STORY OF A PIONEER.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 131, 3 June 1911, Page 9

STORY OF A PIONEER.

THE ADVENTURES OF JAMES . MACKAT. A PATHFINDER OF THE GOLDEN WEST. (By JAMES CO WAX.) We detachments steady throwing. Down the eflpes, tlnough the passes, op the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we r« the unßnown ways. Pioneers, O IMoueers! We, primeval forests felling. We the rivers stemming, vexing we. and piercing deep the mines within; We the surfuce broad surveying, and the virgin Noil upiicaviiis. Pioueors, O Pioneers! —Wait Whitman. An old man of 80 lies paralysed in his j little home up at Paeroa, where the I Ohinemuri River sweeps down with its load of sludge from the hills of gold. He is the man who first opened up thy immense Ohinemuri goldfield to the white man, and who .also (irst induced the Maoris to let the white man mine for gold at the Thames. It was he, too, who was the chief white pioneer on the Golden Coast of the South Island, inasmuch as he carried out the famous purchase of the whole of Westland from the Maoris, half a century ago. In the South Island he bought ten million acres of land for the Crown. In exploration, laud-purchasing work, and in dealing with Maori troubles his services were worth millions to the colony. Yet be has to subsist now. in his extreme old age, on a tiny Government compassionate allowance of All per week. He has. it is true, had the barren honour of having a back street named after him [ down in Greymouth; and a small town-) ship near Paeroa also bears his name. I Ho is the last of the men who opened up the rich West Coast, and he is probably the most successful man who ever dealt with Maori affairs in the rough and dangerous old days, with the solitary exception, perhaps, of Sir Donald McLean. This octogenarian is James Mackay, ! explorer, gold pro.ipKctor, Maori agent and interpreter, and one-time Civil Commissioner for the Waikato and head of i the Native Department in the North | Island. The story of his pioneering days reads like an ancient romance, so quickly does history march in these new lands. James Mackay is about the last of a plucky band of explorers; he was the contemporary of such men as Yon Haast, Brunner, Heaphy, Fox, and Rochfort. The traveller who from the comfortable elevation of a box-seat on the mail coach, or from the window of a railway carriage surveys the rushing torrents. wild ravines, and wooded heights of South Nelson and Westland. may well bestow a thought on these brave pioneers of young New Zealand—the greathearted explorers, prospectors, and diggers. Cold and hunger and daily risk of death were their lot in those early days; pushing through the black birch woods, fording rushing torrents, climbing rocky steppes, and living precariously on the few birds and edible roots which the forest afforded. Their names carry with them some enthralling narratives. And .lames Mackay ought 'to be particularly remembered by tho.se who swing on by coach along the wellgraded road through the grand Bullor Gorge, for it was he who, with his Maoris "blazed" the first trail throug'i this forest wilderness. TERSE PERSONAL NARRATIVE. Mr Mackay has written for mc the following summary of his early exploring work. He doesn't waste any words; but his plain and pithy statement is a whole Iliad of adventure for those who can read between the lines: '•Between 1835 and ISO 2 I explored the north-west corner of the South Island, and discovered the sources of the Aorere, Takaka and Karamea (Mackay) rivers. 1 travelled down the West Coast with two Maoris, January. 1857, went as far as the Grey River, thence inland up the river to its upper branch, thence to what is now Reefton s:vddle. In February, 18;>8. f entered the Government service and one of my first duties was to purchase 2i million acres on the East Coast, from Cape Campbell to the Hurunui River. From Christchurch. with my cousin, Alex. Mackay (ex-Judge of the Native Land Court) I walked across the island to the West Coast to negotiate for the purchase of 7J millions of acres of tile West Coast, frqm Kahurangi Point down to Milford Sound. The purchase was not then completed, and 1 returned to Nelson, walking up the West Coast. 1 came on. in November IS!>!>. to Auckland, to get fur-j th,er instructions from Governor Browne. "In ISOO T returned to the Grey River by way of the Upper Buller. Devil's Grip. Tiraumea, Matakitaki, Maruia. and the Grey River to what is now Greymouth. I had Alex. Mackay and Frank Flowers (one of my sheep station hande) and three Maoris with mc. We ran out of food by the time we reached Maruia Plains, and my cousin and Flowers returned to Nelson. I and the three Maoris kept on; we were 48 liours once with only one woodhen to eat between the four of us. We blazed the present line of coach road through from the Upper Buller to the. Grey River. On my return to Nelson, the Provincial Government gave mc £1.