EARLY EXPLORERS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 102, 26 October 1929, Page 25

EARLY EXPLORERS

BLAZING THE TRAIL

OVERLAND IN NEW ZEALAND

(By "Lector.")

■^bcoirfi it. is quifc» tree that a great --iiAei of books have in recent years been written about New Zealand, it is also true that very few of them can ;be classified as history in the sense that they add anything to our knowledge of the history of the country, or that they put into order for use any of the knowledge which has been available for years past. Historical method has been so often lacking that only a rare volume now and again can be looked .upon as a scientific contribution to the study of New-Zealand history. It is rather a reproach to the teaching of history in Now Zealand that so little has been published by our university students as the result of their research, and that the great mine of wealth reposing in the Public Eecord Office in-London since the demise of the New Zealand Company has never been exploited or even ' closely examined by a New .Zealand student. That great task was'left to be accomplished by a Dutch Ehodes Scholar from South Africa who had never seen this Dominion. These strictures I can: make freely as an introduction to Professor J. E. Elder's little book ("The Pioneer Explorers of New Zealand," by John Eawson Elder, M.A., D.Litt.; Blackio and Son), because it must be .obvious to anyone who has followed Dr. Elder's work in^;New Zealand that he seems likely to lead his students on the path of research for which ,he is himself so well qualified. He has only been in New Zealand for eight or nine years, having come to Otago University from that of Aberdeen, where he was educated and where for some years ho had been ■ lecturer in Spanish and in modern history. Knowing nothing .at all of New" Zealand history, ho has devoted himself to this special study, with enthusiasm and understanding, and has now produced two little volumes which are likely to have a wide sale for many years—" Glimpses of Old New Zealand'! and the present one, "Tho Pioneer Explorers of New Zealand." They are both in the "Myth, Legion, and History" series of Blackie and Son, and are both written in the popular stylo of that series, but the sound scholarship and research involved give them a standing as contributions to the history of New Zealand which will stand a rigid test. In the earlier book Dr. Elder selected a score or so extracts from standard books on New Zealand to illustrate from the writings of others the early history and development of the colony. In the present volume he has confined his attention to the rather neglected field of tho land cxplorors, who have generally been overshadowed by the desert travellers of the heart of Australia. To judge by his extracts from the journals of Brunner, in particular, the New Zealand trail-blazers had their privations and hardships as well as Burko and Wills, Sturt and Eyre. WHALERS AS PIONEERS. Appropriately enough, Dr. Elder devotes his first chapter to tho whalers, who undoubtedly made the first foothold in New Zealand for the white man. In this field Otago was well ahead of the others. Though bay whaling was conducted from other spots, and though the Bay of Islands had almost from the beginning of the century been the rendezvous of scores of whale-ships of all nations frequenting the South Seas, yet the establishments; in Otago of Johnny Jones were in a peculiar fashion the forerunner of British colonisation in that locality. There were others at the same time as he, if not earlier, and his competition with tho Weller brothers of Sydney for control of the Otago ■whaling business extended over many years; but Johnny Jones remained, and from whaling passed on to the importation of European families from New South- Wales to settlo upon his own land in.the neighbourhood of Waikouaiti, whero he ruled like a feudal'lord before the coming of British authority. Wo had .already added agriculture' after the European fashion to tho industries of WaUtouaiti. Horses, cattle, and sheep had been Imported from Sydney, and a small portion of his land had been placed under cultivation, the primary object, being to supply the whaling stations with provisions from tho proprietor's own farm. To carry out tbe plan agricultural labourers -were necessary, and these Jones bocured in New South Wales in several families .from southern, England and Wales who had emigrated to Australia, but who were tempted to move onward to New Zealand by the. prospect of settlement In a country whero tho climate resembled more that which they had left. Jones offered each settler £35 a year with maintenance and a free gift of sixty acres of land after two years. In February, 1840, eleven families, thirty-two persons In all, sailed from Sydney, to Walkoualtl in tho Magnet, reaching their destination after a threo weeks' voyage. There is a very interesting little appreciation of ..the character of Jones himself, the rough, arbitrary, hot-tem-pered whaler with the keen sense of business which gradually established him in a position of affluence. As Dr. ' Elder says: He served his day and generation after his own rude fashion. He must always remain a figure of extraordinary interest to the colonists of southern New Zealand, as one whose whole life ana character are typical of the rough pioneering days in which he lived. After the whalers in Dr. Elder's category come the missionary pioneers and explorers, of whom Marsden himself was an inveterate leader. The overland journeys of Marsden, Colenso, Williams, Selwyn, Taylor, Maunsell, and a host of others added very materially to the topographical knowledge of New Zealand which was placed at the disposal of our Governors and colonists as they stepped off tbe emigrant ships in the 'forties, 'fifties, and 'sixties. Then come the scientists and surveyors, following in the footsteps of the navigators of England and France.at the end of tho eighteenth century. BRUNNER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. ' The New Zealand Company is entitled to credit for the string of scientific men that it brought out in the early ships. Dieffenbaeh and Heaphy, William Mein Smithy Captain William Symonds, and even _ .:ekett, who did such good work in exploring the proposed southern field of colonisation in advance of the Otago settlement. From the purely scientific point of view they were followed shortly by Hochstetter, who arrived in New Zealand in the Austrian scientific exploring ship Novara at the end of 1858 and spent nine useful months in the employ of the New Zealand Government. His arrival synchronised with that of an independent young German, Haast, who had come to report upon New Zealand as a field for German emigsa*Jon- binding things unpromising at the moment, he was intrigued by the opportunity which Hochstetter _ engagement presented of getting a good look at the country. It was a turning point in his life, for he afterwards became tho intrepid explorer of the Southern Alps and spent the rest of his life in the service 'of Now Zealand. Quite the most arduous journeys of exploration made _•• New Zealand were those of Bnmaer and his companions,

