SEEN IN NEW ZEALAND.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2771, 29 March 1910, Page 2

SEEN IN NEW ZEALAND.

(By G. (3. Yost, in “Los Angeles Times.”) “Talking, about eggs,” said the passenger from Memphis, after a long silence “I saw one the other day that cost two —thousand —dollars.’ ’ “Oh, come, now,” gently protested the rod-headed man in the corner, didn’t you get the figures mixed?” “No, I didn’t. It 'was iput down in black and white bv an authority nobody can question.” , “Well,” said the traveller from New Orleans, “I’ve hoard of prices like that being /paid for prize chickens, but I’d like to sec the fool that would pay 2000dol. for one egg. But, maybe,” he added, as the thought struck him, “maybe it was one of these Chinese eggs made out of gold, with jewels on the inside.” “No', no, no,” objected the Memphis passenger, “nothing of the sort. It was a genuine egg. What’s more, it didn’t have anything inside of it. It was just a shell.” “Oh, I see,” murmured the redheaded man, “it was in a collection." “Yes; you guessed it. It was the egg °f 0 great auk, an extinct bird, and it was in the Naional Museum at Washington. They say there’s only two or three of them in the world.” “Yes, they say—they say,” iput in the passenger from San Antonio, “but how do you know? They say the great auks are all dead, but how do they know? Those scientific chaps down in Washington set up solemn as owls and say things that’s law and gospel to the rest of us, but lots of the time they’re just guessin’. Nobody’s seen any great auks - for some time back, they Agger, so they must all he gone. Well, I’m bettin’ they ain’t.” “You talk pretty positive,” said the red-haired man; “did you ever see a great auk?” “No, I never saw a great auk, and I never saw a purple cow; but that’s no sign I never will. I’ve seen something stranger’n either of ’em—something the wise guys in Washington would rather see than the North Pole.”

“Fine,” said the hed-haired person , “go right ahead and don’t stop till you j^c-1 to the end. - ' “Was any of you ever in New Zealand?” asked the passenger frem Texas, by way of a starter. The other smokers. shook their heads. “I didn’t s’pose any of you ever had been. Not many people from this country get around to that side of the world. But I want to tell you that it’s worth the trip. When v ou look at it on the map, New Zealand don’t seem to size up very big, but, all the same, it’s 1100 miles 'long and runs all the way from 150 to 200 miles wide. There’s two main islands cut in two by a narrow strip of mighty rough water, an’ both of ’em’s chock full o’ mountains. There’s a big range ruunin’ the whole length of South Island so high the tips are covered with snow. Up m that range there’s big glaciers, an’ lower down there’s valleys no white man’s ever seen, and no native, either, for that matter, unless it was hundreds of years ago when there was more of ’em. There’s some mighty good towns in New Zealand an’ seme mighty good people, but they’s mostly along the coasts. The mountain country ain’t much good for anything except scenery

an’ minin’. “Along about twelve years ago, me and a feller named Jim Parkins was a-ssratchin’ gravel up in the Klondike. W-o wasn’t makin’ much more’n enough to pay for flour an’ bacon, an’ we was gettin’ pretty sick o’ the whole business when wo run across an Englishman named Higgins, wlio’d been considerable of a traveller. He’d prospected all over South Africa an’ Australia an’ South America, pretty much all around the world., but the. l>est place he ever struck, lie said, was New Zealand. He took up a claim close to ours, blithe didn’t do much good with it. Put iu most of his time cussin’ Klondike an’ braggin’ about New Zealand. Finally lie got me an’ Jiin so worked up about it, wc decided ,to go down there an’ give it agt'ry-outl We couldn’t do any worse than we was doin’ there, an’ if the Britisher was tellin’ the truth, there was j fist as good chances to strike it rich in a country where you didn’t freeze to death; 'in the, winter- an’ -get e’t up by the skeeters in the summer. Higgins wouldn’t go with us. Wouldn’t say why, but we got the idea he was sort o’ barred out. “Well, one way an’ another, it took us about a year to get down there, but after so long a time We landed at a place called Christchurch. Queer name for a town, hut it’s a bang-up place, all the same. Wo Outfitted there, an’ struck out for what they call the Southern Alps, that big range o’ mountains I was tellin’ you about. Inside of a week we was clear away from anybody, an’ for months we didn’t see a livin’ soul but ourselves. Wc prospected over a hundred miles-.north an’ south, I reckon, before we got a sign o’ gold; but one day we broke into a valley over toward the. west coast-, where we got good color in the first pan, an’ wo stayed there quite a spell. Might ha’ been there yet if that—but I guess I’d better take tilings as they come. •_ “This here valley was high up in the mountains, an’ -if anybody had ever been there before us, they hadn’t left any marks. It was about the lonesomest qilace I ever saw. . You know

