With H.M.S. Acheron on her Early Surveys

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17835, 1 May 1926, Page 23 (Supplement)

With H.M.S. Acheron on her Early Surveys

New Zealand in the Fortie as Captain Stokes saw it.

[No. I.]

\ N important work was performed in the early days of New Zealand by the coastal surveys made by Captain Stokes in H.M.S. Acheron. Surveys of the Australian and also the New Zealand coasts were made during: the years 1847 to 1852, completing the rough w r ork of Captain Cook with so much detail and thoroughness that the charts which Captain Stokes produced for many portions of the coasts have not yet been superseded. In the Hocken Library, Dunedin, is w hat purports to be the manuscript diary kept by Captain Stokes, covering the New Zealand portion of his work, though it is actually written by one of his subordinates, a Mr Hansard. It was obtained by Dr Hocken, twenty years ago, from the captain’s married daughter, as a letter which has been found with it shows. By kind permission of the Otago University Council , Canon Nev\U has been able to examine and copy the manuscript, which is now made available to “ Star ” readers. Containing descriptions of the infant settlements of the colony in the years 1849-50, when the Otago settlement was but one year old and that of Canterbury was just about to be formed, when Wellington was a tiny place, and the West Coast of the South Island was scarcely known at all, the journal has an unusual interest. Captain Stokes entered the Navy in 1824 as a first-class ▼•iunteer on H.M.S. Prince Regent. From 1825 to 1844 he was with the surveying ship Beagle, seeing wild exploratory service in South American and Australian waters. In 183.9 he was dangerously w ounded in the lungs by the spear of a treacherous savage when discovering the Victoria River, North-west Australia. He was elected a member of the Royal Geographical Society in 1845, and in that year published in two volumes an account of the explorations of the Beagle. In 1846 he became captain of the Acheron, employed on surveying service in Australian and New Zealand w r aters. In 1856 he was made a member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society. From 1860 to 1863 he was in command of the South Coast of Devon Survey, and in 1864 obtained active flag rank.

The letter to Dr Hocken, from Scotchwell, Haverford West, signed “Fanny A. Samson,"’ states: “I am sending you now by this mail the journal kept by my dear father on board the Acheron. There are so many charts and papers it is difficult to know what to send you. If ever you come to England I trust you will come and pay us a visit and look over the papers yourself.” Dr Hocken adds a note: “This journal was sent to me by Mrs Samson, daughter of Admiral Stokes, of Scotchwell, Haverford West, at the solicitation of my dear friend Mrs Campbell, of Otekaike, near Oamaru. They are all Captain Stokes’s notes of the voyage of the Acheron in New Zealand, and they are chiefly in the handwriting of Mr Hansard.”

The journal begins abruptly, and is evidently part of a fuller journal dealing with other places. Date, about 1849. The description with which it begins is one of Wellington.

Enclosures of com land and meadow mingle with the houses upon every level spot, which give Wellington in early summer a very rural and verdant aspect; but no further clearance of wood can be attempted without materially affecting the beauty of the landscape. Government House, where LieutenantGovernor Eyre resides, stands highly elevated in the midst of pleasure grounds, and though an unpretending is a very comfortable-looking abode. Close by rises the little grey English-, fashioned church, behind which on an extensive hill slope, overgrown with dense shrubs, arc the graves of my countrymen doomed to lay their bones so far away from their fatherland. Wellington boasts a very respectable trading community, possessing large stores, whence the inhabitants are furnished with all European comforts and luxuries. Wines and British and foreign spirits sell to an incredible extent. The former pay a duty of 20 per cent, the latter 5s per gallon, cigars 2s the pound, manufactured tobacco Is, unmanufactured 9d; guns, gunpowder, shot, etc., 30 per cent; all other goods of British manufacture 10 per cent, foreign 12 per cent. Articles free of duty are glass bottles imported full, bullion and coin, all live stock, seeds and plants, printed books.

TROUBLES OF INFANT JOURNALISM.

