SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 25, Issue 3761, 27 May 1936, Page 5

SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY YEARS AGO.

CAPTAIN COOK AT QUEEN CHARLOTTE SOUND.

(Told to “Young Khandallah.”) Many years ago a band of young “ explorers ” roamed' over a fascinating inland tract of country, redolent of story, and all trails led to the coast. In course of time we followed rivers towards the sea, finding lonely, narrow beaches there, and gazed far north, and far south, but all tracks vanished at the water’s edge.

The Maori of old had recourse to his canoe, but they were left like castaway mariners, alohe on a wild seashore. It was fitting, then, that when I sought to complete a part-told tale, by picking up the thread from a few hundred miles further south, round Kapiti Island, Cook Strait, and the Marlborough Sounds, there was Young Khandallah to fill in the chinks, of my own deliberating with a ceaseless, never-ending, ready talk. < So happy, so happy was this youngster off on the first leg of a long school Christmas vacation beginning at Picton, that the main theme was frequently lost sight of in a miscellaneous medley of subjects all suggested by him; interrupted out of sheer happiness now and then by a snatch of song, natural enough, as everyone knows, on board a steamer on a beautiful crisp sunny morning, watching the waters part in a wonderful swish-swish spray, to sing. But I was surprised at the information which Vny acquaintance of a three hours Voyage had to give; the closelyfitting details of New Zealand history, short though it is, made difficult for the child mind by so mlany Maori names, presenting no difficulty to Young Khandallah, who, putting many an adult to shame, dealt with 'them in sublime indifference to perplexity. You may not think such facility strange, you who through long years have become accustomed to a neat phonetic arrangement of the native language; but to a child mind it is breaking into, new ground—a tongue not parallel to our own. In Marsden’s time State documents are found to contain such queer spellings and names as Wycaddee, Whyketo, Kiddeekiddee, Rangeehoo, and Shokey Hanga, places' and names we will have difficulty in recognising in that fashionable spelling of scholarly men who translated with fidelity a new pronunciation to the written word. So I was more than interested in all this exceptional lad had to say, learned a great deal from a pupil in the fifth standard, and only redeemed the traditional patronising superiority of the adult when the remnant of the old sailing ship Edwin Fox (now used as a makeshift wharf for a quarry on Picton harbour) came into sight. Only a slight imagination was required to restore this picturesque vessel to its former glory of the 70’s and 80’s of last century, and contrast it with our painted modern steamer, all decked out in gala rig of flags. It was perhaps easier for me to do this, recollecting that but for the journey of the Edwin Fox from England to Lyttelton in 1880 I should not have been here to regard the derelict hulk with a touch of sentiment in 1936.

The contrast I was going to make, however, was in telling Young Khandallah a story he did not know—rather a sad, pathetic tale, of which the old craft immediately reminded me, and one in dissimilitude to this boy’s happy voyage. It went back to the year 1770, when Captain Cook, with H.M. sloops Discovery and Resolution, was in Ship Cove, paying his last visit to New Zealand shores. The Edwin Fox may be said to have represented one hundred years’ advance in sailing knowledge on Cook’s ships. Immediately the ships had anchored in Queen Charlotte Sound the natives came up in canoes to trade in fish and articles required for re-fitting. From the date of arrival (17th February) a Maori youth of about 17 years of age called Tay-we-he-rooa lived almost continuously on board the Resolution, and soon signified his intention of accompanying the boat to Otaheite. Captain Cook in charge of the Resolution consented to the request to sail in his vessel. The narrative which follows is from the Journal of Thomas Edgar, master of the Discovery, a manuscript now in the British Museum.

“ Soon after a young boy friend of Tay-we-he-rooa offered to accompany him, and it was agreed that he should. His name was Tea-tea, a slender; sprightly boy of about 12 years of age; he seemed much attached to us, and lived constantly on board the Resolution.”

They took last farewell of Tay-we-hc-rooa’s father and mother and friends in Charlotte Sound (25th February). His mother, though at first she had been prevailed upon to consent to his going, yet when the tiffie of sailing was come she was very loath to part with her son; she wept aloud and cut her head with a shark’s tooth till blood streamed down her face. The youth was much affected, but neither tears nor entreaties prevailed upon him to relinquish, his design. Tea-tea, however, had repented of his resolve, and when inquired for was found to have decamped. Even then the older youth was not disspirited, and his father procured another companion for him, a boy of 8 or 9 years old, called Co-coah. “ After leaving the So.urid both lads were at first in pretty high Spirits; but when q little distance from the shore their resolution failed them, and they gave way to their grief by weeping aloud and singing a song in a very melancholy cadence,, the words of which we did not understand. We endeavoured to comfort them by fair words, but all in vain—they cast most wistful looks to the shore, which was every moment retiring from their view, and they wept incessantly. That night they lay in the steerage on the bare deck covered with their cloaks. In the morning they wept as before, and repeated the same mournful song. As red cloth was much valued by the New Zealanders, Captain Cook ordered a jacket of it to be made for each of them. Though a few days before this would have been looked upon as an invaluable piece of finery by them, yet in their present situation they took but little notice of it. The older youth would have been more rapidly reconciled to his plight by persuasion "but for the young

boy, who, not pacified either by red cloth or fair promises, used daily “to sit in the chains for hours crying; and repeating his melancholy song, so that as soon as Tay-we-he-rooa heard him he would go and sit beside him and partake of the grief. They continued thus for about a week to lament their misfortune until, at. length kind treatment dispatched their sorrows. They soon fell into our method of living, though at first preferring fish to any other meal. We found the boy Co-coah to be of a very humorous and lively disposition, and he afforded us much mirth with his drolleries; The older boy was a sedate, (sensible young fellow, the son of a chief. They' were both universally liked,” " " - (Note: The Log of Captain Edgar from which the concluding.portion of this article is taken is Tepripted "ift “ Historical Records of New Zealand,” Vol. 2, by R. McNab, 191'4.) ’ '