Lewis Pass

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 24 April 1937, Page 11 (Supplement)

Lewis Pass

UP AMONG THE SNOWY PEAKS MOUNTAIN EXPLORATION The year after Brunner’s return the South Island’s one and only Governor, took a hand in exploration. This was Mr Edward John Eyre, LieutenantGovernor of New Munster, as this island was then officially called for a brief space. Mr Eyre was a Yorkshireman who left his name writ large on the map of Australia as an explorer, walking in company with a single native from Adelaide to West Australia in 1840. In the ’sixties he became the most heatedly discussed man in the British Empire after he had put , down negro riots as Governor of Jamaica. In New Zealand exploration Mr . Eyre distinguished himself by making; . what seems to have been the first ascent , of Mount Tapuaenuku’s 9465 feet in ] the Kaikouras, a Maori accompanying his party being killed by falling over I a precipice on the mountain. The Kaikouras were in Nelson Pro-

vince then, Marlborough not yet having hived off as a separate province. Before returning to our narrative from this digression, it may be noted that Mount Fyffe, most-prominent peak in the Seaward Kaikouras, was named after Mr George Fyffe, whose uncle Captain Robert Fyffe founded the first whaling station at Kaikoura, which

station seems to have been the model for the Maori town-planning effort at Arahura noted by Messrs Heaphy and Brunner in 1846. \ AN ENERGETIC NELSONIAN We now come to the first exploring trip of Mr W. T. L. Travers. Every Nelsonian has heard of the Dun Mountain copper-mine and tramway, but very few know tjrat Mr Travers was the chief promoter of that enterprise. It was to Mr Travers that the original report of the Newcastle Smelting Works was addressed, as published in the “Examiner” of 30th April, 1853, stating that “the ore is exceedingly rich,” and that they would be pleased to pay £l6 to £l7 per ton for ore of this quality delivered in Newcastle. Seven years later the tramway from the Port to the mine was being built. Born in Ireland in 1819, Mr Travers enlisted in the Lancers in Spain at the age of seventeen and served there for four years; in 1844 he was called to the Bar in London. Five years later he emigrated to Nelson and was appointed District Court Judge, in 1854 being elected member for Nelson in New Zealand's first Parliament, and member for Waimea in the second, He was a founder of the New Zealand Institute, and was chiefly responsible for Wellington’s Botanical Gardens. In 1903 he was killed in a railway accident.

THOSE GRASSY PLAINS AGAIN!

On 31st March, 1855, the “Examiner” made the following announcement: "A highly important communication has been made to his Honour the Superintendent within the last few days by two natives. The statement which they give is, that a very large tract of rich country, hitherto unknown to Europeans, exists in the centre of this island and may be reached either from Nelson or Canterbury on horseback.” The natives were willing “for a modest consideration” to point out the country. On 7th April Mr Travers set out with them in company with his brother-in-law, Mr Rooctl Strange. The party went by Tophouse over to the Wairau, soon striking the tracks of Messrs Weld and Clifford, of Flaxbourne, who had been up exploring a fortnight before. Two years previously Mr Weld had discovered and named Lake Tennyson and the “Princess” Mountain above it: this time he was searching for and discovered a

pass from the Wairau to the Acheron, and also incidentally named Tarndale. Then a young man of 22, Mr Weld (afterwards Sir Frederick) in later life became Premier of New Zealand, and then Governor in turn of West Australia, Tasmania, and the Straits Settlements

I ECHOES OF THE CRIMEA Proceeding up the Wairau, Mr Travers followed the tracks of the Weld 1 party for a while. He mentions .that j he gave the name of Alma Heights to | a block of hills on the Inkerman Range, i Apparently Mr Travers is responsible I for the Crimean War names decorating the map in this locality. In the Haast report of 1860 he is mentioned as having named the St. Arnaud Range by i Rotoiti. Marshal St. Arnaud was the I French Commander-in-Chief in the i Crimea who co-operated with Lord Raglan, the British Commander-in-Chief, at the Battle of Alma in September, 1854, six months before Mr Travers set out. Opposite the St. Arnaud Range, there stands across the Wairau the Raglan Range, and up near Lake Tennyson are Mounts Sebastopol and Balaklava.

As the party proceeded in search of the promised El Dorado, the country grew more and more mountainous, and Mr Travers came to the conclusion that the guide, a native named Napera, was not as well acquainted with the locality as he gave out to be. They ascended up'among the snow to a height estimated by Mr Travers at 6000 to 6400 feet. At this point Napera calmly declared the ground was so covered with snow that he did not know which way to go! The disgusted party thereupon returned by the route they had come, and the long-reported, rich grassy plains of the interior remained as great a mystery as ever.