=50 for this service. I purchased the 7i million acres from the Maoris for the consideration of £390 and 14,500 acres of Native reserves. "In IS6O, on my way back to Nelson, I explored a track from the mouth of the Heaphy River, West Coast, to Collingwood, since made into a bridle track. At Christinas, 1562, 1 named Mounts Lockett, Peel, and Domett; also Diamond Lakes." EARLY LIFE AND ADVENTURES. Some amplification of Mr Mackay's brief story of those pioneering deeds is permissible here. It was in 1545 that he first arrived in New Zealand, a boy of fourteen, with his family, who settled in the Collingwood district. Nelson. Young Mackay was brought up as a sheep fanner, and his spirit of adventure early led him to explore the rugged and unknown mountains of South Nelson. He was 24 years of age when he travelled by the sen-coast on loot down to the Buller. (Kawaiiri) and Grey (?.lawhera) mouths, two Maoris from Massacre Bay accompanying him. He sounded the bars of both rivers from Maori canoes, and found them navigable for coasting craft. At the perpendicular cliffs of Te Miko, on the West Coast, be and his companions hnd to make rough ladders for the ascent of the precipive, and on the cliff-top they met an astonished party of natives who had seen no white men since Mr Brunner's visit ten years previously. Paddling up the Grey River, young Mackay had trouble with the natives, and had to throw one .into the river and knock another down in the canoe. Returning to Massacre Bay by the coast,, ha car-

ried in his swag the first sample of I Grey River coal ever shown to 'the public. In 1559 and 1860 James Macltay and his cousin Alexander Mackay (afterwards a Judge of the Native Land Court), and Mr John Rochfort, surveyor, had some perilous adventures on the wild West Coast. James Mackay once just managed to save Rochfort from drowning by clutching him as the swift current of the Taramakau swirled him pa.st. In 1860 he carried 400 sovereigns in his swag right down to Bruce Bay, in tha far south of Westland, where he concluded the land purchase arrangements with the Maoris. Certain native reserves were marked off. and the whole of the rest of the country passed to the Crown. It is on some of the reserves fringing the coast, that the little remnants of the West Coast Maori hapua live to-day. Returning, Mackay and his 100 surplus sovereigns and the deed of purchase was very nearly lost in the Grey j River. Some of Mackay's experiences in these "antres vast," the domains of the few and far separated anthropophagi, were remarkable indeed. Hβ and hia Maori companions often had to live on such scanty foods as the forests and hills would afford; they considered themselves in a land metaphorically flowing with milk and honey when they happened to reach a region where wood-hens and fe.rnroots were plentiful enough to provide them with a full meal. Canoe, capsizes and narrow escapes in the Hooded rivers were all in the day's work. When he and itacktey visited the remote Mahitahi (Bruce Day) hi IH6O. they were a source of inteiis:' (uriosily to two or three very old Mnori women who had never seen any whi'u- men. The strange coats of the pakeha were quaintly described by the ancient wahines as wharc-o-tc-tina.ua Chouses for the body' , ). I Uirir\v;:istc-o:its pnkitua (.1 kind of .small hunt), their trousers whare knwha I C'bouse.s for the thighs"), and Mnckley's j boots paraerae, the Maori word for the sandals used by the natives in these cold ami snow-laden rejrioua. As for Moc-kny'fl foot-gear, was a thorough Maori; he had no boots but wore flax sandals. j SOME OTHER EXPLORERS. | And here may be interpolated something about still earlier explorers of the Goiden Coast. In 1845 Messrs C. lleaphy (the late Major Hoaphy, V.C.) and Thomas Brunner, two of the New Zealand Company's surveyors, trudged down the West Coast from West Wanganui, away up North near Cape Farewell, to j the mouth of Grey River. At West j Wanganui, an old cannibal Maori chief named Niho, a wild raider of the coast, refused to allow them to proceed further unless he received payment for trespass on a country hitherto untrodden by pakehas. They" had nothing to bribe ! him with, so had to resort to stratagem. They decoyed iii:n across the harbour in a canoe, and then left him alone on the beach lamenting. Thomas Brunner was the lirst man to explore the Buller River from its source to the sea. lie started from Foxhill, -Nelson, with two Maori companions, and endured innumerable hardships in the trackless, foodless, forest country through which the modern mail coach runs. On reaching the Buller mouth, Mr Brunner trudged along the rocky coast to the Grey, and thence right away south through what is now the Westland provincial district to the Waiau, which (lows from the face of the Franz Josef Glacier. He was unable to cross this river, as it