Tales Of The Angler's Eldorado New Zealand

Front matter

TALES OF THE ANGLER’S ELDORADO,

NEW ZEALAND

TALES OF THE ANGLER’S ELDORADO, NEW ZEALAND

Chapter I The Voyage To New Zealand, 1925

THERE is always something wonderful about a new fishing adventure trip - for a single day, or for a week, or for months. The enchantment never palls. For years on end I have been trying to tell why, but that has been futile. Fishing is like Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece.

The most humble fisherman has this in common with fishermen of all degrees. Whatever it is that haunts and enchants surely grows with experience. Even the thousandth trip to the same old familiar fishedout stream begins with renewed hope, with unfailing faith. Quien sabe? as the Spaniards say. You cannot tell what you might catch. And even if you do not catch anything the joy somehow is there. The child is father to the man. Saturdays and vacation times call everlastingly to the boy. The pond, the stream, the river, the lake and the sea. Something evermore is about to happen. Every fishing trip is a composite of all other trips, and it holds irresistible promise for the future. That cup cannot be drained. There are always greater fish than you have caught; always the lure of greater task and achievement; always the inspiration to seek, to endure, to limb always the beauty of the lonely stream and open sea; always he glory and dream of nature.

When I fished under the stark lava slopes of the Galapagos and in the amethyst waters around Cocos Island and around the White Friars I imagined each was the epitome of angling, that I could never adventure higher and farther. But in this same year, 1925, when we shot the wild rapids of the Rogue River and cast our flies where none save Indians had ever fished, the same elusive and beautiful thing beckoned like a will-o'-the-wisp. It is in the heart.

On December thirtieth, when Captain Laurie Mitchell and I stood on the deck of the Royal Mail S.S. Makura, steaming out through the Golden Gate bound for the Antipodes to seek new waters, the same potent charm pervaded my being. There was a Lorelei calling from the South Seas; there was a siren bell ringing from the abysmal deep.

San Francisco Bay at that hour was a far cry from the turquoise-blue water of the tropics. A steely sun made pale bright light upon the ruffled bay; grey fog shrouded the dome of Mt. Tamalpais; from the northwest a cold wind drove down on the bare brown hills to whip the muddy water into a choppy sea. The broken horizon line of the beautiful city of hills shone dark against the sky. A flock of screaming gulls sailed and swooped about the stern of the vessel.

A big French freighter kept abreast of the Makura through the Golden Gate, then turned north, while we headed to the southwest. The Royal Mail ship Makura was no leviathan, but she certainly was a greyhound of the sea. In less than an hour I saw the mountains fade into the fog. That last glimpse of California had to suffice me for a long time. We ran into a heavy-ridged sea, cold and dark, with sullen whitecaps breaking. I walked the decks, watching as always, until the sky became overspread with dark clouds, and a chill wind drove me inside.

That night after dinner I went out again. The sky was dark, the sea black, except for the pale upheavals of billows which gleamed through the obscurity. The ship was rushing on, now with a graceful, slow forward dip and then with a long rise. She was very steady. Great swells crashed against her bows and heaved back into the black gulfs. There was a continuous roar of chafing waters. An old familiar dread of the ocean mounted in me again. What a mighty force! It was a cold, wintry almost invisible sea, not conducive to the thrill and joy of the angler. It was a northern sea, gusty, turbulent, with rough swells. I leaned over the rail in the darkness, trying to understand its meaning, its mood, trying to be true to the love I bore it in tranquil moments.

Next morning when I went out the decks were wet, the sky grey, except low down in the east where rays of sunlight slipped through to brighten the cold grey buffeting sea.

I noted several sea birds following in the wake of the ship. They were new to me. Dark in colour, marvellously built, with small compact bodies, sharp as a bullet, and with long narrow wings, they appeared to have been created for perfect control of the air. They sailed aloft and swooped down, skimmed the foamy crests, rode abreast of the rough seas, and dipped into the hollows, all apparently without slightest effort of wing. I did not see them flap a wing once. This is a common habit of many sea birds, especially the shearwaters, but I had never before seen it performed so swiftly and wonderfully. These birds had a wing spread of three feet, and must have belonged to the shearwater family. Lonely wanderers of the barren waste of waters!

