A RELIC.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7665, 26 March 1903, Page 2

A RELIC.

THE FIRST NEW ZEALAND- ; : , * BUILT SHIP. ;' ' Captain Bolla<rid, of the s.S. Hineino** has carried to Wellington from Facile Harbour, Dusky Sound, a wonderful rata plank, that must have ceased to be a tree afc least* one hundred and eight years ago, bub which, nevertheless, remains in a remark- r able state of. preservation. On th& outside the wood has become the colour of {file earth in which ib has lain so long, and the moss* grown surface is mostly in a state of decay. Bud -the. rottenness does not reach deeper than a quarter of an inch, and an md* sion with a pen-knife soon brings to light the firm, iuaid grain, of the durable fata. Tho interest attaching to the plank is that it was felled, sawn, bevelled and morticed in order that it might form part of the, firifc ship built in 2S&vr Zealand, 'way bade in 1795. The -builders evidently found they had more planks thaa they needed, and this piece of rata was left near the old saiwpit at Facile Harbour, where it has remained till the moment that Captain Bolland rescued. it from oblivion. ■ The .history of this early specimen of the rough shipwright work of the whalers is worth recalling, (says the " Post ■."). A year or. two prior to 1795 the whaler Britanniaarrived hi Dusky Sound, bringing with her the' frame of a small schooner. The . object was to land the skeleton and a detachment of mcii, and leave them to plank up jibe frame and usa the schooner for whaling in and about the Sounds, wihila the whaler herself operated in further waters. The plan was carried out in so fat that the skeleton and the men- were left ab . Facile Harbour, but the Britannia returned before they had completed the planking, took the men away, and left the unfinished boat on the beach. The next factor in the «tory is the ship Endeavour, whicih in 1795 left Sydney for the Indies, bscame leaky, ran to Dusky Sound— then about the only known harbour, having found it* way on to Cook's chart— and beached, with tie object of repairing. But- tih-a Endeavourers found that tiheirsftip had gone past repairs — at any rate* such repairs as they could make. They found it ._ better to complete the planking up of the small schooner left by the Britannia, and the result was so satisfactory that a. psrHon of the Endeavour's cttfew, under ' mate, succeeded in sailing ker to .* Sydfifcy, though apparently tlhe.< voyage -was a try- . ing one, as it is recorded they arrived in an exhausted state. The rest of' the Endeavourers at the Sound were taken off by ether vessels. What subsequently became' of the schooner, the first ship completed and launched .in New Zealand, is not known, and; that is why #*© only known relic of hei, brought away by Captain Bolland, has a special antiquity interest. The Endeavour herself, or what is left of her, remains in Facile Harbour, and may be reached at low water. ,It has sometimes been erroneously supposed that she is Cook's Endeavour. / As a matter of •fact, she is longer in the keel than the great navigator's »hipj Captain Bolland proved this by raising the frame and measuring it. Besides, it is recorded, though the authority is not quite certain, that tho end of Cook's Endeavour came in 1794, when she was wrecked in attempting to leave Newport Hr.rbour, Rhode Island, was condemned, -dismantled and sold. . ''" THe plank, which is now on the Hintmoa, is lOiri by 3in and 12ft long. It has been cut into for morticing purposes, ,and on one side is bevelled. The sawpit is in the bush, about. a vessel's length from highwater mark, and in this pit th« boards were roughly squared. There appears to be no possibility of error about this, as no other sawpit has ever been dug in the locality, and there has been no other use or occasion for one. So the plank that th« builders rejected *may, after all, be* come the head of the comer — in sons* museum. The relic throws an interesting sidelight on the misty beginnings of New Zealand colonisation. Thore beginnings ara older than we are apt to believe. Within a score of years after Cook, and well within' the century before last, the old' whalers frequented the coasts of the Sounds and Stewart Island, and come of them lived with the Maoris there. Probably to them the sight of the Notornis was too common to occasion remark. They were contemporary with the birth of the United States and the French Republic, and it is odd toreflect that in rthe year^of the Reign' of Terror, when France wan overturned, away at the antipodes the dim glades of Dusky Sound were echoing the sound of saw and, mallet, the peaceful pioneers of new industry in a new land. As builderß of ft nation, saw and mallet a?e at least superior to gunpowder, and one looks back to thoia old symbolic tools with an added* respect by reason of the comparison.