was flooded, and marched ■ back to the Grey, fording and rafting creeks and rivers innumerable. On his way up the Grey he discovered the Brunner coal seam. Then he returned over tliH mountains and up the gorges to the Kelson plains, after an absence of eighteen months, during which time not a word had been heard of him. He had been given up for lost by bis friends. Mr Brunner received the medal of the Royal Geographical Society in acknowledgement of his pioneering survey work, and was afterwards Chief Surveyor fot the Province of Nelson. . Of Mr John Rochfort it is worded that in 1559 be performed the feat iA carrying on certain surveys in the dense forests of the West Coast for several months without stores and provisions other than tbr- primitive food of the bush—chiefly bird-; and fern-root. In surveying the Buller River his canoe capsized and all his stores went to the bottom, but this did not prevent the dauntless "kai-ruri" from proceeding with his work. Mr Rochfort was afterwards (he pioneer surveyor of the route on which the North Island Main Trunk Railway now runs. MR MACKAY'S WORK IN THE NORTH ISLAND. When the Waikato War broke out, Mr Mackay was selected by the Governi ment for native work in the North Island, be.eau.se of his excellent knowledge of the Ma.ori language, and his experi ence in dealing with the natives. Of his services and adventures in this Island he writes: "In ISG3 I came to Auckland, and was employed getting the natives to sur render their arms, etc..—semi-military work. In ISG4-ISOS I settled the Tauranga confiscated land question. On the removal of the seat of Government, in 1865, I was made Civil Commissioner for the colony and head of the Native Department in the North Island. "In 1565 1 persuaded the Thames natives to allow prospecting at Shortland. On gold being found by two natives in July, 1567. Dr. Pollen and I acquired the first authority to mine. From January 1 to March 13, 1807. I settled between 1300 and 14000 native claims for compensation in respect of confiscated lands in the Waikato. "I opened the Thames Goldfield, Ist August, 1867. I left the Government service 31st July, 18G!) (resigned). The goldfield had then been acquired from natives as far a_s Hikutaia. In 1572 I commenced land purchases for the Government. Acquired the Aroha Block in 1574. Opened Ohinemuri for gold-mining 3rd March, 1575. "In April, 1873. a man named Timothy Sullivan was murdered by the Maoris near Pukekura, Waikato. I was sent up there and had control, civil and military, of the Waikato district from April, 1873, to 30th June, 1574. On the 6th May I was attacked by a Maori when lying in my tent at Te Kuiti, King Country, and had a narrow escape from being killed. I put up redoubts along the frontier, made a patrol road, put the fear of the Lord into the Maoris and tided the district over its difficulties. The ! settlers acknowledged this by presentj ing mc with a silver salver tea and coffee service on Sth June. 1874. with the I inscription: 'Presented to James Mackay. i Junr.. Esq.. in acknowledgment of his i pront sen-ices rendered to the Waikato : settlers and for his efforts to advance ' the interests of the district. Sth June, • 1874." This was handed to mc at a j banqnet at Cambridge. "When the Government heard of the ■ attempt to murder mc at Te Kuiti on 6tb May, they asked mc ; to return to AuekI land. I (Jeciined- to leave; and stopped in the King, ■ -some four days I to see if the Maoris would deliver^juj?

the Maoris who had murdered Sullivan. Sir George Arney, the Aeting-Gevernor, and the Executive, seemed to think I was plucky in remaining when my life was threatened several times after the attack: on mc by Ruru, so they voted mc £500; and £S6 worth of plate was procured in the shape of a claret jug and salvei —with the inscription: 'Presented to James Maekay, Junr., Esq., by the Government of New Zealand, in recognition of his services wfeen on a dangerous mission to Te Kuiti on 6th May, 1873.' If they only knew it, I had been in many tougher scenes than that. Have had the pleasure of sitting 10 minutes while the Maoris agreed whether I was to be shot or not. "I went back land-purchasing after June, 1874, and was at that work some time, until Sir George Grey and I fell out. After that the Grey-Sheehan Government engaged mc to inquire into the Taranaki troubles. If my recommendation had been adopted 'the Parihaka disturbances would probably have boon averted. "Next, in 1579, Warden Charles Broad having died at Greymouth, West Const. 1 was asked to go there and take the I position of Warden and Resident Magis- I trate. I resigned after being there j twelve months." Of late years Mr Mackay has been in private business as a native agent and interpreter. His sun will soon set, but his pioneering record surely demands that his name shall not be forgotten. He is one of 'the men who blazed the way.