Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/390

258 And the torrents to moan

O'er rock and stone,

For the dead pass by!

Now on the barren spirit track

Lingering sadly, gazing back,

Slowly moves a ghastly train.

Shades of warriors, brave in vain."

One of the most interesting features of my tour in North Auckland was life in the "back blocks." Of its rural districts one of the most primitive was north of the long, river-like Hokianga Harbor, away in the hills of Broadwood and Herekino and on to the seventy-mile beach of Ahipara. In places rough bush tracks were the only highways, hotels were far apart, and oxen pioneered the way for horses. Here were little farms stocked with a few cows, sheep, and pigs; houses with large exterior chimneys of wood or galvanized iron; blackened clearings, and the smoke of annual forest fires.

In such settlements public amusements are few and infrequent. Therefore when a moving-picture show or a vaudeville company comes to town, it is a great event to the inhabitants, even though the performance be a poor one. It is customary, too, to strengthen the evening's entertainment by following it with a public dance.

Arriving late at Peria one day, I had no sooner sat down in the empty dining room for tea than a young Maori waitress eagerly informed me: "There's going to be a show to-night. I am going to it."

As she spoke her eyes sparkled, she smiled broadly, and in her best dress, new shoes and collar and tie, she