RETURN OF MESSRS. BRUNNER AND HEAPHY FROM EXPLORING THE WESTERN COAST.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 233, 22 August 1846, Page 98

RETURN OF MESSRS. BRUNNER AND HEAPHY FROM EXPLORING THE WESTERN COAST.

( We have this week the pleasure of announcing the safe return of Messrs. Brunner and Heaphy from the Western Coast, they having arrived in Nelson on Wednesday last, after an absence of 22 weeks.

They succeeded in reaching the Araura, a native settlement situated in latitude 40° 43', or immediately opposite to Banks's Peninsula on the eastern coast, and distant from Nelson, by their route, 272 miles. By a letter of Mr. Heaphy's which we published in a former number, an account was given 6f the Kawatiri district having been reached, and the object of the expedition accomplished. The party, however, still continued to advance, in order to procure provisions for their return, and were gratified by reaching an exceedingly fine district, communicating with the Port Cooper grass country, and distant from the cattle station of Messrs. Dean on the east coast only sis or seven days' journey. The country, according to their description, is, however, densely wooded, and does not possess tie advantage of an adjacent harbour, or even sheltered anchorage, other than that afforded by a river with a bar at its entrance. The settlement consists of about thirty natives of the Ngaitau, or Southern tribe, the greater number of whom had never previously seen a white man. They were found busily employed working the greenstone, which they obtain in the bed of an adjacent river, and received their visitors with every possible expression of pleasure and hospitality.

The available land in this district appeared to be about double the extent of that in Blind Bay ; but circumstances prevented an examination of it, and it therefore is described from its appearance from the coast and from the natives' testimony. During the last summer several of the younger men had visited the French settlement at Akaroa, and also Otako, and they gave the explorers an account of what was transpiring there, together with a description of their journey, which was chiefly performed in canoes up the Teremakau river and along a large inland lake, the whole route being level.

The Kawatiri district, at the mouth of the Buller, is distant by the coast about 165 miles from Nelson. It is likewise level, and, with the whole of the country visited, entirely without grass or fern land, and densely wooded.

The river is that which Thorns entered in the Three Brothers, about two years since, and is apparently accessible for small vessels when the bar at its entrance is smooth. The adjacent point at Cape Foulwind breaks the swell from the south-west, and under the Three Steeples rocks there was an appearance of an anchorage in some degree sheltered. Our explorers, however, are very careful in describing the facilities of this place, and report the whole of the coast as being exposed to a fearful surf. On the banks of the Buller the land is quite level, and covered to the water's edge with forests of totara and kaikatea pine. The river is about as broad as the widest part of Nelson Haven at high water, and appears to wind considerably to the south-east in its course from the Matukituki valley, where it was before traced to from its source at the lakes. The explorers rafted themselves across this and two other large rivers, on totara logs and bundles of flax-stalk, and seem during the whole of the expedition to have jour-

neyed more in the manner of the natives than of Europeans, depending for sustenance, as they were obliged almost entirely to do, upon what was afforded by the forest and the reefs at ebb tide.

The greater portion of the route was by rocky beaches, only passable at low water, and over precipitous points which had to be ascended and descended by ropes of flax and supplejack. The way was in the track of a former war party, and had never before been visited by white men, other than sealers who had touched on some of the isolated reefs off the coast some fifteen years since, and the master of the Three Brothers, who entered the Kawatiri as before mentioned.

On the 4th June they left the Araura settlement on their return, very much against the advice and wishes of the natives, who wanted them to remain with them until the summer. The whole tribe, however, accompanied them for the first ten miles of their homeward journey, as a mark of especial respect, and urged them to return at some future time to settle among them. On the Ist of July they crossed the Kawatiri, and finally reached the plantations near Cape Farewell about three weeks since, in a very reduced condition, having lived chiefly on molluscs and palm-stem for the last 150 miles of their journey.

At Massacre Bay they were most hospitably received by the chiefs James Cook and Erino, who were as assiduous in affording them provisions, even to tea and sugar, as Europeans in a similar position could have been, and finally brought them to Nelson in a canoe as soon as the weather would permit.

The land at the Kawatiri, or Buller, seems to be of a nature which would make it available only as the site of a settlement for small proprietors, who could more profitably clear it of its heavy timber than larger ones. The quality of the soil is described as excellent. But the want of a good harbour, and the absence of grazing land, will probably prevent its regular or systematic occupation for a period at present not to be even guessed at. The Araura district, on the contrary, appears to he the western half of the Port Cooper country, and its discovery is of great interest, as it proves the middle portion of this island to be far more eligible for settlement than had been previously supposed, and the whole to be accessible by land from Nelson. Messrs. Brunner and Heaphy have also learnt of an inland route, which they believe practicable and easy, by the Matukituki and lakes, connecting the Nelson and Wairau country with the Kaikoras, Port Cooper, and Araura districts. This route it is possible they may explore in the ensuing summer ; they are sanguine of its practicability, in consequence of its having been described to them by natives who have been from Blind Bay to Otako by the inland valleys, and whose description of that portion of the route which had been visited by those gentlemen in previous expeditions was correct and unexaggerated.

We hope to be enabled next week to publish a portion of the journal of this interesting expedition.

Through the kindness of Mr. T. Berry, who arrived here on Wednesday last in a whale boat, we have Wellington papers to the sth instant. They fully confirm the rumours that had reached us of the capture of Rauparaha, and contain some interesting details of the progress of the war on the other side of the Strait. For particulars we refer our readers to the extracts in another column.

In the Government Gazette of July 9, the following gentlemen are announced as having been appointed magistrates of the colony :—: — T. R. Atkyns, Esq., Auckland ; J. C. Crawford, Esq., D. S. Durie, Esq., and A. C. Strode, Esq., Wellington ;

The Hon. C. A. Dillon, G. Duppa, Esq. and G. White, Esq., Nelson ; D. M'Lean, Esq., New Plymouth.