Southland: Its Apogee and Perigee.

Otago Witness, Issue 2298, 17 March 1898, Page 22

Southland: Its Apogee and Perigee .

JBv .WALTER H. PEARSON.

CHAPTER I. CLOUD LAND.

j^AX the dark ages of the colonisation of Otago, it was 11 1| l'uinourcrt that there was lying to Iho south ami west of f i e known poi-tion of that Province of New Zealand a vIpJ^I large tract of land, le\el, well watered, and dotted with 3^?%^ clumps of timber, of capable soil, on which the native #^SS V> grasses grew with wild luxuriance. An occasional hardy pioneer who had had the temerity to cross the Mataura, the then limit of safety, with the view of discovering the nakedness of the land, and reporting at Dunedin, startled its canny inhabitants with strange talcs. EARLY LEGENDS. Humour whispered that on the far west of the unknown, on the banks of a river called Jacob's, there was a flourishing settlement of white men and Maoris, living in peace, plenty, and contentment, under the beneficent sway of a royal family. The jovial head, or "uncrowned kin^,"' was a whaler known as Captain John Howell. How he came there, or at what particular date, history is silent. That time-honoured authority, "the oldest inhabitant," was mute. Koine had its legends ; so has Southland. The .solution of the problem was discovered when the Darwinian theory of evolution was mentally absorbed by the simple inhabitants. It became clear that in the long ago he had been a mussel adhering to the rocks at what is now known as Howell's point. That at Captain Cook's advent he had developed into a phoca or seal, for it was currently reported that one of the A.B.s on board that gallant navigator's vessel had, while cruising near Howell's road, noticed a particularly knowing-looking seal swimming round and round the ship, and had remarked to a fellow A.8., " Darned if the critter isn't as good's a man. I saw him wink his other eye when I showed him the grog can." From that time evolution proceeded rapidly, till the captain, a finelooking, stalwart, and jovial son of Neptune took charge of the settlement as a well-developed man. The foundation of the theory may appear slight, but many a mystery currently believed in the present day has no more authentic a base. If any sceptic in those early days was so lost to reason as to express doubt, he was at once silenced by— " Look 'ere, you duffer; ain't that Howell's point? Ain't Howell's road there I Ain't Hov\ ell hisself 'ere? What more d'y re want ?" Q.E.D. When the speaker was six foot the argument assumed irresistible proportions, and the matter was pleasantly settled by the sceptic " shouting." Many a nation has gone to war for less.

The other members of the royal family were Captain Stevens, a step brother of Captain Howell — whether on the mussel orphoca side history does not record,— and Mr. Theophilus Daniel, who had married into the family — the former also a successful whaler ; the latter a storekeeper. All three in after times as settlement progressed took an active and useful share in public duties. In those early days, as with Abraham of old, their flocks and herds— the originals of which they imported from Sydney— occupied the land of Canaan, and as the country in the interior was taken up by pastoral settlers who drifted in from Australia, they had profitable dealings with them, in which canniness was combined with a robust simplicity, as the following example typifies. A runholder had arranged to sell the family some rams and wethers, delivery being given after Christmas, which, according to custom, meant after shearing. This was, however, not definitely mentioned in the agreement, so two of the families insisted the sheep should be delivered witli the wool on. The runholders appealed to Csßsar, when, after .argument, the captain said: "I dare say you're right, old man ; but Steve is pointing, and Dan is pointing, and I'm darned if I don't point too." The educated trained business man of to-day "points" also as a matter of course, only lie does not inform his victim of the procedure. Squatting settlement, i.e., residence and cultivation before survey or title, proceeded apace around and in the vicinity of the estuary of Jacob's River. The hands employed in the whalers of the royal family, and connected with the pursuit, with their belongings formed the nucleus of the little colony, and their vessels when fitted up traded to Sydney to dispose of the oil, and bring back as return cargo, food and soft goods, supplies for the year, with a deck load of sheep and cattle and any passengers attracted by the reports of the new Gqshen. Thus a considerable white population, vigorous and thriving, began to make the proverbial wilderness smile like the proverbial rose, untended, un cared for, unthought of by the General Government or Provincial Government of Otago, when in 1853 the constitution came into operation.