THE "GUIDES” DEPART! The two natives seem to have made themselves scarce on the way back, for Mr Travers remarked that he and Mr Strange got back in half the time taken with the natives, who had encumbered themselves with enormous loads of clothing. It is not related whether the loads of clothing had been provided by his Honour the Superintendent out of the public purse as

part of the “modest consideration” demanded for revealing the mystic land. Mr Travers did not make his next trip until five years later, and although it follows after other explorations yet to be mentioned, it is best described now as it continued on from the top of the Wairau. This journey led to the discovery of the Lewis Pass, over which a road is now at long last being made. On this occasion Mr Travers set out up the Wairau in February, 1860, in company with Mr Christopher Maling of the Nelson survey staff and also Mr David Stewart. In describing his trip Mr Travers said its object was to settle a theory he formed, “that nearly all the rivers of the province had their origin in some central mountain mass, radiating from it (so to speak) like the spokes of a wheel.”

SPENSER MOUNTAINS NAMED At Lake Tennyson Mr Travers and Mr Maling ascended Mt. Southey, a peak to the east of the lake, and Mr Travers relates that they "there observed a large snow-capped mountain mass (named by me the Spenser Mountains, in honour of the poet of that name), lying about the centre of the Province, and rising to an altitude, little, if anything less than 10,000 feet.” Beyond were high grass-topped ranges with wooded slopes. Although these mountains are the highest in Nelson Province, later survey measurement brought them below Mr Traver’s estimate, the highest peaks scaling close on 8000 feet.

Proceeding on by a pass which Mr Maling had observed, and which Mr Travers named Maling Pass, the travellers saw the Wairau away below them with its bed about a thousand feet under that of the Clarence which they had just left behind. After naming the Ada and Henry Rivers, Mr Travers followed up the latter to a branch which he named the Anne, and there ascended through the bush to open heights above. On the northern side of the range he saw a river flowing westward, and apparently continuing on this course. This river Mr Travers considered must be the Grey or one of its branches. A river flowing to the southward he named the Boyle, saying that it appeared to be a tributory of the Waiau. From this point the party returned along their outward route.

CONFLICTING REPORTS Almost immediately Mr Maling and Mr Lewis of the survey office, returned from Nelson for further exploration,

descending by the Lewis Pass to the western-flowing river observed on the previous trip. They found that this river almost immediately turned north, and was the Maruia tributory of the Buffer. “Hot springs similar to those at Hanmer were discovered in the Maruia Valley” said the report in the ‘Examiner.”

As showing how easy it was for explorers to err among the tangle of river headwaters in this locality, it is interesting to note that Mr Lewis declared the Boyle to be “a tributary of a western river, and of necessity a branch

of the Grey.” In reality it was, as Mr Travers had quite correctly supposed, a tributary of the Waiau, reaching the sea on the East Coast near Parnassus. This error about the Boyle was embodied in the Haast report of 1860.

WHO WAS THE MUSICIAN ? The poetical idea in nomenclature originated by Sir Frederick Weld with

Lake Tennyson and Mount Guinevere and Enid, and carried on by Mr Travers with the Spenser Mountains and Una and Faerie Queene, rather ran to seed by the time the Lewis Pass was reach-

uy me time tile juevvib j. vvcib ictiuned. In this locality some musicallyminded person showered grand opera names on the mountain tops, and we j have around us Mounts Maritana, j Trovatore, Zampa, Lucia, Lucretia, Norma, Faust and Martha. If these names were put on the map in 1860, whoever did it kept himself;' up-to-date in music, for Verdi’s “II j Trovatore” was heard for the first j time in London in 1856. In the midst of this atmosphere of prima donnas and ballerinas in New Zealand’s wilds is

a curiously-named Mount Technical. Perhaps it was the delightful surroundings on a fine summer’s day that turned the soul to thoughts of melody, for this is what Mr Travers discovered when he climbed up there in 1860: “We found the summit completely covered with a close sward of grass, as smooth as the lawn of a gentleman’s domain, dotted with ponds of cool, delicious water, the margins of which were literally carpeted with alpine flowers.”

MR JAMES v MACKAY'S EXPLORATIONS

Next in chronological order among Nelson’s explorers is Mr James Mackay, junior. Mr Mackay came out from Scotland with his parents in 1845, aged 14, and learnt farming on the family homestead at Glenduan. On coming of age he took up sheep and cattle country at Cape Farewell in 1852. In those days the route to Massacre Bay, as it was still called, was by sea. Charles Heaphy seems to have been the first recorded man to get there overland, when he walked across from Motueka to Takaka in four or five days in 1844. He said there was quite a practicable route for a track over the ranges. The track took a long time to come, for in March, 1856, Mr John Rochfort of the survey office was reporting that he had marked out “a perfectly practicable bridle path and cattle track” from Motueka to Massacre Bay.

