EARLY HISTORY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 29, 4 February 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

EARLY HISTORY.

THE woore sketches.

BAY OP ISLANDS IN 1834.

MISSION AMES AND MAORIS.

(By ERIC RAMSDEN.)

The New Zealand sketches of Lieutenant Thomas Woorc, R.N., -who visited the colony on two occasions in 1834 on HJl.s. Alligator, have an added interest because of the careful, almost minute, descriptions of the country at that time recorded in the "Personal Narrative" of the surgeon, W. B. Marshall. The Woore drawings, which consist of two artially filled sketch-books of pencil d sepia impressions of the ports of * ,i flD d places of interest visited by the officers of the Alligator in Ceylon, India, Straits Settlement, Dutch East Indies and finally Australia and Now Zealand, were in tho possession, of the artist-surveyor until shortly before his death in Sydney in 1877. The books were given by Lieutenant Woore (in the later years of his life a well-known pastoralist in New South Wales} to his daughter, the mother of Mr T. W. F. Busby. Mr. Busby (a nephew of the British Resident at the Bav of Islands prior to the arrival of Governor Hobson) has kindly given mo permission to take notes from them. For many years they remained in a bank for safe keeping. Though known to be in existence, they were, for some reason, attributed to a "Lieutenant Woo t ton." Hitherto this material, extremely valuable as an early record of New Zealand affairs, has not bfeen available to the student. "The Bay." In the book, which so whole-heartedly (and we now recognise with just cause) condemned the behaviour of tho Alligator expedition to Cape Egmont for the rescue of Mrs. Guard and her children, held by the Maoris following the wreck of the whaler Harriet in April of 1834, Marshall makes only two references to his brother officer, Mr. Woore. It is not my intention to make reference to the tragic happenings at Taranaki, or to the bad feeling then engendered between the two races. The facts are available to anyone interested. There aro two sketches in the collection, however, that bave a particular interest to Aucklendere. Marshall's reference to March 10 is of interest, because it was on that date that Woore signed the most interesting of his Bay of Island sketches. He called it a "Hippah, or native fortress, at Ranghehoo, Bay of Islands" (here reproduced for the first time). For almost a., century this drawing, which has certain artistic, as well as historic, merit, has remained hidden away. ' - •: ~ ' On the previous day, says the surgeon, the Alligator made an ineffectual attempt to reach Kororareka, tho "more eommon resort of shipping." The •frigate was . brought to anchor "in a unall cove, called Bangi-ua," and he proceeds to give a detailed description of the locality. The Bay of Islands from "Bangi-ua," he says, was "beautiful in the extreme." Several canoes, fancifully decorated and carved, paddled alongside the vessel before her anchor was dropped. Immediately afterwards she was boarded by a number of Maoris. The majority .were men. The behaviour of the women in the canoes below was too much for the scandalised Mr. Marshall. Only too plainly did they jKxhibit, by "the gross indelicacy of their gestures," he declared, how low a standard governed their morals. But the moral tone of the Bay of Islands ;was much the same as at any other resort for whalers at that period. Such (conditions certainly lasted much longer Sn other parts of the Pacific. Curious Spelling. The chiefs Wharepoaka and Waikato jwere among the first on the frigate. jThe surgeon referred to the former as •"the inheritor of poor Duaterra's domains," and said he "exercised sway over the miserable remnant of that interesting native's once populous bribes." Duaterra (Ruatara) was, of course, the friend of the Rev. Samuel Marsden. Mr. Marshall carried on a npirited conversation with Wharepoaka concerning the great "Apostle to New Zealand." The Maori remembered him lis living at Parramatta, having a good wife, and possessing "plenty of piccaninnies." The mention of the word •'piecaninnie," used on more than one feccasion by the surgeon, iB of interest. Perhaps the presence of. American [whalers had already brought it into use the Bay. It was a cove off the native town of Ttanghee-Hoo," the "country residence" |faf Duaterra, that Marsden anchored in Ifche Active on his first visit to New Zealand. It was there, a few days later, on Christmas morning, that the Maoris listened to their first sermon. The mission station wag founded in 1815. The variation in the spelling of the C.M.S. mission settlement is extraordinary. Beneath a print (about 1832, or shortly before the Alligator's visit), which the Rev. S. M. Johnstone published in his recent life of Samuel Marsden, is stiil another version—"Rangihooa." Messrs. King, Wilson, and Henry Williams, on the beach attempting to launch a boat for the purpose of visiting the frigate, desisted on seeing the surgeon and Acting-Lieutenant Woorc approach. The visitors were escorted tc the Maori village, to which they were led over "a steep hill, and through th< pa, or stronghold, occupying its summit." A Tragic Story. This pa, which forms the subject o: the accompanying drawing, is minutely described by Marshall: —"This pa, fron the feebleness of the tribe to which ii belongs, whoso numbers have been veri considerably decreased of late years, ii in comparative disuse at present, ant consequently out of repair. It cover: the whole top of the hill, and is com posed of a series of circles surroundin; one another, and mutually protectinj the several enclosures, which they fenc< in by a high stockade, the stakes bein; about twelve feet from the ground. Eacl of these fences or stockades requiring t< be separately scaled, or the whole to b successfully thrown down, before th capitol, or inner circle, could be gainei by an enemy." The descent into the valley ran alon the margin of a frightful precipice ovei hanging the sea at high water; frot which, when the visitors looked dowr . "being the time of ebb tide, a sand; beach, spread over with huge fragment of black rock, and repelling the lou roaring breakers from its surface" alon piet their view. Their missionary hosts told them th tragic story of a little slave boy wh had provoked the displeasure of hi owner. The chieftain caused the lad t he tied up in a flax basket, and rolle over this cliff. But his fall was broke by different splinters of rock until li landed on the beach below in a daze but otherwise uninjured conditio]