Besides the white settlers there was a considerable body of Maoris also domiciled on the shores of the estuary. Indeed this kaik has the distinguished honour in the history of New- Zealand of having been the arena of the last white man cannibalistic feast. A foreign violinist in the early days, discovered by the young braves on the beach near the Waimatuku, was deported to the kaik as treasure trove, and being in fair condition, incontinently roasted and devoured viith much apparent relish. Whether the feasters had chopped up the catgut strings as a condiment to flavour the delicacy, history docs not recount ; but not long after the gorge it is credibly asserted in Maori tradition that sounds as of unearthly music proceeded from the cavernous interiors of the feasters, much to their consternation. The tohunpa on consultation pronounced that white flesh was unworthy the honour of mastication by a Maori, and consequently it was struck out of the menu of the cuisine of the "noble savage." The traditions of the land office in Dunedin in those early days determined that agricultural settlement should be conducted on chess board principles— each square to be filled up in turn. There was to be no hopping over any vacant square to fill up another afar oft". If occasionally a knight indulged in eccentric manoeuvres by jumping over several empty squares and taking up a position in the back country, he was looked coldly on by the authorities, pitied and despised as a modern Tannhauser. Thus when anr enterprising would-be settler made inquiry at the office as to the conditions of taking up land in the far south, the official would first stare at him with commiserating wonder, and then concentrate his attention on his boots. After awhile he would stagger the applicant by the inquiry " whether he was webfooted," assuring him the condition of the crust of the earth down there required man to be footed like a goose to enable locomotion to be accomplished with safety— in fact that the land was only fit for geese.

Notwithstanding, however, these official impediments, and the more serioxis ones of the difficulty and almost danger of the overland route, settlers found their way down, squatting on the waste lands, all unsurveyed as they were, until the numbers had so increased that the growl of the lion in the wilderness made itself heard in the official dens of Dunedin. These Isiunaelites had local habitations, but without name, and they yearned for recognition, and particularly for the expenditure of public moneys. The desires and aspirations of the most primitive communities are pretty much the same as those of the more highly cultivated societies. The dollar, particularly the Government or public dollar, is the best palliative to democratic thirst. INVERCARGILL IS BAPTISED. At a public dinner held at the Royal Hotel, Dunedin, on the 17th January, 38,">6, in honour of the first visit of Governor Sir Thomas Gore Browne, that dignitary, in compliment to the Superintendent of Otago, Captain Cargill, suggested, in a neat speech, that the Bluff' should be henceforth known amongst nations as Tnvercargill, or anglicised, "the mouth of Cargill." Ultimately it was decided that the site of the future Tyre and Sidon at the Bluff' should be designated Campbelltown. in compliment to Lady Browne, who was connected with the great Scottish house of Campbell, while the future Babylon of the south, at the head of tiie estuary of the new river, was honoured with the name of Tnvercargill. Surveyors were sent down to lay off townships, map out the country, and locate the squatters oil the waste lands. An admirable reconnaissance survey of the whole district was executed by the chief surveyor, Mr. J. T. Thomson, who had just aiu-ived from a long official residence in India, and introduced Colonel Sleeman's excellent system of

I rigonometrical survey. A local land office was opened at Invercargdl m 1807 with an officer, Mr. \V. H. Pearson, in charge to encourage and assist the settlement of the waste hinds and thus remove some ot the grievances which were paraded at public meetings encouraged by the leaders of disaffection. Sops to Cerberus! Cerberus continued to growl, however, as Cerberus always does, until choked with the attainment of his desire he becomes sick. The dawn appeared, but the day was not yet