About New Zealand

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30028, 12 January 1963, Page 3

About New Zealand

Curtain-raiser to a Colony. Sidelights on the Founding of New Zealand. By Cecil and Celia Manson. Whlteombe and Tomba. 224 pp. Index. Kawarau Gold. By B. B. M. Sinelair. Printed for the Author by Whlteombe and Tombs. IM pp. Guide Aspiring. By Frank Alack, edited by J. Halket Millar. Oswald-Sealy. 229 pp.

Each of these-three breezy New Zealand books reveals to advantage the journalist’s flair for mood and motive, and the ability to combine homely fact with stories of adventures and alarms, of disappointments and victories. The first will interest especially Wellingtonians, the second tells the story of the gold-dredging of Otago’s Kawarau river, whilst in the third a New Zealand mountain guide records his reminiscences of many climbs and expeditions in the Mount Cook area.

North Island readers have long appreciated the Mansons' short chatty biographies, descriptive essays and historical sketches that have appeared week by week for some years in "the Dominion.” “Curtain-raiser to a Colony” is a collection of nearly sixty of these articles, many of them here re-written in a slightly different form. All deal with people, places and events in the first two or three years of the Crown Colony period especially round about Wellington, when the New Zealand Company was settling Port Nicholson and Governor Hobson, stricken by illness, was struggling with multifarious problems, including the founding of his capital city at Auckland. The authors have combed dozens of books, old and new, in an exhaustive search for news-worthy snippets, and they have succeeded in faithfully transmitting all the sights, sounds, smells and gossip of the time.

Many contrasting individuals —the Wakefields, “Radical Jack” Lambton (the first Earl of Durham, governor of the New Zealand Company), “Worser” Heberly, Charles Heaphy, Lieutenant Willoughby Shortland, and dozens of others come instantly to life in these pages; and despite the episodic style of its presentation, the book as a whole possesses a surprising unity. Historically accurate and yet without a trace of pedantry, this informative, brightly written series of stories will entertain all who are even remotely interested in early Wellington. Published to coincide with the recent Queenstown celebrations of gold rush days in the Arrow river, “Kawarau Gold at once compels attention by its interesting illustrations. For instance the endpaper maps of the gold dredging claims on the Clutha, Molyneux, Manuherikia and Kawarau rivers at once set the mind reeling with tales of untold riches. Perhaps the photograph with the strongest appeal is that of the first world-record dredging return from the Electric Gold Dredging Company’s “Lady Ranfurly” dredge on the Kawarau river (1234 ounces for the week ending July 7, 1902). These maps and pictures truly reflect the fascination of the whole book itself. The main theme is the history of attempts to win gold from the river-beds by dredging, and particularly of the Electric Company. The first spoondredge began operations in February 1865, yet in 1899 in

Otago alone there were no fewer than 171 dredges at work. One company won 90,000 ounces of gold. Tales of courage and enterprise seize the imagination, and memoriesof past successes (the author chronicles the failures too) are no doubt responsible for the six latest Thequestion arises as to -c*! STngta ■grio!’’ concludes the author. Mr Smclair’s own long acquaintance past schemes dearly evokes disbelief in the «««• of future attempts. Though written for the general refet, Mr Sinclair's

book will long remain valuable as an historical record.

Guide Frank Alack’s “Guide Aspiring” will appeal especially to Canterbury mountaineers and create regret at the non-appearance of similar memoirs by such other guides as Alex and Peter Graham. Tales of adventure in the Southern Alps, of incidents with different “customers,” of experiences on famous and less well-known peaks and glaciers, of rock and ice-climbing are enthralling. Most notable are the accounts of the rescue of a woman from the steep bluff of Mount Sebastopol one wintry night, and of events that followed the death in 1936 of Guide Christie in the bergschrund near Pioneer Ridge. The author’s own genuine love of mountains and his modest sincerity charm the reader, who will readily grant indulgence for one or two errors that have crept into the text (Jock Richardson on page 16 for Jock Richmond and Konrad Cain for Conrad Kain; Lake Rotora (twice) on page 123 for Lake Rotorua). In a foreword, Sir Edmund Hillary remarks that “Frank Alack re-creates the atmosphere of his generation, and faces up to hardship and discomfort with a willingness and fortitude which is much less common today.” Ranging over a wide field of mountain activities, this book will appeal to all who love out-door life, whether they know the highcountry of the Mount Cook area or not.