Bishop Selwyn – pedestrian most extraordinary

Press, 17 January 1981, Page 15

Bishop Selwyn - pedestrian most extraordinary

By

GORDON OGILVIE

George Augustus Selwyn’s two most regular nicknames were “The Walking Bishop” and “The Sea Bishop.” Nicknames are not invariably well deserved but these two were; and Canterbury’s earlv settiers were much impressed by Selwyn’s muscular style, of Christianity. Bishop Selwyn was from' a young lad extremely fit and agile. He could dance well and rode confidently. At Eton and Cambridge he swam all the year round, whatever the weather, and dived fearlessly. He rowed at number seven in the first Oxford - Cambridge boat race in 1829. He ran over ploughed paddocks to improve his wind, took long cross-countrv walks, and learned to use a compass effectively. Once he hiked from Oxford to London (86 miles) in 13 hours. When he visited Banks Peninsula in 1844 on his first trip to the South Island as Bishop of New Zealand, Selwyn was 34 years old and in his prime, physically. His first tour of the settlements and mission stations in the. North Island had lasted'six months. During this period Selwyn travelled 1180 miles by sea, 249 by river, 86 on .horseback, and 762 bn foot' — a total 0f'22,77 miles. ' His southern tour was eventually to take him

3000 miles, by schooner or on foot, to all the South Island settlements, plus those at Ruapuki and Stewart Island. Selwyn returned to Canterbury nine more times — some of these aboard his mission yacht Undine, which he liked to navigate himself — and one searches in vain through comtemporary journals and memoirs for any unkind references to Selwyn emanating from this part of the world. Though our first bishop was frequently embroiled in controversy in the north of his diocese, .his relationship with Canterbury’s pilgrims was generally of a cordial nature. His first visit here is of particular interest, involving as it does some of the most robust leg-work on record in this pioneer period. Selwyn arrived off Peraki, his first southern port of call, at 9 p.m. on Monday, January 8, 1844. He had a rough trip down

from Wellington in the 20ton schooner Richmond: “Ship, master, and men all very dirty —decks leaking, letting in water — prospect not brilliant . . . resigned myself to my fate,” his log records. Selwyn was seasick and glad to get ashore next morning. There he had family prayers and breakfast with George Hempieman, who ran the Peraki whaling station on the south -side' of Banks Peninsula; . With 10 Maori companions, Selwyn then visited Joseph Price’s whaling

station several bays away at Ikoraki where he made a “vain attempt to induce the foreman to accept a Bible or to express any wish for a better life.” On then to the Goashore whaling station where Paddy Wood’s wife received Selwyn hospitably with a drink of milk and the bishop gave her school books and scripture lessons in return. At Waiwera, which Selwyn reached at dusk, he found one family of Maoris, had eels for tea, and conducted an evening service. This completed Selwyn’s first vigorous day’s work in Canterbury. From Birdling’s Flat, Selwyn tramped all the next day down the Ellesmere Spit to the small Maori settlement at Tauutu where he was well received by about 40 Maoris and responded with another evening service. On the trail again next day he learnt from two sailors walking northward from

Otago that the rivers were very swollen, due to a nor’ west thaw. Despite this, Selwyn pressed onwards, safely crossing a number of streams and rivers en route by feeling his way across the treacherous crossings with his tent pole. Erua carried his precious religious material in a waterproof bag. Wherever there were settlements Selwyn baptised, preached, and handed out Bibles or tracts. Eels and ducks helped eke out the food supply. Near dusk on January

16, a week after leaving Little River, Selwyn was making his way along the rough stony shoreline south of Timaru when he saw a small camp fire in the distance. It was Edward Shortland pitching his tent and setting himself up for the night near the mouth of the Waihao River. Shortland was the government official in charge of relations with the Maoris. “Protector of the

Aborigines,” he was officially titled. He had gone to Otago by sea in order to take a census of the southern Maoris and was now returning north, overland. Shortland’s companions drew his attention to the distant figure striding along the beach towards them. The Maoris soon identified him as Bishop Selwyn from his shovelshaped hat. Selwyn, as was often his habit, had

