“PAGES FROM THE PAST”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21952, 13 May 1933, Page 4

“PAGES FROM THE PAST”

A HISTORY OF OLD MARLBOROUGH " Pages From the Past: Soma Chapters In the History of Marlborough.” By C. A. MacDonald. Illustrated. Blenheim: H. Duckworth (E. H. Penny and Co.) (las net.) It is indeed fortunate that New Zealand, which has as picturesque an early history as almost any group of islands in the world, has also its historians. Many of them, in fact most, are men who have undertaken. to add to the sum of our knowledge of the .past not because of special opportunities for investigation, or special experience in research, nor because of endowments or other facilities which might encourage their work, but from the purest and simplest of all motives—a desire to preserve, for their own satisfaction and that of other New Zealanders, all that may be gathered concerning the engrossing story of the genesis of a Dominion. These chroniclers are, in many ways, the best historians of all, for they view history first in its relation to common humanity, having often a better appreciation of the sensational incident, the droll anecdote, and the romance of colonisation than the recorder who confines himself to the pure realm of dates, genealogies and significant events. In his “ Pages From the Past,” Mr C. A. MacDonald reveals himself as a writer who understands the need of the average reader for personal incident and colourful scene in his historical excursions. Much that he relates has no bearing upon the formal story of New Zealand, much has been touched on by previous writers, to whom ample acknowledgment is made, but it is to be doubted whether Old Marlborough has ever before been the subject of such a comprehensive and interesting survey. Nor has the author relied upon ■ legend, contemporary writings, and the researches of others in making this book. He has secured, at trouble and expense, many old records hitherto unpublished, concerning the early days in the district of which he writes. From these he has salvaged material that was not previously known, though his patient inquiries were not always adequately rewarded. He mentions, for example, that after considerable difficulty he obtained the diaries kept for more than thirty years by James Jackson, a whaler at Te Awaiti, arid bore them home in triumph, only to discover that Jackson had exhausted his comments each day with a few routine and unchanging observations. “In all those years,” Mr MacDonald says, “ he had written- in his diary every day, but, with one exception”, never made a comment on any subject but the weather and the number of whales sighted. The solitary exception was a record that on a certain occasion he had pulled out an aching tooth which was worrying his wife! ” _ Mr MacDonald claims that “the first real colonists, apart from the pakehaMaoria taking refuge with the tribes, came to Marlborough.” These < men were whalers, but he justifies their description as colonists by the fact that the Marlborough whalers were seekers of the right whale. They lived on shore all the year round, built themselves homes, took wives from 'among the Natives and brought up families in the chosen refuge. “Many were rascals, but_ most were pioneers of the true spirit,” he says, “who, coming from the sea, lived by the sea until they could make their little gardens and little farmsteads to keep them, when . they forgot the sea and found themselves, perhaps unintentionally, the real pioneer settlers of New Zealand as we, know it to-day.” The Guards First among these colonist-adventurers was Captain John Guard, who was attracted from his trading in the islands by reports of the profits to be made in fur-sealing, and sailed in his schooner, the Waterloo, to New Zealand. He first visited Marlborough in 1827 when a gale literally blew the vessel into the refuge of Tory Channel. Guard spent a season whaling on the Marlborough Coast. Encouraged by his success he returned, this time with a wife, barely 15 years of age, who had previously voyaged m the Waterloo to this part on a health trip. Gaily she set up house in a bay which, beautiful a year ago, was by this time “ a stinking horror, as are all whaling depots.” Mr MacDonald says:— All alone, the first white woman in the South Island by many years, she endured her trials in a savage land, as British women who have accompanied their husbands the world over have ever done. Attended only by a Maori girl at Te Awaiti in 1831 she brought into the world her son John, named in honour of his redoubtable father—the first white child born in the island, and later came her daughter Louisa, and others of the family. Gallant, warm-hearted, Betty Guard, facing hardship and awful perils with a smile, destined a few years later, while still a mere girl, to be held prisoner with her two babies for months among shrieking cannibals: to be subjected to experiences which make one shudder even at this distance of time; and to come through it all smiling, and to retain her charm throughout.

This ordeal was that which she endured when the Harriett, on which she was returning with her husband and children from a visit to Sydney, was wrecked on Cape Egmont. Mrs Guard and some ot the others were captured by Natives. She was severely wounded with two tomahawk blows, and subjected to extreme indignities, being taken to the Waimate Pa in a state of absolute nudity. In the early days of Her captivity she saw the bodies of her shipmates, including her brother, cut up and eaten. At Guards request—for he had managed to return to Syndey—a punitive expedition was arranged. This led to one of _the mostdiscussed incidents in colonial history, the massacre of Natives on the Taranaki Coast. It is not a particularly noble page in the annals of British colonisation. The best that can be said is that the expedition, which included as well as soldiers and sailors Guard himself and members of the crew of the Harriett, had strong provocation for its memless bombardment of the Native defences. Port Underwood Mr MacDonald has gathered together and assembled in readable form many such remarkable adventures to add “ human interest ” to his narrative. _ As he freely admits, new material is given preference of space over that coming, from other sources, and the history ot Marlborough is most closely studied. This is but right, for it is well to remember that' a part of New Zealand which has not advanced so rapidly in the placid years of peaceful settlement was at one time among the busiest in the country; that Guard and those who followed him “transformed Port Underwood into the greatest whaling harbour the world will ever know, with as many as 39 busy whaling ships at anchor at the one time, every beach echoing to the lurid language of the men, reeking of oil and decaying flesh, and piled high with the bones of the victims of the chase — a ~v e£ !,table Golgotha of the southern seas. The author has adduced good evidence to support his claim that it is in the cradling of civilisation in the Marlborough bays that the novelists of to-morrow will find the material for their stories. He has provided them with sufficient dramatic facts to fill many volumes of historical fiction when the saga of New Zealand comes to be written. - This volume is well-produced, with an attractive dust-cover and numerous photographs, some of them taken from interesting old paintings in private hands, which lose nothing of value from their crudity. The original publication was in the form of articles in the Marlborough Express, and there is a certain amount ot unnecessary repetition. J- M.