The Wanderings of a Spiritualist, Arthur Conan Doyle [best short novels of all time .TXT] 📗

From the hour I landed upon the quay at Auckland until I waved my last farewell my visit was made pleasant, and every wish anticipated by the Rev. Jasper Calder, a clergyman who has a future before him, though whether it will be in the Church of England or not, time and the Bishop will decide. Whatever he may do, he will remain to me and to many more the nearest approach we are likely to see to the ideal Christian—much as he will dislike my saying so. After all, if enemies are given full play, why should not friends redress the balance? I will always carry away the remembrance of him, alert as a boy, rushing about to serve anyone, mixing on equal terms with scallywags on the pier, reclaiming criminals whom he called his brothers, winning a prize for breaking-in a buckjumper, which he did in order that he might gain the respect of the stockmen; a fiery man of God in the pulpit, but with a mind too broad for special dispensations, he was like one of those wonderfully virile creatures of Charles Reade. The clergy of Australasia are stagnant and narrow, but on the other hand, I have found men like the Dean of Sydney, Strong of Melbourne, Sanders of Manly, Calder of Auckland, and others whom it is worth crossing this world to meet.

Of my psychic work at Auckland there is little to be said, save that I began my New Zealand tour under the most splendid auspices. Even Sydney had not furnished greater or more sympathetic audiences than those which crowded the great Town Hall upon two successive nights. I could not possibly have had a better reception, or got my message across more successfully. All the newspaper ragging and offensive advertisements had produced (as is natural among a generous people) a more kindly feeling for the stranger, and I had a reception I can never forget.

This town is very wonderfully situated, and I have never seen a more magnificent view than that from Mount Eden, an extinct volcano about 900 feet high, at the back of it. The only one which I could class with it is that from Arthur's Seat, also an extinct volcano about 900 feet high, as one looks on Edinburgh and its environs. Edinburgh, however, is for ever shrouded in smoke, while here the air is crystal clear, and I could clearly see Great Barrier Island, which is a good eighty miles to the north. Below lay the most marvellous medley of light blue water and light green land mottled with darker foliage. We could see not only the whole vista of the wonderful winding harbour, and the seas upon the east of the island, but we could look across and see the firths which connected with the seas of the west. Only a seven-mile canal is needed to link the two up, and to save at least two hundred miles of dangerous navigation amid those rock-strewn waters from which we had so happily emerged. Of course it will be done, and when it is done it should easily pay its way, for what ship coming from Australia—or going to it—but would gladly pay the fees? The real difficulty lies not in cutting the canal, but in dredging the western opening, where shifting sandbanks and ocean currents combine to make a dangerous approach. I see in my mind's eye two great breakwaters, stretching like nippers into the Pacific at that point, while, between the points of the nippers, the dredgers will for ever be at work. It will be difficult, but it is needed and it will be done.

The Australian Davis Cup quartette—Norman Brooks, Patterson, O'Hara Wood and another—had come across in the Maheno with us and were now at the Grand Hotel. There also was the American team, including the formidable Tilden, now world's champion. The general feeling of Australasia is not as cordial as one would wish to the United States for the moment. I have met several men back from that country who rather bitterly resent the anti-British agitation which plays such a prominent part in the American press. This continual nagging is, I am sorry to say, wearing down the stolid patience of the Britisher more than I can ever remember, and it is a subject on which I have always been sensitive as I have been a life-long advocate of Anglo-American friendship, leading in the fullness of time to some loose form of Anglo-American Union. At present it almost looks as if these racial traitors who make the artificial dissensions were succeeding for a time in their work of driving a wedge between the two great sections of the English-speaking peoples. My fear is that when some world crisis comes, and everything depends upon us all pulling together, the English-speakers may neutralise each other. There lies the deadly danger. It is for us on both sides to endeavour to avoid it.

Everyone who is in touch with the sentiment of the British officers in Flanders knows that they found men of their own heart in the brave, unassuming American officers who were their comrades, and often their pupils. It is some of the stay-at-home Americans who appear to have such a false perspective, and who fail to realise that even British Dominions, such as Canada and Australia, lost nearly as many men as the United States in the war, while Britain herself laid down ten lives for every one spent by America. This is not America's fault, but when we see apparent forgetfulness of it on the part of a section of the American people when our wounds are still fresh, it cannot be wondered at that we feel sore. We do not advertise, and as a result there are few who know that we lost more men and made larger captures during the last two years of the war than our gallant ally of France. When we hear that others won the war we smile—but it is a bitter smile.