Morning and afternoon swiftly passed, the hours flying with the speed of the Makura over the waves. Toward sunset, which was only a dim ruddy glow behind the fog banks, the chill wind, the darkening sea, the black sombre fading light all predicted storm. The last daylight hours of the last day of 1925 were melancholy and drear. I was reminded of November back in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, where so often I heard the autumn winds wail under the eaves, and the rain pelt the roof - mournful prelude to winter.

This rough sea was like that of the north, where off the rugged shores of Puget Sound the contending tides are raw and bold. The winter twilight quickly merged into the blanket of night. Then out there in the opaque blackness the sea roared by the ship, tremendous and inscrutable, with nothing to inspire love, with everything to confound the soul of man. What was the old year to the sea, or the new year soon to dawn with its imagined promise, its bright face, its unquenchable hope? Nevertheless, the thought that overbalanced this depression was of the magic isles of the South Seas, set like mosaics in the eternal summer blue, and the haunting Antipodes, seven thousand miles down the lanes of the Pacific.

All morning of the third day out the Makura sped on over a lumpy leaden sea, mirroring the grey of the sky. How tenaciously the drab shadow of winter clung to us! Yet there had come some degree of warmth, and on the afternoon of this day the cold wind departed. When the sunlight strayed through the fog, it gave the sea its first tinge of blue; but the sun shone only fitfully. There was no life on the sea, and apparently none in it. Neither bird nor fish showed to longpractised eyes. I wondered about this. We were hundreds of miles offshore, out of the track of the schools of sardines and anchovies that birds and fish prey upon. Still there should have been some manifestation of life. How vast the ocean! Were its spaces and depths utterly barren? That was hard to believe.

Sunset that night was rose and gold, a gorgeous colour thrown upon a thin webbed mass of mackerel cloud that for long held its radiance. It seemed to be a promise of summer weather. Sunrise next morning likewise was a blazing belt of gold. But these rich colourings were ephemeral and deceiving. The sky grew dark and grey. From all points masses of cumulous clouds rose above the horizon, at last to unite ina canopy of leaden tones. A wind arose and the sea with it. The air still had an edge.

All day the Makura raced over a magnificent sea of long swells rising to white breaking crests. The ship had a slow careen, to and fro, from side to side, making it difficult to walk erect and steadily. The turbulent mass of water was almost black. Its loneliness was as manifest as when calm. No sail! No smoke from steamer down beyond the horizon! No sign of fish or bird! I seemed to have been long on board. The immensity of the sea began to be oppressive. That day and the next we drove on over a grey squally expanse of waters.

The time came when I saw my first flying fish of the trip. It was an event. He appeared to be a tiny little fellow, steely in colour, scarcely larger than a humming bird. But for me he meant life on the ocean. Thereafter while on deck I kept watch. We had sunshine for a few hours and then the warmth became evident. The sea was a raging buffeting rolling plain of dark blue and seething white. We were a thousand miles and more off the coast, where I felt sure the wind always blew. We were in the track of the trade winds.

On the sixth day the air became humid. We had reached the zone of summer. Every mile now would carry us toward the tropics.

I saw some porpoises, small yellow ones, active in flight. They were a proof of fish, for porpoises seldom roam far away from their food supply. I wondered if they preyed upon the tiny flying fish. Swift as the porpoise is, I doubt that he could catch them. As we sped south I noted more and more schools of flying fish, rising in a cloud, like silvery swallows. Presently I espied one that appeared larger, with reddish wings. This was a surprise, and I thought I had made a mistake as I had not a really good look at it. Not long afterward, however, I saw another, quite close, and made certain of the red wings. Then soon following I espied three more of the same species. They certainly could sail and glide and dart over the rough water.

