LETTERS FROM OTAGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26749, 19 April 1948, Page 2

LETTERS FROM OTAGO

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

In the first months of the Free Church settlement the newcomers to Otago found time, as do all who are far away from home, to write to their friends and relatives in the Old Country. Some of these letters have been preserved over the century, and we print to-day the first in a series which will appear on the anniversary dates in the coming months. , From the Rev. Thomas Burns to his brother in Dublin. Port Chalmers, 19th April, 1848. Nothing can surpass the romantic beauty of the views from the site of the port. The whole harbour from the Heads to Dunedin, 14 miles in length, is bounded on each side by a succession of headlands, projecting a little way into the water, forming little bays, with a beach of hard, dry sand. The headlands rise up at once to a height of from 300 to 5000 or 6000 feet, and are wooded from the water’s edge to the very summit. It, is a remarkable fact that whilst the soil on these hills, and all around generally is remarkably rich, consisting of dark vegetable mould, varying from 1, IJ, to 2 and 3, and in certain places to 6 and 7 feet deep, if you ascend to the top of these hills, instead of finding as you would in Scotland, little else than rock and heath, you would have here the same soil as at the bottom of the hills, viz., black earthly mould, with a sub-soil of good, strong clay. Along the whole sides of the Otago Harbour, you will not find in all the 14 miles anything like live rock. Wherever the sides and bottoms are laid bare by the weather, and clear of timber (which is not very frequently the case), you still find the clay with boulders hardened together. In some of the streams running into the harbour there is solid freestone of good quality, through which the stream has worn a channel for itself. A party of settlers are prepared to commence brick-making immediately. They are well satisfied with the clay as they find it all around. Thus I hope to see our houses, at least some of them, and the church, for which I brought building plans from Edinburgh, built of brick or stone from the outset. On the whole, my present impressions of the country, both as to beauty and richness of soil, have greatly surpassed my expectations. You will, of course, remember that these are first impressions, and some of them necessarily derived more from the information of others than from my own observation. All the Europeans here without a single exception speak well of Otago. But I trust more to the opinion of the surveyors, particularly that of Mr Kettle, the principal one, who speaks in the very highest terms of it. Moreover, a short time ago, Governor Grey visited Otago for the first time, and remained, he and Mrs Grey, for three or four weeks in Mr Kettle’s house at Dunedin; and Mr Kettle tells me that he was quite enchanted with Otago, particularly for the boundless extent of rich grass land lying inland from Dunedin for 150 miles right back to the Snowy Mountains. . . .

The manse is in progress of erection, and by accounts we should get into it next week. The situation seems rather an exposed one, standing on the reserved lands forming the water frontage, just beside the wharf. It looks right down the harbour. Immediately behind the narrow strip of reserved land is laid out Princes street, having houses only on one side of the street, and looking down the harbour. The manse, therefore, standing on a little knoll between Princes street and the principal landing-place, is rather conspicuous, and admits of no privacy about the doors. Our voyage has most agreeably disappointed us. Our anticipations were of the most unpleasant kind. Yet we could turn about and make the same voyage back again without much hesitation. We had four deaths, three births, and three marriages. The four deaths were infants—one of them the case of one of the three born on board.