NAME OF NEW LAUNCH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22319, 17 January 1936, Page 11

NAME OF NEW LAUNCH

THE DONALD SUTHERLAND MEMORY OF GREAT PIONEER NEW ZEALAND'S FIORDLAND The decision to call the Tourist Department's new launch for Milford Sound Donald Sutherland will help to keep alive the memory of this courageous explorer and hardy settler —the first white man to penetrate the rugged region of New Zealand's fiordland, home of torrents and crags, mighty waterfalls, deep canyons, and all but impenetrable forests. The vessel is to be launched shortly from the yard of its builders, Collings and Bell, of Auckland. Donald Sutherland was Scottish born. He went to sea as a youth, finding his way to New Zealand about 1563. For seven years, with an interlude of golddigging, he fought in the Maori wars. He was in 40 engagements, and had wild talcs to tell of bush warfare. In the early seventies he was serving on a Government vessel under the command of that famous figure Captain Fairehild. The ship visited Milford Sound, which Sutherland decided was a likely place for gold. Solitary Life Endured Alone in this wild land, with no other company than his dog, Donald Sutherland divided his time between prospecting and seal hunting. Supplies reached him only twice a year. It was a solitary life, but lie was close to nature and he possessed that hardy self-sufficiency which enabled him to endure the eternal silence and oppressive gloom of savage mountain scenery. In a little whare near the Bowen Falls he spent many a month in perfect solitude, the only human being on the shores of all the fiord country. In 1878 he was joined by an old friend and fellow-countryman, Mr. John Mackay, and the two men made long trips into the country behind the fiords, carrying guns, slashers, and the allimportant prospecting dish. Soon they were in new country. They had no luck in their search for cold, but they discovered a beautiful scries of falls, the cascade through the forest being named after Mackay. They also discovered the curious Bell Eock. Great Falls Discovered On the evening of the third day from Milford they camped in the forest, and. as they sat round their fire, they heard the thunder of some great cataract ahead. They expected to see something grand on the following day, but they were not, prepared for the awe-inspiring sight that confronted them when they tracked the roar of water to its source. Spellbound, they gazed at the wonderful falls which seemed to drop from the clouds above. They estimated the total height at about a mile. This great cataract, later named after Sutherland, was discovered on November 10, 1880. The mile-high estimate was reduced by surveyors' measurements to 1904 ft., but, even so, it is the highest waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere, with the possible exception of some of the great cataracts in the forests of Brazil toward the Andes.