We ran into a squall. Rain and spray wet my face as I paced the deck. Out ahead the grey pall was like a bank of fog. The sea became rougher. Our wireless brought news of a hurricane raging over the South Seas, centreing around the Samoan Islands, where tidal waves had caused much damage. What had become of the tranquil Pacific? Late that afternoon we ran out of the squalls into a less-disturbed sea.

Captain Mitchell met two widely-travelled Englishmen on board, brothers, by name Radmore. They came from the same part of England where Captain Mitchell was born; and it must have been pleasant, as well as poignant, for him to talk with them. He introduced them to me, and I found them exceedingly interesting, as I have found so many Englishmen. I did not need to be told that they had been in the war.

I was particularly interested in their voyage to New Zealand, which was for the same purpose as ours - the wonderful possibilities of adventure, especially fishing, to be had in the Antipodes. The elder Radmore had been often to New Zealand, and in fact he knew Australasia, and island seas to the north. He was a big-game hunter, having had some extensive hunts in Burma, India, the Malay Peninsula and British East Africa. He said game of all kinds had increased enormously during and since the war, especially in Africa. Tigers were abundant in Burma and seldom hunted. What the fishing possibilities might be in the waters adjacent to these places he had no idea. No sportsman had ever tried them. I conceived an impression of magnificent unknown virgin seas, so far as fish was concerned. What a splendid thrill that gave me!

Radmore told me many things, two of which I must chronicle here. The pearl fishing off the New Guinea coast: it was new pearl country, comparatively. In fact, New Guinea is still one of the little-known islands. Next to Australia it is the largest in the world, and it has many leagues of unexplored coast line. Radmore told me that at one time rare pearls could be cheaply procured from the natives, who had not yet become aware of their value. A can of peaches bought a $16,000 pearl! The Radmores, coming into San Pedro on the S.S. Manchuria, had their attention called to my schooner Fisherman anchored in the bay. They said if they had that ship they would surely go to New Guinea.

On a voyage from New Zealand to England, round the Horn, Radmore had seen a remarkable battle between a sperm whale, or cachalot, and two great orcas. This conflict had taken place in smooth water close to a reef along which the ship was skirting. The whale was on the surface, apparently unable to sound, and he beat the water terrifically with his enormous flukes. The sound was exceedingly loud and continuous, almost resembling thunder. The orcas threw their huge white-and-black bodies high into the air, and plunged down upon the back of the whale. They hit with a sodden crash. The cachalot threshed with his mighty tail, trying to strike them, but they eluded it. The commotion in the water seemed incredible. This battle continued as long as the watchers could see with the naked eye, and then with glasses. The captain, who had sided that route for forty years, said that was the third fight of the kind he had seen.

Radmore was certain the whale was a cachalot, or sperm. Personally, I incline to the opinion that it was some other kind of whale. Andrews and other authorities on whales claim that the whalekillers and orcas let the cachalot severely alone. He is more than a match for them. Armed with a terrible set of teeth and a head one-third the length of his ninety-foot body, the cachalot would appear to be impervious to attacks from sea creatures. On the other hand, other whales are helpless before the onslaught of these wolves of the sea. They become almost paralyzed with fright, and make little attempt to escape their foes. This is the naturalistic opinion on the subject, and I incline to it, although I admit a possibility of unusual cases. The wonderful thing about the narrative for me was to think of seeing such a battle and photographing it.

On the morning of January sixth before daybreak we crossed the equator. I went out on deck before sunrise. Sea and sky were radiant with a pearly effulgence. There were no reds, purples or golds. White and silver, grey and pearl predominated, which colours intensified as the sun came up, giving a beautiful effect. All around the horizon the trade-wind clouds rode like sails. They had the same ship-like shape, the same level bottoms and round windblown feathery margins as the trade-wind clouds above the Gulf Stream between Cuba and the Keys but not the colour! Sunrise off the Keys of Florida is a glorious burst of crimson and gold that flames sky and sea.

