Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1922 CHRISTMAS 1842-CHRISTMAS 1922

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 23 December 1922, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1922 CHRISTMAS 1842-CHRISTMAS 1922

IN the year 1842 lorn- -ships,- the, “Lloyds, “Mary Ann, bi/esbue, mid “Lord Auckland” arrived at Nelsbu [lnvert, bringing between 800 and 900 colonists for the new settlement which the New Zealand had decided to establish at Wakatu, as the district lying along the shore of lasman Bay is called. A surveying party had preceded them by a, few months and had accomplished part of their work, but except for this the land lay as it had been left by Nature’s moulding forces. But these pioneers were not the kind of.people to be discouraged by difficulties and disadvantages. They set to work. to break in The ‘wilderness • they built huts—whares' thatched with raupo, or more pretentious structures of a gable and lean-to, the sort of architecture that one finds set in a child’s first drawing book. They made a town; though for more than two years high fern grew in most of the • ‘‘city s streets'. They worked and hoped; they met hardship and disappointment and probably, in true British fashion growled at it more or less; but they stuck it

out : timv ;;;i \\ ii. I} if>>ut; fi. V i'!. many ;i lime. yearning thoughts ot the Old La ml must have come In them. 11 |(> day's work done, ami 1 1' <■ bush ol evmiing falling, the memories nl Ileum would rise unbidden. I‘or these men and women had nut forgot Lon the land they had left behind ; limy were as ioya! to her (hen as their sens have proved loyal i i ihe troubled years- just past. And when the time drew near in that first Christinas in the new land, then the 1 nine thoughts must have been very in sislent. So different was everythin!; from the well-reinenihered condition? of the old festive season.

■\\’e beheld the old year dying In the eonntry of our ‘birth ; When the drifted snow was lying On the hard and Frozen earth.

When the love of home was round us By the blazing Christmas- fires; And the love of country hound us To the hearthstones of oitr sires.

But our sons; will see the glory Of tiie young and springing Year : Where the green earth (ells the story Of a younger hemisphere.

Still. Christmas was Christmas, whether in simy/ and frost or under clear ■skies and bright sunshine, and though Hie thoughts went , longingly hack to (he pasl thev also went forward in laid) and hope and loyally io the lulure.

No doubt llitil first Christmas did much to hearten, up- the pioneers. B •was a landmark; a- something to look back to; the (irsl Christinas in New Zealand. Trials were to come, retfl struggle and hardship, hlaek limes ol depression and eare-filled days, hut always old Christmas eatue round again and always the situ broke through the dark clouds.

ft is eighty years ago, that first. Christmas. Children haw boon horn, have grown up and died since then. Bush and bracken have given place to field and orchard; schools and colleges;, factories and warehouses, churches and' theatres vise where the lea-tree and fern grew. Change, everywhere. Vet some things have (.banged but little. 'I he splendid feeling of loyally to the Old. Land has not changed; nor faith in the New. Nor has the Christmas spirit.' And in the sure knowledge of that last wo wish all our readers, every one, A Merry Christmas.