Strange, indeed, are some of the episodes of psychic experience. There came to me at my hotel in Auckland two middle-aged hard-working women, who had come down a hundred miles from the back country to my lecture. One had lost her boy at Gallipoli. She gave me a long post-mortem account from him as to the circumstances of his own death, including the military operations which led up to it. I read it afterwards, and it was certainly a very coherent account of the events both before and after the shell struck him. Having handed me the pamphlet the country woman then, with quivering fingers, produced from her bosom a little silver box. Out of this she took an object, wrapped in white silk. It was a small cube of what looked to me like sandstone, about an inch each way. She told me it was an apport, that it had been thrown down on her table while she and her family, including, as I understood, the friend then present, were holding a séance. A message came with it to say that it was from the boy's grave at Gallipoli. What are we to say to that? Was it fraud? Then why were they playing tricks upon themselves? If it was, indeed, an apport, it is surely one of the most remarkable for distance and for purpose recorded of any private circle.

A gentleman named Moors was staying at the same hotel in Auckland, and we formed an acquaintance. I find that he was closely connected with Stevenson, and had actually written a very excellent book upon his comradeship with him at Samoa. Stevenson dabbled in the politics of Samoa, and always with the best motives and on the right side, but he was of so frank and impetuous a nature that he was not trusted with any inside knowledge. Of the German rule Mr. Moors says that for the first twelve years Dr. Solf was as good as he could be, and did fair justice to all. Then he went on a visit to Berlin, and returned "bitten by the military bug," with his whole nature changed, and began to "imponieren" in true Prussian fashion. It is surely extraordinary how all the scattered atoms of a race can share the diseases of the central organism from which they sprang. I verily believe that if a German had been alone on a desert island in 1914 he would have begun to dance and brandish a club. How many cases are on record of the strange changes and wild deeds of individuals?

Mr. Moors told me that he dropped into a developing circle of spiritualists at Sydney, none of whom could have known him. One of them said, "Above your head I see a man, an artist, long hair, brown eyes, and I get the name of Stephens." If he was indeed unknown, this would seem fairly evidential.

I was struck by one remark of Mr. Moors, which was that he had not only seen the natives ride turtles in the South Sea lagoons, but that he had actually done so himself, and that it was by no means difficult. This was the feat which was supposed to be so absurd when De Rougemont claimed to have done it. There are, of course, some gross errors which are probably pure misuse of words in that writer's narrative, but he places the critic in a dilemma which has never been fairly faced. Either he is a liar, in which case he is, beyond all doubt, the most realistic writer of adventure since Defoe, or else he speaks the truth, in which case he is a great explorer. I see no possible avoidance of this dilemma, so that which ever way you look at it the man deserves credit which he has never received.

We set off, four of us, to visit Mr. Clement Wragge, who is the most remarkable personality in Auckland—dreamer, mystic, and yet very practical adviser on all matters of ocean and of air.

On arriving at the charming bungalow, buried among all sorts of broad-leaved shrubs and trees, I was confronted by a tall, thin figure, clad in black, with a face like a sadder and thinner Bernard Shaw, dim, dreamy eyes, heavily pouched, with a blue turban surmounting all. On repeating my desire he led me apart into his study. I had been warned that with his active brain and copious knowledge I would never be able to hold him to the point, so, in the dialogue which followed, I perpetually headed him off as he turned down bye paths, until the conversation almost took the form of a game.

"Mr. Wragge, you are, I know, one of the greatest authorities upon winds and currents."

"Well, that is one of my pursuits. When I was young I ran the Ben Nevis Observatory in Scotland and——"

"It was only a small matter I wished to ask you. You'll excuse my directness as I have so little time."

"Certainly. What is it?"

"If the Maoris came, originally, from Hawaii, what prevailing winds would their canoes meet in the 2,000 miles which they crossed to reach New Zealand?"

The dim eyes lit up with the joy of the problem, and the nervous fingers unrolled a chart of the Pacific. He flourished a pair of compasses.

"Here is Hawaii. They would start with a north-westerly trade wind. That would be a fair wind. I may say that the whole affair took place far further back than is usually supposed. We have to get back to astronomy for our fixed date. Don't imagine that the obliquity of the ecliptic was always 23 degrees."

"The Maoris had a fair wind then?"

The compasses stabbed at the map.

"Only down to this point. Then they would come on