We were now in the southern hemisphere, and I felt that it would be interesting for me to note the slow march of the sun to the north. On the equator the sun always sets at six o'clock. So far the voyage had been remarkably free of glaring white sunlight. This day when we crossed the equator we had alternately bright sunlight and soft greyshaded sky.

Sometimes the ships of the Union Line pass within sight of the high peaks of the Marquesan Islands. I could not but feel what marvellous good fortune for me that it should be my lot. As it turned out, however, we did not pass close enough to the Marquesans to see them. Thad to satisfy myself with the thrilling fact that somewhere short of a hundred miles beyond the horizon lay these gem-isles of the Pacific, alone amid the splendid solitude of this purple sea.

The night we entered the Tuamotu Archipelago, or Low Islands, I had a striking sight of the planet Venus, so extraordinarily beautiful and incredibly bright in that latitude. The great star was exceedingly brilliant, yet not white; it had colour, almost a gold or red, and left a shining track over the waters almost like that of the moon. Sometimes it seemed like a huge lantern hung close to the ship; again it retreated to the very rim of the world. Then how swiftly it went down into the sea! Another phenomenon I had noted lately was the singularly swift sunset, and the extreme brevity of light afterward.

There are two kinds of islands in the South Pacific, the low and the high. The former consist of atolls with their circular ridge of white sand above the coral, fringed with cocoanut palms; and the latter, mountains of volcanic origin, are characterized by high peaks densely overgrown with tropical verdure. The Paumotus are a vast aggregation of low islands, or atolls, sprinkled all over a great range of water. Yachts are forbidden to adventure in this perilous archipelago. The charts cannot be trusted, the currents are treacherous, the winds more contrary than anywhere else on the globe. Yet the course of the S.S. Makura ran straight through the archipelago. Probably many atolls were passed close at hand, wholly invisible from the deck; and it was only at the latter part of the long run through, that the course came anywhere near the clustered islands that gave the place its name.

Chapter II Island Stopover

MY first and long-yearned-for sight of an atoll came about midafternoon on January eighth. I saw with naked eyes what most passengers were using marine glasses to distinguish. It was a low fringe of cocoanut-palm trees rising out of the blue sea. What a singular first impression I had! Instantly it seemed I was fishing off the Florida Keys, along the edge of the Gulf Stream, and that I knew my location exactly because I could still see the cocoanut palms of Long Key. I found myself saying, "They are about six miles in, unless these Pacific cocoanuts are much higher trees than those of the Atlantic."

This islet, or atoll, was the first of many of the Tuamotu Archipelago that were soon to rise gradually out of the heaving blue floor of the ocean. They appeared like green growths on a Hindu magician's carpet. Most were small with just a few trees fringing the sky line; but some were long and large, with thick groves of cocoanut palms. It was impossible, of course, to distinguish these atolls from the Keys of the Florida Peninsula or the islets of the Caribbean Sea. The great beauty of an atoll cannot be seen from afar. The ring of coral sand rising just above the sea, the ring of cocoanuts round it, the ring of turquoise-blue water inside, the ever-framed lagoon, blue as the sky, serene and tranquil, with its sands of gold and pearl, its myriads of coloured fish, the tremendous thundering of the surf outside - these wonderful features could not be appreciated from the ship.

I went up on the third deck where I could see the strips of white beach and the bright-green band of palms. These Paumotus surely called with all the mystery and glory of the South Pacific; but our ship passed swiftly on her way and soon night blotted out sight of the fascinating atolls.

Next morning I was up before dawn. The ship was moving very slowly. I could scarcely hear any sound of swirling waters. I went out on deck in the dim opaque gloom of a South Pacific dawn. The air was fresh, cool, balmy, laden with a scent of land. On the starboard side I saw a black mountain, rising sharp with ragged peaks. This island was Moorea, the first of the Society group.

