EXPLORATION OF THE MOKAU COUNTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1753, 27 September 1875, Page 2

EXPLORATION OF THE MOKAU COUNTRY.

Me. T. 0. Cheal has forwarded us an interesting' account of the exploration of the Mokau country. After some amusing remarks on the straits the party were put to in the matter of commissariat, and referring to the fact that Mr Piobinson's private diary of the trip had got into the newspapers in some rays'erious way, without that gentlemana knowledge, he says :— " My instructions from the Taranaki Provincial Government were to explore the country batween Mount Bgmont and the Mokau liver, to see if it was possible for a railway to be carried from New Plymouth to Waikato. This country had been looked upon, and spoken of, as impassable, a perfect terra incognita, and the Provincial Government, at some little trouble and expense, determined, to try if it were possible to get through this country for the mutual benefit of booh the Taranaki and Auckland provinces. Our staff was not small, as you imagine, but was composed of about twenty packers and two cutters, the advanced party consisting of five packers and two cutting, besides myself At the end of three weeks, when about sixty miles in, ifc became evident that the parties packing in provisions could not bring in nearly enough food to supply us and themselves during the journey in and back along the track. It was necessary that something should be done either to give up the attempt to go further, or dismissing all the packers and taking as much food as we could carry, to push on in a small party. With a few volunteers inured to hardship and good bushmen we chose the latter course, continuing our journey with a small party of five and the dog. Now, I think when we tell you that we subsisted on what we carried with U3 just a month after we bad dismissed the packers ; that for a fortnight we had but two meals a day, consifting of brcken biscuit and tea, with an occasional pig or eel; that the last five days our food consisted of the biscuit dust in the bottom of the sacks; half-a pannikin in the morning, mixed with tea and eaten with our knives, and the sam^ at night. And above all, that for the last three weeks we were wet to the skin every day, some evenings pitching camp in a pouring rain, which prevented us drying our clothes, and we were obliged to leave them to soak in the rain all night, not having room in our 6xß tent, to take in wet clothes, and in the morning we wrung our clothes and warmed them at the fire before eating cur rich repast and pushing on our journey. I think when we have said this and tell you that in less than two months we cut a track through a hundred and twenty miles of dense bush, and were only prevented from reaching the Mokau river through running short of food and wretched weather. You will at least give us credit for doing our best to carry the exploration through to our destination, and that it was not altogether a pig killing and eal catching excursion, although those sports formed part of the programme of our journey, being necessary for subsistance. In conclusion, I think it would better become the Press of the Auckland province, if they expressed their thanks to the Provincial Government of Taranaki for their energy in carrying out such an exploration in order to bring it before the General Assembly this session, to which Auckland, in her present impecunious position, could lend no helping hand, though interested id the work, and not try to ridicule the poor, unsophisticated denizens of the garden of New Zaland. — Yours, etc., T. C. Cheal.

" Purvey Camp, Moa Block, " Taranaki, September 21, 1875."