INLAND FROM MASSACRE BAY Mr Mackay’s explorations began with the country inland from Massacre Bay. By 1855, in company with Mr John Clarke, he had plunged into the country to the west of Mount Arthur down

to points as far as the Karamea, and had sent® in a map to the Provincial Government. Then in January, 1857, accompanied by two local Maoris, Mr Mackay went down the coast in search of reputed river plains. He got down as far as the Grey, and was the first white man to be seen by the natives since Brunner’s visit of ten years before. He went up the Grey Valley to the little Grey, and also sounded both the Buffer and Grey bars, and reported them passable for coasting vessels. On his return home he found New Zealand’s first gold-rush had set in at Collingwood, where 1300 Europeans and 600 Maoris were on the diggings with a retired Indian Judge presiding as Resident Magistrate. By October, 1858, Mr Mackay, after being appointed by the Government as Assistant j Native Secretary, was also made New j Zealand’s first goldfields warden. In I January, 1859. Mr Mackay was down j at Kaikoura buying up the East Coast; country from Cape Campbell to the Hurunui for the Government. After that he was to go and buy the West Coast.

JOHN ROCHFORT FIXES BOUNDARY

At this time the Nelson Provincial Government had Mr John Rochfort off to make the first surveys on the West Coast. The Province of Canterbury had come into being, and a boundary had to be defined between it and Nelson. Mr Rochfort went down the Canterbury side, and then struck inland up the Hurunui by the old native track to the coast. In his report in February, 1859, he said: “The saddle of the Hurunui, which divides the river of the name from the Taramakau, is about a mile wide from source to I source, and should be made the boundj ary between the Provinces of Nelson and Canterbury, as being one unbroken line.” The old provincial boundary in this way came to run across the island in a pretty straight line from river mouth to river mouth. In this report Mr Rochfort remarked that a friend had suggested “Westmoreland” as a : suitable name for the West Coast coun-1 try. Mr Rochfort was soon back on a ! second trip to the Coast, returning almost immediately to make a survey of : the rivers and coast line. On this occasion he went around in the cutter Supply (Captain John Walker), and in August, 1859, the Supply crossed the j Buffer bar and was the first vessel to I enter the river. A LUCKY GUN SHOT I 1 The Supply was just about to sail on j her return to Nelson, when a gunshot I was heard. The Rochfort party having | departed, Captain Walker went ashore |to investigate. He found it was James : and Alexander Mackay in famished condition returning from their landbuying expedition. The Mackays had crossed from Canterbury in company with Mr Rochfort while he was on his boundary survey work, and had kept company with him for some time, James Mackay incidentally saving his life when he was swept away at a river .ford

Proceeding with their land-buying, I the Mackays had been met with a flat refusal by the Maoris to sell any of their precious greenstone country between the Hokitika and Grey Rivers from their sources to the sea. The rest of the West Coast the Government might have for the 200 sovereigns. As the Mackays had no authority to exempt so large an area, they decided to return to civilisation for fresh in-! structions. They attempted to go back 1 by way of the Grey and Maruia Rivers to "the Upper Buller and Rotoiti, but had to return to Mawhera on account of starvation, and reached the Buller in the nick of time for a passage in the Supply. Next year the Mackays went down overland via the Buller, Maruia, and •Grey, James Mackay proceeding down South Westland and setting all the necessary chiefs’ marks on the deed of sale. He purchased the entire West Coast, excepting certain native reservations, for £3OO, taking back with him another hundred which he had authority to expend if necessary to clinch the deal.

GLITTERING GOLD ON RIVER BANK Alter surveying on the Coast, Mr

Rochfort started work up the river on 4th November, and under date of Bth November, 1859, his journal has the ■following entry: “Still working through the gorge, the slope of the hills getting more easy. Whilst chaining I was surprised and no less gratified by one of the hands (F. Millington ) announcing the discovery of gold, an event as unexpected as propitious. and one which must have a powerful influence on this long neglect-.

ed Westland. The royal mineral was lying on the edge of the river glistening in the sun, and in such quantity as induced a mutinous spirit, my hands having a greater preference for the golden prospects before them than for the sterner duties of surveying.” Up above the Lyell Mr Rochfort’s canoe on 24th November capsized at a

spot afterwards known as Rochfort’s Falls, and as he lost much in the way of stores and instruments the party

returned to the Coast, tramping out over the peak now known as Mount Rochfort. From there they proceeded up the beach to Collingwood and thence home for fresh gear. The Nelson surveyors on the Coast were much more fortunate than Canterbury’s first surveyors who, when they set out surveying on the West Coast in 1863, had seven men drowned in seven months, and then packed up and went home

while some were still alive to tell the tale. LEARNED FOREIGNERS AID US The story of the exploration of Nelson after 1860 becomes very much a story of gold-digging and settlement —a tale of the pioneers rather than the explorers. However, there is one final expedition of which some account requires to be given. This was the ex-

ploi'ing and geological expedition of Mr Julius Haast extending from Bth January to 28th August, 1860. ,In the course of this Mr Haast proceeded from Nelson to Rotoiti, down the Buller to the Maruia, up that river and over to the Grey, and thence to the sea. Return was made up the coast, with various inland journeyings en route, and carrying on to Cape Farewell, with a final return by sea from Collingwood to Nelson. In this journey

a great number of names familiar today to all were placed on the map by Mr Haast.