Soon dead ahead appeared the strange irregular form of Tahiti. It made a marvellous spectacle, with the rose of the east kindling low down in a notch between two peaks. Tahiti was high. I watched the day come and the sun rise over this famous island, and it was indescribable. We went through a gateway in the barrier reef, where the swells curled and roared, and on into the harbour to the French port, Papeete.

Seen from the deck of a vessel Papeete was beautiful, green and luxurious, with its coloured roofs, its blossoming trees, its schooners and other South Sea craft moored along the shore. The rise of the island, however, its ridged slopes of emerald green and amber red, its patches of palms, its purple canyons streaked with white waterfalls, its ragged, notched, bold peaks crowned with snowy clouds - these made a spectator forget that Papeete nestled at its base.

I spent a full day in this world-famed South Sea Island port, the French Papeete. It was long enough for me! Despite all I had read I had arrived there free of impressions, with eager receptive mind. I did not wonder that Robert Louis Stevenson went to the South Seas a romancer and became a militant moralist. It was not fair, however, to judge other places through contact with Papeete.

The French have long been noted for the careless and slovenly way in which they govern provinces. Papeete is a good example. There is no restriction against the Chinese, who appeared to predominate in business. Papeete is also the eddying point for all the riffraff of the South Seas. The beach comber, always a romantic if pathetic figure in my memory, through the South Sea stories I have read, became by actual contact somewhat disconcerting to me, and wholly disgusting. Perhaps I did not see any of the noble ruins.

Every store I entered in Papeete was run by a crafty-eyed little Chinaman. I heard that the Chinese merchants had all the money. It was no wonder. I saw very few French people. I met one kindlylooking priest. All the whites who fell under my gaze seemed to me to be sadly out of place there. They were thin, in most cases pale and unhealthy-looking. It was plain to me that the Creator did not intend white men to live on South Sea Islands. If he had he would have made the pigment of their skins capable of resisting the sun.

This was the early summer for Tahiti. It was hot. New York at 99 degrees in the shade, or Needles, California, at 115 degrees, would give some idea of heat at Papeete. It was a moist, sticky, oppressive, enervating heat that soon prostrated. I always could stand hot weather, and I managed to get around under this. But many of the ship passengers suffered, and by five o'clock that evening were absolutely exhausted.

What amazed me was the fact that this heat did not prevent the drinking of liquor. Champagne and other beverages were exceedingly cheap at Papeete. I found out long ago that a great many people who think they travel to see and learn really travel to eat and drink, and the close of this day on shore at Papeete provided a melancholy example of the fact. If I saw one bottle of liquor come aboard the S.S. Makura I saw a hundred. Besides such openly avowed bottles, there were cases and cases packed up in the companionway for delivery.

Captain Mitchell, Mr. Radmore and I visited the hotel or resort made famous mostly through Mr. O'Brien’s book, White Shadows of the South Seas. Luxurious growths of green and wonderfully fragrant flowers surrounded this little low house of many verandas; but that was about all I could see attractive there. It appeared different classes of drinkers had different rooms in which to imbibe. Of those I passed, some approached what in America we would call a dive. It is all in the way people look at a thing. The licentiousness of women and the availability of wine rank high in the properties of renown.

The Tahitian women presented an agreeable surprise to me. From all the exotic photographs I had seen I had not been favourably impressed. But photographs do not do justice to Tahitian women. I saw hundreds of them, and except in a few cases, noticeably the dancers, who in fact were faked to impress the tourists, they were modestly dressed and graceful in appearance. They were strong, well built though not voluptuous, rather light-skinned and not at all suggesting negroid blood. They presented a new race to me. They had large melting melancholy eyes. They wore their hair in braids down their backs, like American schoolgirls of long ago when something of America still survived in our girls. These Tahitians had light-brown, sometimes nut-brown and chestnut hair, rich and thick and beautiful. What a delight to see! What pleasure to walk behind one of these barefooted and free-stepping maidens just for the innocent happiness of gazing at her wonderful braid! No scrawny shaved bristled necks, such as the flappers exhibit now, to man's bewildered disgust; no erotic and abnormal signs of wanting to resemble a male! Goodness only knows why so-called civilized white women of modern times want to look like men, but so it seems they do. If they could see the backs of the heads of these Tahitian girls and their long graceful braids of hair, that even a fool of a man could tell made very little trouble, and was so exquisitely feminine and beautiful, they might have a moment of illumined mind.

