first step, alighting firmly upon his heels on the next, 
to rebound thence to the one below, and so on until he reaches the bottom.
This action, which sounds for all the world like the ghastly antics of some bewitched coffin that has 
reared itself on end and resolved to appear at family prayers, is probably the
one to which Dickens alludes. At any rate, the system is widespread, and is, we firmly believe, 
considered by many young gentlemen between the ages of eight and fourteen
as a specially merciful method of transferring their persons from one story to 
another.
Next to the ability displayed by boys in getting tones undreamt of by ordinary performers out of the stairs, is their talent for 
shaking the whole house by merely walking across an upstairs floor. 
Paterfamilias, who weighs, perhaps, fourteen stone, when he treads the boards of
his dressing-room makes no noticeable vibration, but let Jack, who cannot possibly weigh half that 
amount, be sent to bring down a book for his father, and anyone in the back
drawing-room would imagine that at least a dozen mad elephants had been let loose above. Yet Jack, in 
all probability, made no special effort to be noisy, and at most crossed
the floor to the book-case by stepping only on the white squares of the carpet.
No doubt these and many other physical and mental oddities of the schoolboy will at first give 
pleasure rather than the reverse at home. English parents are much too fond of their
children not to forget such little annoyances in the pleasure of having their boys home again, and of 
observing how clever, handsome or jolly-looking they have grown, and how
remarkably like they are to their fathers, mothers, grandfathers, or grandmothers, or indeed, to all 
their relatives, immediate and remote. For several days the veritable tempests of
noise that sweep down the stairs and thunder through the front hall will be pronounced "quite cheerful," and there will be a 
general agreement among the elder members of the family that the house is never a bit like home till the boys come back.
Little by little, however, the charm will wear off, and though the sight of their children will, in 
reality, be just as much a happiness to parents as before, they will begin to object to
the sense of perpetual motion which seems somehow to pervade the house. Though the mother of the 
family would probably refuse to admit it, she at last begins to find the
banging of doors, without the slightest intermission, a little trying. Then, too, the father of the family may in theory enjoy nothing 
better 
than being a boy among boys. He discovers, however, that it is rather nervous
work never to be sure that, when he comes round a corner, he will not encounter some missile which, 
although meant "only for Jack," is equally capable of "stinging up" Jack's
father.
When, again, the holidays are wet and little or no going out is possible, the lot of parents caged up with three or four boys is not 
exactly a happy one.

MERCILESSLY TEASED, RAGGED AND HARMED.

It is only natural that what ordinary fathers and mothers detest more than anything else in the world is having to decide which of 
their children is in the wrong in a domestic quarrel.
Wet days are certain to bring about such home broils, in which it is very difficult for the parent to intervene except by the rough 
and ready method of punishing, or at any rate scolding, the one that happens to have emerged least hurt from the scuffle.
The girls of the family, moreover, who were petted by their brothers when they first came home,
are towards the end of the holidays, in obedience to the universal law that familiarity breeds 
contempt, mercilessly teased, ragged and harried. Then one finds that the servants, who to begin with
thought nothing more amusing than the boys' apple-pie beds and booby traps, have reached the verge of 
mutiny by the fifth week. Taking everything into account, therefore, it is not difficult to
realize that the beginning of the next term is greeted with as much joy as was the end of the last.
-Slightly adapted extract from "From Grave to Gay," by J. T. ST. LOE STRACHEY. (Murray.)

SAFETY FIRST.
LEARN NOT ONLY TO SWIM, BUT TO  SWIM REALLY WELL.

