Early Transport Difficulties

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 154, 27 March 1937, Page III (Supplement)

Early Transport Difficulties

A pioneer settler, writing in the ’seventies, describes, as typical of the early days of the Canterbury settlement, the following incident: “One evening about a mouth after the arrival of the first ships, I was returning to port (Lyttelton), having visited with a friend the Messrs. Deans, of Hidcarton, and had jpst waded through the sivamp that ld.y in the line of march, which could not be avoided, when I met a ifiiddle-aged man carrying a towering bdiidld, which I concluded to be a bed. A few’ chains in the rear was his wife, also carrying a bundle nearly as large as the one carried by her husband. Shortly after I encountered the eldest son. who was staggering under a heavy load. Then appeared one of the daughters, and finally I passed tiro more sons, a daughter and oiie of two little ones, all more or less loaded; They had walked with their loads from port, and it was their intention to camp neat the site of the house that had yet to be built I merely give this as one instancy, but it was of daily occurrence the first few months of 1851. The person here referred to Is now living in the suburbs of Christchurch, having retired from business.”— BJl.W. (Web Ungtou)..