The scene at the dock as the S.S. Makura swung off was one I shall not soon forget. Much of Papeete was there, except, most significantly, the Chinese. No doubt they were busily counting the enormous number of French francs they had amassed during the day. The watchers in the background were quiet and orderly, and among these were French ladies who were bidding friends farewell, and other white people whose presence made me divine they were there merely to watch a ship depart for far shores. A ship they longed to be aboard. I could read it in their eyes.

In the foreground, however, were many Tahitian women and some half caste, with the loud-mouthed roustabouts who were raving at the drunken louts on board the ship. It was not a pretty sight. Near me on the rail sat an inebriated youth, decorated with flowers, waving a champagne bottle at those below. I did not see any friendliness in the uplifted dark eyes. This was only another ship going on down to the sea; and I thought most of those on hoard were held in contempt by those on land.

I did not leave Papeete, however, without most agreeable and beautiful impressions. Outside of the town there were the simplicity and beauty of the native habitations and the sweetness of the naked little Tahitians disporting on the beach. There were the magnificence of the verdure, foliage and flowers and the heavy atmosphere languorous with fragrance. There were the splendour of the surf breaking on the reef seen through the stately cocoanut palms, the burn of the sun and the delicious cool of the shade. There were the utter and ever-growing strangeness of the island and the unknown perceptions that were gradually building up an impression of the vastness of the South Sea. There were the splendour of Nature in her most lavish moods and the unsolvable mystery of human life.

I saw many old Tahitian men who I imagined had eaten human flesh, "long pig", as they called it in their day. The record seemed written in their great strange eyes.

Birds and fish were almost negligible at Tahiti. For all the gazing that I put in I saw only a few small needle fish. Not a shark, not a line, Wit a break or swirl on the surface! There were no gulls, no sea birds of any kind, and I missed them very much. I saw several small birds about the size of robins, rather drab-coloured with white on their wings, black heads and yellow beaks. They were tame and had a musical note.

On the next day out from Papeete we saw steamship smoke on the horizon. It grew into the funnel of a ship, then the hull, and at last the bulk of the sister ship of the Makura, the Tahiti. She passed us perhaps five miles away, a noble sight, and especially fascinating because she was the only travelling craft on our horizon throughout the voyage.

A little after daybreak on the following morning I was awakened by the steward, who said Rarotonga was in sight. From a distance this island appeared to be a cone-shaped green mass rising to several high sharp-toothed peaks. Near at hand, in the glory of the sunrise, it looked like a beautiful mountain, verdant and colourful, rising out of a violet sea. I noted the extremely sharp serrated ridges rising to the peaks, all thickly covered with tropic verdure. The island appeared to be surrounded by a barrier reef, against which the heaving sea burst into white breakers.

Schools of flying fish, darting like swarms of silver bees, flew from before our bows. That was a promising sight, for usually where there are schools of small fish the great game fish will be found. Here, as at Tahiti, there was a marked absence of birds.

After Papeete, the weather was delightfully cool. The Makura anchored outside the reef, half a mile from shore, and small launches with canoe-shaped lighters carried cargo and passengers through a narrow gate in the reef to the docks.

Rarotonga was under English control, and certainly presented an inspiring contrast to the decadent and vitiated Papeete. At once we were struck with the cleanliness of streets and wharfs, and the happy, care-free demeanour of the natives. They looked prosperous, and we were to learn that they all owned their bit of cocoanut grove and were independent. We drove around the island, a matter of twenty miles more or less. The road was level and shady all the way, with the violet white-wreathed sea showing through the cocoanut trees on one side and the wonderful sharp peaks rising above the forest on the other.