Coming to New Zealand in 1858 as an agent for an English firm sending German immigrants to New Zealand, Mr Haast arrived at Auckland at the same time as the Austrian exploring ship Novara made a call there. This vessel had been sent on a cruise round the world at the expense of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who after a wild adventure as Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was shot by courtmartial in that country m 1867, his poor wife, the Empress Charlotte, diiven hopelessly insane by the horrors she witnessed, surviving until a few years back.

On the Novara was a geologist, Dr. Ferdinand von Hochstetter, later destined to acquire European fame. Coal had been discovered on the Waikato: the Colonial Government arranged for Dr. Hochstetter to remain arid make a geological exploration of part of the North Island. He did so, engaging Mr Haast, a trained geologist, as Jus assistant. Nelson’s Provincial Council arranged for Dr. Hochstetter to make a brief visit to Nelson. It followed this up by retaining Mr Haast to go right through the country and make a geological and general report. This concluded, Mr Haast’s services were secured by the Canterbury Provincial Council as Provincial Geologist, and he later became director of the Canterbury Museum and professor, dying in 1887 as Sir Julius von Haast, the recipient of many scientific honours from Britain and abroad. Most of the peaks around Mount Cook were named by Haast.

OWEN AND MURCHISON NAMED At Rotoiti Mr Haast ascended the mountain on the west side of the lake, which he named Mount Robert, failing to state after whom, an unusual thing for him. He named Mt. Travers and the Travers River, and Mount Franklin, after Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer (name now spelled Franklyn on Government maps). At Rotoroa the Sabine and D’Urville Rivers were so named by Mr Haast. On 28th January he sighted and named Mount Murchison in honour of Sir Roderick Murchison, the great geologist, and the whole of sth February he spent on its summit making observations from early morning to 6 p.m.

Mount Owen and the Owen River were next named after Sir Richard Owen, the scientist, remembered in New Zealand for correctly reconstructing the moa with only a thigh bone to go on. The Lyell Range, sighted from Mount Murchison, took its name from Sir Charles JLyell, another noted geologist who did much work in the United States. On 18th April Lake Hochstetter, near Lake Brunner, was named. At Westport, Mount Rochfort

was ascended and closely examined, and named after Mr Rochfort who had first gone up it. Mr Haast also gave us the familiar Coalbrook Dale here and Mounts William and Frederic. The above are but a few of the many names used to-day which owe their origin to this journey. Messrs Alexander and James Mackay were in company with Mr Haast a good part of the way down to the Grey,, and he also encountered Mr

Rochfort at work, Mount Alexander commemorates Mr Alexander Mackay, who in turn named a number of peaks and streams. The Warwick was named by Mr James Mackay when he crossed over it on 15th February, 1860, on his way from Nelson via Matakitaki and Maruia to the Grey.

RATS BUT NO PIGS Mr Haast in the very full and interesting report of his journey mentions that the whole countryside was infested in 1860 with the English rat. They seldom found the travellers during the first night, but if a longer stay was made the rats at once oppeared in swarms and nothing was safe from them. Wild dogs were found in tha open plains, but were not numerous. While wild pigs existed in immense numbers around Nelson and the Wangapeka was torn to pieces by them—three men in twenty months killed under contract within an area of 250,000 acres, 25,000 pigs, and having offered to kill 15,000 more on the same ground—not a single rat was to be found in the Buller or any part of the Grey district. At Murchison the tracks of wild cattle were seen.

Needless to say, the early explorers discovered without fail the sandflies of the old West Coast bush. Exploring out in the wilds far from clothing shops must have been particularly painful in one respect. Enveloped in clouds of savage sandflies, “those of my poor companions whose clothes were torn,” wrote Haast, “suffered much more than the rest.” And torn garments seemed to be the rule in the early days of pushing through Nelson’s wild hinterland.

Six years after the Mackays, the Rochforts, and Julius Haast were penetrating through this homeless wilderness sixty thousand people had poured into it, fortune? were being won and lost weekly, and a new era had begun in the history of New Zealand.

In concluding these rough jottings, the writer desires to express his indebtedness for information on doubtful points to Dr. F. A. Bett, Mr F. G. Gibbs, Mr F. V. Knapp and the staff of the Nelson Institute. He has endeavoured to get down to the actual facts of what transpired throughout, but there is much confusion in many of the old records.