Sharp young Maori teeth soon cut their ■way tlirbugh the bindings. Freeing himself from the basket the boy set off at full speed along the beach for Tc .Puna, hoping to gain the missionary compound. -The escape, however, had been noticed from the pa. The child was overtaken in front of the missionary's house. Before he eould be rescued from his iate, he was felled with a single blow from a mere. Three days later the Rev. W. Yates visited the frigate and persuaded t surgeon to visit Paihia (which form the-subject of another of the Woore sketches executed at this period). J.A y were 1 not strangers, for they had met in Sydney the year before. At that time Mr. Yates was superintending tne printing of the Book of Common Prayer, certain Scriptural passages, and a collection of hymns, in Maori. In the Kev. W. Williams the visitor discovered a college companion of a friesd '} * Roland Bingham, of Gosport), and at the Williams' home he met eight of the little missionary band who had come forth to the help of the Lord against the mighty." Life at Paihia. He has preserved for us several pictures of life at Paihia at that penod. For instance: "The monthly prayer meeting of the missionaries was held at Paihia this evening, and numbered about twenty persons, the majority of whom were, the sons and daughters of the missionaries. It was to me, from its novelty, from its sacredness, and from the place in which it was held, a peculiarly affecting and solemn meeting." The following morning the chapel bell called the Maoris to prayer. The majority of the 100 who attended dispersed to their homes immediately afterwards, leaving thirty-four to attend the adult school, which commenced at 6.30 a.m. The scholars formed three classes. The women, being married, received instruction in the same classes with their husbands. One student who much impresses! the surgeon was Rawiri, or David, a chieftain "once bold and war-like." The Rev. William Williams, 011 first landing at the bay, had found this Maori thrashing his wife, on account, lie alleged, of her provoking temper. Some time later he proposed to marry a younger and more handsome woman as a second wife. But when ho was informed by the missionaries that if he did so he would have to say farewell to the mission station, the rangatira, by "one of those mysterious movements of soul which overturn all plans," instead of departing to live in sin at Kororareka changed his mind and was converted. During his stay at the Bay of Islands Mr. Marshall was called on more than one occasion to give medical advice. In William Williams he found a missionary who had received a medical education, and doubtless they had much in common to talk over. He mentions having met Mr. James Busby (or "Puhipi," as the Maoris called him), who was the uncle of Mr. T. W. F. Busby, the present owner of the Woore sketches. A stern critic of the soldiers of the expedition, the surgeon goes as far as to say that the departure of H.M.s. Alligator was hurried from the Bay of Islands owing to a mutiny. Of these men, whose behaviour on the Taranaki coast he so trenchantly criticised, Marshall wrote: "On board the schooner it would have required 'talents of command of the first order to subject theitt to strict discipline, and, after two months at sea, during which they were subject to many privations, it can be no matter for surprise, however much for regret, that they fell before temptation, and, under the maddening effects of strong drink, forgot that they were soldiers, having previously forgotten that they were men." On returning to Sydney the mutineers were dealt with by court-martial.