especially Heaphy and Fox, from Nelson towards the West Coast. In 1845----46 these three penetrated tho ranges behind Nelson until they were confronted by the wooded gorges of the Buller Valley. A month or two later Brunner and Heaphy started out determined to mako their way along the shore of the West Coast. " With their heavy pa :ks they were often not able to exceed three miles a day amongst tie great boulders through which thoy" had to thread their way at low tide. Here and there the paths made by the Maoris in their secret journeys for greenstone helped them round the moro difficult .corners, where they sometimes had to climb 500 feet and "keep to the hills for, a mile or two until the difficulties were weathered. Provisions running short, they had to subsist on fern root and such birds as they were able to trap or shoot. It took them sixty-two days of hard travel to walk from Nelson to the mouth of the Teramakau Eiver. where they found a friendly settlement of Maoris engaged in cutting and polishing greenstone. What hardships, they suffered are evident from entries in Heaphy's journal: Found, the remains of a dead pigeon, the rats leaving it as we approached, and made soup of it with wild rock parsley. . . Found, a dead cormorant; carried it on and supped of it with sea snails. But they reaehed Nelson at length, "having preserved Smutty, the little terrier dog, uneaten." Many other journeys Brunner made, adding to our knowledge of the rough South Island mountain passes, so that when he was eventually awarded the Eoyal Geographical Society's medal nobody begrudged • him the crown as New Zealand's leading explorer. Of tho other surveyors, Dr. Elder gives us interesting glimpses—Percy Smith,- Roehfort, Daniel Lusk, John Turnbull Thomson,-Dobson, Whitcombe, Browning, Charleton Howitt, James M'Kerrow, and, of course, Sir James Hector. Ido not noto any mention of tho explorer Dr. Schmit who came to an untimely end in Otago, but he had nothing to record, and his antecedents were quite hazy. Nor is there any reference to Hursthouso, but in the small compass of 120 pages something must be omitted. There are certain errors, chiefly literal, which, aro scarcely avoidable when such a book is printed in England and the "reading" is entrusted to one who is unacquainted with New Zealand. "Tohuga," "mohiki" (raft), "Manematu," Gabriel "Eeed," "Quinton" M'Kinnon, and so on. And as regards Colenso, he was not the same as Bishop Colenso: Still, Dr. Elder is to bo congratulated on his book, which will- be a most suitable gift book from New Zealanders for many years to come.