Two English and one Maori'journal appear weekly. Both the former are distinguished by violent partisanship. The editor of the “New Zealand Spectator.” one of them, in his number issued just after the earthquake, apologised for its lateness by intimating that ail the types set up had been thrown into confusion by the shocks. The supply of provisions is ample and of the finest quality, though greatly dearer than in the sister colony of Australia, where the contract price of prime meat furnished to the commissariat is less than Id per lb. Beef and mutton at Wellington, all grass fed, 4d to 6d the pound; fine flour, 14s to 16s per 1001 b; bread, 21b for 4d; fowls. 2s the couple; ducks, 4s to ss; geese, 5s to 7s; potatoes. 4s per cwt; fresh butter. Is 9d per lb; cheese, Is 2d per lb; raw sugar, 4d to 6d lb; colonial ale, 5s for 2 gallons; bacon, Od to 8d; firewood, 16s to 24s per cord. Much in the way of public entertainments can hardly be expected to exist. Concerts, balls and a dramatic exhibition, all of very humble pretensions, sometimes take place. Amongst the higher grades of society the usual routine of English fashionable life has been reproduced at the Antipodes. A SLOVENLY PA. Several Maori pas or villages still remain in this neighbourhood, one at either end of the town. The larger, situated on an extensive level of most English-Jooking greensward. has a brook flowing near where the Acheron’s boats watered. Herein all movable filth from the pa was deposited, and as the women constantly come there to wash their potatoes by placing the kit im the stream and working it up and down with both arms, while one dirty, naked foot is inserted to keep the contents in motion, the reader will deem the epithet "crystal” not quite characteristic of the fluid we imbibed. Cats, pigs, and mangy dogs swarm wherever the Maoris congregate. The latter are never killed except for the skins. A chapel stands hard by this pa; the Maoris assemble there twice a day for prayer. A stroll inside their enclosure is rather an amusing thing. Some bask and smoke in the sunshine; others manufacture nets, repair canoes, scrape flax, one knot of young men chanting the multiplication table. Another lot of greybeards are deep in Cocker, working out long compound division sums, invariably testing their white visitor's proficiency by setting him a sneezer in the same rule. Should he prove slow or fail in correctness the slate is snatched from his hands, the calculation finished, and the whole pa echoes with derisive laughter. THE FIRST HUTT ROAD. A smooth, winding road follows the sinuosities of the harbour. Washed on one side by the waves, and bounded tm the other by steep banks overgrown with trees, lichens, and pendant

ferns, it leads to the agricultural district of this settlement, called the valley of the Hutt. In the fine days of this healthy, invigorating climate nothing can be pleasanter than a ride or a walk in that direction. Houses extend at intervals nearly the whole way, and the light tilted carts and gigs of the Hutt farmers bowl along, hurrying to and from the town with wife and daughter seated alongside. Herds of cows slowly driven by flaxen-haired cowboys, home to the milking, young and wealthy settlers dashing by on their thoroughbreds, the public caravan or omnibus well-horsed, and loaded with passengers, all so much belong to the details of rural England that by an effort alone one recalls the 16,000 miles of separation.

The intermixture of a few dark tattooed faces with flaxen mats and sandalled feet serves occasionally to remind us we are in a distant land. They too own stocks and wains and ploughs, attending the market as sedulously as the pakcha. Much excellent wheat is now raised on native clearings, and, though no great consumers, they will scon become perhaps the most extensive corn growers of these islands. In one district there were 500 of wheat sown during the year 1846—value about £6300, allowing only thirty bushels to the acre. A sample of flour, the produce of a native farm. and ground by themselves at the Rangiawhea mill, was recently shown in Auckland. It is a most creditable srpecimen of a shipment of 13591 b brought by Maori owners from Waikato to Onehunga, which fetched 13 per cent per hundred, being only Is less than that produced by English growers in Van Diemen’s Land. GROWING CIVILISATION. It is with sincere pleasure one notices such instances of native progress in agriculture and the. arts connected therewith. What a change has a few years affected here and elsewhere in New Zealand! The older resident Maoris often contrast their present habits with those prevalent in Port

Illlllllllillllllllllllillllllllillllfllillllllllifl Xicholson before Europeans settled there. The present fine Hutt Road was then merely part of the steep bank covered with wood up to high water. The shingly beach was the onlv passage. though much travelled over On Soames Island stood a pa whence every morning before davlight Maori spies landed. Sending back the canoe and concealing themselves aloft ill the bush, thero they sat, huddled in mats, awaiting with a sort of devellsh patience the approach of individuals belonging to some tribe strangers or at feud with them. If the travellers were a \ ery numerous body thev passed unmolested, unconscious of the present enemy. The ambush crept noiselessly ov er the hill-top and lighted a fire, the smoke of which would be seen on the island, though unnoticed by the victims. Canoes, till then kept out ot sight, suddenly put off, filled with butchers to intercept and make prisoners of the unresisting enemv. This done they were drawn up in lines The chief, followed by his butcher passed along, pointing out bta sign those whose condition promised well tor the corning feast, when they were instantly felled by blows of the fatal mere. Such was evervwhere the condition of these savages their hfe s tissue of gloomy ferdcioSsness and Z*'' their . hands aganist. them ’ evory rnan s hand against Strong winds and heavy rain in this harbour are of very frequent occur rence during the enrino ; i • r ll ■ tu ne s P nn g and winter months The summer months prove f? rCea + ki e ? OUBh - < Here Allows a weather table for that season) I To be continuedJ

illllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll THE “ STAR ” will be glad to receive interesting photographs connected with the early days of the province. Photographs lent for reproduction will not be marked or soiled in any way.