SOUTH CANTERBURY FIFTY YEARS AGO.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13803, 14 January 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOUTH CANTERBURY FIFTY YEARS AGO.

INTRODUCTORY PREHISTORIC DAYS. A sketch of the early history of South ■ Canterbury, in order to be instructive must take into consideration facts which date some years before the first settler arrived in the district, because the laws and conditions under which the settlement took place were provided from without. It would make an attractive story could it be written, but the materials are wanting, that should tell us all about the earliest human inhabitants of South Canterbury, the primitive race which hunted the moa, and left in many places in the district, chips of moa bones mixed with charcoal in the remains of their pebble ovens. Perhaps it" was these people who decorated the limestone rocks in many localities with wierd drawings in black and red. Then of the several tribes of Maoris which successively drove out predecessors and occupied land and water: aftfcr many a hard fight, of which souvenirs are found from time to time in polished greenstone tools and meres unearthed by the plough—instruments too costly in labour to have been lost otherwise than in the stress of battle. Wc come then to the first resident whites, and these were whalers. THE WHALERS. 'A hundred years ago the Southern Pacific ocean was everywhere well tenanted by sperm whales, and for some reason or other they were particularly numerous on the coasts of New Zealand. At- the commencement of the nineteenth century the original penal settlement in New South Wales was expanding into a free colony, and a new penal station was being founded iii Tasmania. Sydney became a rendezvous of the whaling ships, and later, in the eighteen-twenties whalers were frequent visitors to the harbours of the Bay of Islands and Akaroa. It is recorded that in 1834 there were thirty whaleships at work off the East Coast of New Zealand at once; and that in 1841 there were no, less than thirteen of them in Akaroa harbour at one time, calling there to obtain fresh water, and to buv potatoes from the Maoris. Most of the were American, but there were also British and French ships, and at this later date some of them hailed from Sydney. One or more Sydney firms established parties of men along the coast of New Zealand at suitable points, equipped with boats and other necessary gear for capturing whales, sighted by their "blowing" as they passed along near the land, and with huge "try pots v in which to boil down the blubber, a stock of casks in which to store the oil. material for huts, and stores of food to live upon. The whales when captured were towed to the beach, hauled up as high as possible at high tide, and stripped when the tide receded. Two or three times in the season the owner of the outfit sent a vessel to collect the oil, and to .replenish the stores. One such station, (if not two) was established at Tiniaru, and after running for some years it was abandoned about 1840, through the insolvency of the owners. The trypots and huts were left, and the pots were still lying on the beach when the first settlers arrived. And the NinetyMile beach was strewn with huge bones of whales, the remnants of • the carrases sent adrift after the blubber had been stripped off them. E.VELIEST LITERATURE.

The first white man to visit Smith. Canterbury and write and publish anything about the country ws Mr Short- , land, who, early in ]SJ-t, passed through, walking from "Waikouaiti to Akaroa. A few extracts from Mr Shortland's book will be acceptable. Mr Shortland found the AVaitaki in high flood from the melting of i!ie alpine snows by a nor'-wester, and he made some remarks on the nature of that wind which have never been found to need eorrection. He attributed the heat and dryness cf the nor'-wester to the condensation of the moisture the air had contained, in passing over the snow mountains, and the warm rain melting the snows, explained the immense floods in the rivers, whose sources were in those mountains. He Camped for some days with an intelligent Maori. Huruhurii, on the south siide of the river, waiting til! the Hood subsided, and then with a party of Maoris crossed the river on a big mokihi or raft canoe, made of raupo. The intelligent native gave Mr Shortland a good deal of information about the country at the head of the "\Ynjtaki (the Mackenzie Country) telling Mm that there were extensive; grassy plains, similar to those at the coast. Mr Shortland remarks that:—" The lofty ranges of hills, however, sf-pa rating them from the coast, and the absence of any kind of harbour between Banks' Peninsula and Otak.iu (Port Chalmers), must always prove a serious •impediment to the profitable export of wool from these otherwise valuable • tracts of land. "\Ve may, however," he proceeds, "carry our imagination into another century. when this now desert country will no doubt be peopled—when the plains will he grazed on by numerous Hocks of sheep, and the streams now {lowing idly through -i emote valleys will be compelled to perform their share ol labour in manufacturing the wool." The first part of Mr Shortland's daydream -was ■ realised within twenty years* the second still awaits the application of turbine and dynamo for its realisation. Mr Shortland travelled with his Maori friends along the beach from the AVaihao northwards, and between the Waihao and Makikihi lie met Bishop Selwyn on Jiis first journey south. He mentions the Makikihi and the "Pnreora," and some old huts at Hine'tc Kura (probably Saltwater Creek). "A short distance from it w.i. - ; Trmaru. where a few years before there had been a whaling establishment. Many forlorn-looking huts were still standing there, which, with casks, rusty iron hoops, and decaying ropes lying about in all directions, told a tale of the waste and destruction that so often fall on a bankrupt's property." His record proceeds to say that after walking half an hour over an open down they arrived at To Aitcrakihi (Washdyke lagoon), "the commencement of what is called by the whalers the Ninety Mile Beach." Mr Shortland briefly tells of his walk along-the beach for ten miles to a large lagoon wherein two river flow, and of a Maori settlement of about 13') souls. Waitcniati, two or three miles inland, on the banks of .the northern stream, "which is navigable. Most of the inhabitants were away, busied with their cultiv:>T tions at Harowhenua, a large wood about four miles off, a conspicuous object, for .in no other direction is there a tree to be seen." Mr Shortland does not appear to have had a "good eye for country," his-recorded remarks about the country passed-over being, with two exception.", confined to his impressions of it as easy or difficult to walk over. One <- f these exceptions is that about the small river Ohani (?Orari), "near which the .soil was better than any we had vet seeii on the plain." The ser-oud ivfor.a to some land north of thp Rakain. ••The soil i* much hotter than :<ny we had travelled over since leaving Ohani." The party forded the "Eakitata"' in three rapid streams, and

crossed the Ashburton at the beach. They halted for the night at Whakanui," where Mr Shortland found a good hut. "built for the convenience of travellers," and a lot of bottles used by travellers to and from the Rakaia. tii carry water in over that long stretch of waterless plain.