outstripped his attendants in his desire to find suitable accommodation, before nightfall. Delighted by this unexpected meeting, the two Europeans exchanged information helpful to each other’s journeyings and retired for the night. After breakfast and prayers next morning the two parties went their separate ways, Selwyn giving Shortland some rice and flour to augment his diet a little. Shortland’s journal records the impact Selwyn had made. “For some time after we parted my natives continued to talk about Te Pihopa (The Bishop) repeating to me what they had heard from his lordship’s natives. This great physical power and energy he exhibited in walking and in fording rapid and dangerous rivers, even surpassing themselves in their own excellencies, was a matter of so much wonder . . .” Just after a month later Bishop Selwyn was back at the Peninsula, arriving at Akaroa from Stewart Island aboard Tuhawaiki’s schooner Perseverence, which Selwyn’s journal tells us “rushed up to the anchorage like a race horse.” The French corvette Le Rhin and eight French and American whaling ships were in harbour. Selwyn had mail and messages brought to him by Charles Robinson, the British magistrate, and paid a call on M. de Belligny, the French agent. The Commander of Le Rhin, PostCaptain Berard, placed his house at the 1 bishop’s disposal. Selwyn was disappointed not to find the

government brig Victoria at Akaroa, as he had expected it to be on hand to take him to the Chatham Islands. However, as an alternative. Selwyn made arrangements to go on to Wellington in Tuhawaiki’s schooner, and offered Shortland a passage. As the schooner’s crew wished to dally a little longer in Akaroa before sailing on, the bishop decided to walk across the Peninsula to Pigeon Bay and Port Levy where there were good-sized settlements he had not yet visited, and be picked up by the Perseverance there. Selwyn occupied himself further at Akaroa by baptising 10 children of English, French, and German parents. Captain Berard then invited Selwyn aboard Le Rhin where he was received with a seven-gun salute and entertained to dinner by the captain and officers. The bishop caused much merriment through his attempts to recover his halfforgotten French; for whenever he, attempted to speak that language he unconsciously fell into the use of Maori words and most of his French sentences ended in Polynesian. Back on shore later on he conducted a service for the Akaroa Maoris whom he found to be “full of strange no-‘ tions.” , Next day, on February 16, 1844, Selwyn and Shortland were rowed in the boat belonging to the Akaroa customs officer, William Cooper, up to the head of the harbour. There, in Shortland’s account, they landed “near -

a deserted Pa, the earth ramparts of which remained.” These were the remnants..of the mighty musket pa-built by the Akaroa Maoris on Onawe Peninsula, after Te Rauparaha’s ..slaughter of the Ngai Tahu settlement at Takapuneke (Red House Bay) on November 6, 1830. The defence works of this superbly ‘ designed pa stretched some 600 yards along the peninsula. . Te Rauparaha was so impressed by its impregnable appearance that for 10 days he did nothing but look at it. At the finish it was captured, in characteristic Te Rauparaha fashion, by a ruse rather than a direct frontal at-

tack: and most of the four hundred defenders were slain and eaten, cr enslaved. Te Rauparaha’s son Tamihana, a recent convert to Christianity, was one of Selwyn’s attendants on this southern expedition. He was able to tell the bishop how the pa was taken. However, in recounting the heroic and savage tale Tamihana got so carried away by the excitement of it all and showed so little Christian charity for the vanquished that Selwyn had to scold him. It was late in the day by the time Selwyn and Shortland had tramped over the steep bush track to the head or Pigeon Bay.

There they were hospitably treated by the Hay family, fed on girdle cakes and tea, then made their way on a little further to the Sinclairs at Holmes Bay. The SincHrs, “Scotch settlers of the right sort," turned on an evening for the bishop, and after family prayers he went to sleep in his tent. Next morning, Selwyn and his companions climbed over the preciptious saddle to Port Levy and the Maori settlement at Puari, where the present Maori reserve is still situated. His arrival created a great stir as there had been none but native teachers and an occasional priest from Akaroa passing through. Selwyn found the Maoris keen to argue religion. He was surprised to find this in other parts of New Zealand too, where scores of ex-cannibal amateur theologians were animatedly debatins the distinctions between Methodist, Catholic, and Anglican doctrine — an unhappy side effect of the militancy of some of the missionary work. The next day was the Sabbath, so Selwyn took the opportunity to straighten out some misconceptions by holding three separate services and two teaching sessions. As Tuhawaiki’s schooner had not arrived as planned, Selwyn got impatient. Shortland negotiated with the owner of a 35-ton schooner, Eliza, which had just been built across from Puari at Whalers Bay (Harris Bay) and was about to make a trip to Wellington via Motunau. The owner agreed that he and the Bishop should be taken as. passengers for five pounds a head, the four renflaining Maoris included; and #ight days later, after an avftul journey, which both Shortr land and the bishop wrote of in despairing tones, Selwyn was back in the North Island. So ended Bishop Selwyn’s first tour of the south — an expedition which he was always to remember vividly, and with good cause. -