there .ain’t s’posed to he hardly any animals of any 'kind in New Zealand. There’s a bird without any wings they call the kiwi, an’,there’s a few parrots, an’ that’s about all, except now an’ then a wild pig that they say’s descended from a lot old Cap. Cook left on the island a long time ago. But they wasn’t even any parrots up where we was. an’ it was sure doggone lonesome. If it hadn’t been for the fish we’d ’a’ starved for fresh moat, and .as for our guns, we didn’t liaye any more use for ’em. than we bad for a baby buggy. But the gold was pannin’ out pretty well, an’ a man can _ stand a whole .lot when he’s makin’ good wages. “We’d been, in camp there for about a month, I reckon, when one mornin’ while we was gettin.’ .breakfast, Jim with Ins hands, in the dough-pan an’ me fry in’ some bacon, when, all a<t once, Jim lets out a screech that nearly knocked,me ov,er.. “‘Gosh almighty! Jim!’ he yelled, Mooky yonder.’ “i" turned around and looked to where he was x>ointin’ down the creek, an’ I didn’t say nothin’. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t make -a sound, an’ I got as cold as I ever did in the Klondike. I been scared some in ray time, hut I was never scared iplum stiff before. An’ old J’i.m, he was jus* standin’ there pointin’, with his hand covered with dough an’ it a sbakin’ like he had the palsy. “Walkin’ towards us, an’ not more’n three- or four rods away, was a b ird. Yes, sir, just a bird, but I guess it’s been a long time since any human bein’ over saw a bird like that. It was built something like an ostrich, only it was a lot heavier, an’ it stood up eighteen feet high. That’s right—eighteen feet high—three times as tall as the tallest man—an’ it looked to us as high as a flagpole. “It saw us about the same time we saw it ; but 'it wasn’t scared a bit. It just seemed kind o’ surprised an’ curb, ous. It- kept on walkin’ towards u-s, slow an’ solemn as a Scotch Sunday, until it got nearly over to us. Then it stopped, stretched out its long neck, an’ looked at us, first with one eye an’ then the other, like an old hen inspectin' a worm. Jim’s legs had already give out from under him an’ he was clown on his knees jabberin’ something about ‘lf I should die before 1 wake.’ while I hadn’t been able to get out of the squat I was in when he first hollered. Our guns were in the tent, an’ they wasn’t loaded, an’ we was too dog-gone scared to use ’em, anyhow. “Pretty soon that bird gave a squawk that, was somethin’ awful. Somehow or ’nother, it scared us back to life, an’ wo jumped to our feet an’ run. But, shucks! We didn’t have any show with that beast. It strolled along after us, takin’ in about twenty feet at a step an’ screech: n’ like a steam engine when there’s a cow on the track. We hadn’t gone forty yards when it stretched out its neck like a telegraph pole savin’ good mornin’, grabbed Jim by the slack of h:s ipants, lifted him up as easy as if he’d been a butterfly, an’ paddled away with him in the opposite direction. It didn’t seem to have any wings, but, I.ord-ee! way it did get over the ground. An’ poor old Jim was wavin’ his arms -an’ kickin’ his legs air yellin’ like a house afire.

“Soon as it got out o’ sight, my courage come back an’ I went to the cam" loaded n- my gun and took up the trail. I wasn’t goin’ to go back on Jim. even if the devil himself had him. I walked air walked on’ walked, an’ it was way long in the evenin’ wh.cn I turacd the elbow of a big bluff an’ come in sight of the awfulest scene a man ever looked at. It was the big bird’s nest, a hollow place scratched out o’ the ground an’ lined with sticks. In the nest was two young birds about as big as cows, an’ they was try in' their doggone best to make a meal oui o’ Jim, while the old bird stood over ’em to keep him from gittin’ a wav. They was findin’ Jim about the toughest worm papa or mamma—l don’t know which it- was—had ever brought ’em. Me didn’t have anv weapon but his fists, but he was usin’ them mighty well. Every time one of the birds would pork at him he’d give it a swipe in the neck that seemed to surprise it. The old bird didn’t seem to be doin’ anything but act as umpire, an’ it ’peared like it was gettin’ a heap o’ enjoyment out o’ the fracas. They was too many for Jim, though, an’ he coukln’t have held out much longer. “I slipped up as close as I could, took good aim at the hig bird, an’ fired. I don’t know whether I hit it or not, but it jumped about fortv feet.high an’ lit a-runnin’. It was out o’ sight before the smoke cleared away, and thou 1 got. Jim out o’ the nest an’ we made tracks for the coast. We didn’t stop to make any scientific observations. We’d had enough. We struck salt water at a place called Ross, an’ when wo told what we’d seen, they laughed at us. They said tlier*_used to bo birds like them in New Zealand that the natives called moas, but they'd been extinct for a hundred years or over. An’ that’s why I’m bettin’ on the auks. Me nn’ Jim Parkins knows that the moas ain’t all gone yet. Maybe we’ll run across some auks, too, some day. But I ain’t lookin’ for any.”