MR. WHITCOMBE'S EXPEDITION.

Press, Volume III, Issue 178, 29 May 1863, Page 1

MR. WHITCOMBE'S EXPEDITION.

Little by little the army is advancing which is one day to occupy the -western shores of this island. The skirmishers are slowly making their way, some dropping on their tracks, some hardly falling back on the main body; for men fall in the assault on the waste places of the earth as well as in battle with their fellow men; and geographical discovery has its martyrs as well as every other branch of human enterprise. We have all of us read of the great honors which have justly been paid by the Australians to the memory of those gallant men who have fallen in the attempt to open up the interior of their con* tinent. Shall we be behind hand in doing honor to those who have fallen in similar tasks in this island? Mr. Whitcombe'e loss to this province is one which will be. greatly felt. A skilful engineer and an accurate surveyor, active, intelligent, and enterprising,' his labors would have been increasingly useful the longer he remained in the public service. Indeed, in his capacity of surveyor to lay out new roads; his ability as an engineer was far from being made the most of, and he would no doubt have been presently employed more in the engineering works of the province for which he was more immediately fitted, and in which additional talent is now much needed. Mr. Whitmore's journey, so far as we can understand it, has set at rest one very important point in the geography of this island. It may now, we imagine, be accepted as a conclusion, that there is no pass to the West Coast of any practical value except that by the Hurunui and Teramakou. The pass travelled by Mr. Haast is of no present practical utility to the Province of Canterbury. There may indeed be gold found in the upperwaters of the Lake district, butwe imagine that that would prove of more importance to Otago than to Canterbury, even if the discovery should be made on this side the boundary line. Mr. Haast has proved that there is no country of toy great extent in Jackson's Bay; no open country of any importance, and no more wooded country tolerably level than that formed by the delta of the rivers falling into Jackson's Bay. Erom the pace travelled by Mr. Haast the mountains have now been nearly all traversed to the northward, and nothing but one almost unbroken Cham of impenetrable mountain and glacier has fc*en found to exist. The account we published on Tuesday of Mr. Whitcombe'e journey speaks * a counby totally impracticable for all useful P*Poees of transit. We are before driven « on the only tolerable pass, that by the Hurunui Even on tLifl ** the Saddle traverse the broken sides of ***kb. and ravines, along which anything in ..••**• of a road can only be made with the

greatest difficulty and at great expense. Again, the more recent accounts do not seem to confirm the impressions entertained by Mr. Sherrin of any large tracts of level land in the Hokitika Valley. Mr. Whitcombe appears to have fallen on the head waters, not probably of the main branch, but of the easterly branch of that river, and to have passed no open grass country in a fortnight's journey from the Bakaia Pass to the mouth of ,the Teramakau. It does not then on the whole seem to us desirable that this province should engage in any considerable expense in opening access to a country so entirely cut off from this coast. The Government have done wisely in forming*the nucleus of an establishment there; and we have no doubt that next summer the prudence of this step will become more apparent: but nothing has yet been discovered which would justify any outlay upon more than a narrow bridle track along which horses and stock could travel. The Otago people are talking of the West Coast being " rushed" next Spring, but we have no expectation of that unless the first prospecting parties should fall on something very promising. On the whole we cannot but think that the settlement both of Jthe West Coast and of Stewart's Island, should occupy the attention of the General Assembly next Session. Is it not very strange that with boundless forests on a long sea board we should actually be still importing timber for building purposes both from England and from America ? There can be little doubt that in a country so bountifully supplied at once with coal and timber, steam-saw mills on a large scale would be found a richly remunerative undertaking. But it must be admitted that, in a wild and almost inaccessible country, an entirely different system of management and occupation is necessary from that which is applicable to a pastoral and agricultural territory easily traversed and readily occupied. The absence of any pass south of the Teramakau is a fact which must greatly detract from the value of the West Coast to Canterbury in one particular. Even supposing a good harbour to be discovered, and a communication with Melbourne to be established, no mail could be brought to this side except by a very roundabout route. Had there been a practicable pass by the Bakaia the case would have been different, but now it would appear that any mail must go considerably to the north to reach the pass, and then return southward again to reach Christchurch. This would seem to deprive us of the hope of getting a shorter line by a harbour on the West Coast than by the direct sea route. We have heard a rumour that the Government will propose that a fitting recognition of the courage and devotion with which Mr. Whitcombe performed the task allotted to him, until he lost his life in the public service, should be made by the Council next Session, in the form of a grant to those to whom his loss must be for ever irreparable. Wβ nope the report is correct, for it will probably meet with universal appmbdfcka.