FRENCH NAVIGATOR DUMONT D’URVILLE’S THIRD LOOK AT N.Z.

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27736, 13 August 1955, Page 3

FRENCH NAVIGATOR DUMONT D’URVILLE’S THIRD LOOK AT N.Z.

[Reviewed by A.R.] ?Ihe Voyage of the Astrolabe—lB4o. An English rendering of the Journals of Dumont D’Urville and his officers of their visit to New Zealand in 1840, together wfAh some sceonnt of Bishdp FompalHerZ and Charles Baron .de Thierry. By Olive Wright A. H. and A. W. Reed. 191 PPMost of the French navigators in the South Pacific handed on to posterity excellent detailed accounts of what they had seen and experienced during their long voyages.. Not least important among their number in the early nineteenth century was Dumont D'Urville, who has even been compared with Captain James Cook. The Frenchman himself would have counted this an extremely high honour. D’Urville •was a trained scientist as well as a Navigator and explorer. He was al once scholar and man of action and bret what he wrote was addressed to the general reader rather than to the learned societies. He visited New in 1824, in 1827, and again jn 1840. His 1826-1829 voyage was recorded in 12 volumes of text and five -volumes of maps, portraits and sketches of. all kinds. His last voyage to these parts was described in 10 volumes issued under the title ‘’Voyage au Pole Sud, et dans I’Oceanie.” .Until very recently, these accounts in French could be consulted only 1 in specialist libraries in New Zealand; the general reader was most unlikely to become acquainted these interesting and informative accounts of New Zealand 115 and more years ago .» of that part of the account of the 1827 voyage which dealt with this country, 'under the title “New Zealand 1826-27 ” ’Now she has brought out a companion ivolume which as its sub-title indiw?th D’Urville’s visit of 840 to these shores.

Miss Wright is singularly well qualifled for her task. Not only has she ' had the training of an historian, but she has also had the advantage of living and studying for many years in France. After taking her degree in London, she had a home for 40 years in Paris and spent most of her holidays there. Herbibgraphical essay on.P’Urville in her earlier volume was a distinctly useful contribution to our knowledge of this important French navigator, while her excellent English translation of the New Zealand parts of his journal provided u* with- an, admirable 'and readily ' accessible record of D’Urville’s impressions of this country and jta natjve inhabitants settlement? Now, she journals of D'Urville and his officers Which deal with New Zealand in 1840. The result is a fine book which idcreases our understanding of the -.Maori people and the general situation in New Zealand at that time. • The title “The .Voyage of the Astrolabe” may perhaps becriticised on the ground that D’Urville himself .applied it to the volumes dealing with his voyage of 1826-1889. But no reader will have any doubts concerning the period covered. The book opens -with -an account of the Auckland Islands and proceeds to describe the. Astrolabe's visit to Otago Harbour, to Aka•roa and to the Bay of Islands. The ’section on Akaroa may be of most interest locally, although' that oh the Bay of .Islands has the greatest .historical significance. A great admirer of Captain -Cook, D’Urville was possiblyexplaining one of the great Englishman’s mistakes, when, he claimed “From the sea Banks Peninsula looks like a lofty island.” The huts, of, the Maoris at Akaroa were "exactly like those at Otago, perhaps even more wretched.” «ome references* are made to the Freiith colonisation scheme; arid, after the navigators had. returned to France ana learned more about it, some additions were obviously made to their journals.' ’•The’ Akaroa basin seems quite incapable of feeding a population of any size, when choosing this spot as the site for -a future, settlement, the French Government only considered the beauty of the harbour, the facilities for defence, and lastly the wonderful resources 'it could offer our whaling vessels.” D’Urville further criticised the choice because of Akaroa’s lack of access to the interior and its isolated situation so many thousands of miles from France. incidentally,. Miss Wright’s note about 1838 being me last occasion on which Te Rauparaha and Captain Stewart visited Akaroa is misleading. Reference to H. C. Jacobson’s "Tales of ' Banks Peninsula” might have saved her from this minor editorial error, just as a glance at Dr. Basil Howard’s "Rakiaura” might have enabled her to Identify D’Urville’s “Waller” a little more confidently as George Weller and given her the pleasure of reading an earlier English translation of that part of D’Urville's journal which deals with Stewart Island and Foveaux Strait So far as the Maoris encountered at all ports of call were concerned, it is made abundantly clear that D’Urville and his officers considered they had deteriorated rather sadly since 1827. Thus “the huts of the natives .. are the most wretched dwellings to be found anywhere in the world ... The whole place is filthy, full of stench and decrepit—only fit to house swine.” (Mr Rpquemaurel on the Otago Maoris). "These natives are no longer of any interest io the investigator. By their intercourse with the dregs of European countries, they have lost all those old - distinguishing qualities . . . even their vices nave changed, but only to become still

more repulsive.” The cllief Taiaroa is described as having a passion for strong drink and “as t , degraded as any two-legged creature endowed with reason could be.” , His tactics lan<i , , de .? ls c ?£? e un <ier Are: “He i ?°ll to /.difterient Englishmen, land the greater part of his territory, but I am strongly of the ■opinion that he has sold the same land to several purchasers in turn and that the biggest fool of all was certainly not the vendor.” *Many in--teresting selections could be quoted ass °rtment must suffice. Although the comments of ’ these French visitors have their value as .evidence for the student of early European - Maori . relations, it is apparent that the French were so Wlt! } th ? English political annexation and with the Protestant missionaries that some of their comments must be discounted. They-were nght about the degree to which P^? s ‘-. ltutl on was rampant wherever the mnS 11 ? 8 ships called, but they were mistaken about the degree to which Maori depopulation was likely in 1840. - not be long before this race, which is already so enfeebled and is rvTi^Hn ng i- I - d * il J’^ beconies extinct.” . irkenea the Maoris’ prospects to those of the American Indians European occupation of native land would drive the Maoris into the interior where they would survive "till finally they make wav for a. purely European population.” The contrast between the French and the English missionaries is too strongly drawn. The former "having come to New Zealand Purely in the interests of morality and religion, having no part in the ideas of money-making that are behind so many of the acts of almost all the English missionaries,” are painted as saintly men, while the latter are seen as landgrabbers and traders “exploiting in tneir own interests and squeezing the people to whom they had come to bring the Word of God.” The contrast is so striking that the reader will need no warning to be on his guard. Since the extracts from the 1840 French visitors’ journals do not occupy anything like the same amount of space ’ as did those of 1827, Miss Wright has added short essays on “The Churchman, the Adventurer, the Place of Meeting.” She has assembled much that is interesting concerning Bishop Pompallier, the Baron Charles de Thierry and the Bay of Islands. There may be little that is new to the serious student, but the general reader will no doubt welcome these essgys. Bishop Pompallier emerges as much freer from political prejudice than his French contemporaries. It is perhaps not widely known teat the Bishop become a naturalised British subject in 1850 in order to remove all suspicion concerning his influence the political loyalties of the Maoris. JJere he is shown as a dignified, cultured and devoted Catholic missionary, while de Thierry remains a pathetic, even ridiculous, figure The latter’s importance is seen to lie in the threat of French intervention in New Zealand—a subiect of some historical controversy and one to which various wrMers have attached too much importance.

•Die fourteen excellent plates, most of which are reproductions of the ?J?^' ring s ?f Be Breton, the surgeon, in .to the value of this work. Miss Wnght must be thanked for her competent translation and for preparing another useful addition to the historical literature dealing with early New Zealand.