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

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17865, 5 June 1926, Page 23 (Supplement)

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

•NEW ZEALAND IN THE FORTIES AS CAPTAIN STOKES SAW IT.

VISIT TO OTAGO. STURDY ONE-YEAR-OLD SETTLEMENT.

Monday, April 9.—Sailed soon after sunrise this morning for Otago, a Scotch colony recently established southwards. Brilliant sunny weathei High rocky cliffs streaked with bright est vermilion and orange tints. Eve: and anon they recede and form shallow, sandy bays, surrounded by the tall, grey trees everywhere conspicuous along this coast. Next day, in passing opposite a range of fine level downs, three or four houses were discovered clustered beneath a bank overgrown with trees. A small white flag had been set up, probably to attract our attention. Presently they launched a boat, which came alongside, having in it two or three Englishmen, barracouta fishers, as their tackle, and a large quantity of the fish lying at the bottom of the boat indicated. Their prey must be an eager biter, since the hook was nothing more than an old rusty, crooked nail attached to a bit of wood about; Gin long and lin thick. The bait a mussel; the rod a staff of manuka. It was early day. The lofty mountain range, in sight during the whole of yesterday, hitherto of a deep sombre hue, gradually grew brighter One of the four cottages in sight occupied so magnificent a site that every glass on board was directed thither. Imagine a gently rising hill, conical, some 1000 ft in height, one unbroken mass of brilliant green from base to summit. On the level plain below, stretching far away right and left, is a grove of tall trees growing in a semi-circle. Exactly central tu this leafy crescent stands the shingle roofed cottage, whence a smooth lawn descends to the belt of sand bounding the waves. We saw nothing more worthy of the pencil chiring our whole sojourn in these islands. The proudest fortress of feudal Europe would have acquired new dignity from being encompassed by that magnificent forest of sylvan beauty. Being now close to the entrance of Otago Harbour, and the sand bar at its mouth, a pilot came off with news that an emigrant ship, last from Wellington, was at anchor. Friday, 13th.—Went ashore. The beach is strewed with the ribs of whales, measuring lift by 4in thickness. Birds numerous; great numbers of small parraquet with green, purple and grey plumage. Their somewhat tropical appearance accords but ill with the drear}- weather and frequently cold rains since our arrival. A very diminutive little bird, the fantailed flycatcher, with body no longer than a walnut, spreads its tail to a radius of Gin ; body black, tail black and %white. Its food that torment of New Zealand, the universal sandfly. Pigeons abound in the forestcovered mountains everywhere surrounding the Port of Otago. The kakapos, or green parrots, called Strignos, and perhaps the rarest bird known to naturalists, are sometimes decoyed by a call made of speargrass, and then killed'bv launching at them a spear (sic).. INFANT PORT CHALMERS. The seaport of Otago, called Port Chalmers, is a small place of perhaps forty houses, among which are the Post Office, Custom house, several inns —in fact, too many. Dunedin, the capital of the settlement, lies about twelve miles inland. It has about 130 houses. The quarter’s revenue for this year may amount to £SOOO. A tract of fine cultivable land, called the Taieri Valley, lies southwards, and another plain leads from the Molyneux River to the shore of Foveaux Strait. Mr Evans has just returned with his surveying party, bringing many scarce and beautiful shells; but most interesting among his gleanings are the claws, foot, leg, and thigh bones ox a veritable moa. The first relic of this extinct bird was made known to European naturalists by Professor Owen in 1839. KINDNESS FROM JACKY WHITE. Bradshaw- is returned from absence on duty in the neighbourhood of a pa inhabited by a chief named Kaletai (Karetai)—Anglice, Jackv White. lie is full of gratitude for the kind, liberal entertainment received from the venerable old Maori, who, with five or six wives, his sons, daughters, and sons’ -wives, lives in patriarchal community near the harbour's mouth. The party was every day supplied with nearly halt a bushel of potatoes and other vegetables, besides pork. No payment could be forced on them. In this respect I fancy the real Maori character to be that as long as you have coin they are insatiable and extortionate, but when satisfied, or the reverse, with a smile they freely share what is going. The pakeha, having left his purse on board, could thank the gods he was not worth a ducat. Jacky White, not content with their daily largesse, sent a large supply of good Swedish turnips, his own growth. In a day or two after he came on board, respectably draped in a black frock coat. He was invited down to the gun room, and after a short stay reappeared on deck in gold-faced cap and uniform coat. His pleasure seemed to exceed all bounds,, as with mien erect he struts up and down the deck eyeing his buttons and smoothing the great lace shoulder straps as if scarcely satisfied of their reality. The Maoris regard all her Majesty's officers as chiefs. Jacky White probably thinks his present garb lends additional importance to his own undoubted claim to that hereditary rank. Kaletai and family have good notions of personal cleanliness. It was observed that when his wife at noon summoned him to dinner he regularly called for warm water and washing materials. On Sundays he and his family well dressed for church, the patriarch in English broadcloth, a bell topper, and shoes neatly blacked, and his womenkind each in loose wrapper of blue dungaree, their hair, always glossy, rendered still more so by a copious application of shark oil. In this guise they walk with most edifying seriousness of deportment to a small native church, occupying a sequestered nook of the forest. Kaletai himself the. high priest. It is to be wished their newly-acquired taste for cleanliness would - * extend itself to their cooking. Our party killed three or four carrion shags, which they gladly accepted; and, it being now- dinner time, thrust them bodily, feathers, entrails, and all, into the miscellaneous hotch-potch stewing for the midday meal. Jackv White’s son displayed great talent for mimicry when imitating the Yankee oddities and absurdities observed during his service on board

their whalers; his nasal twang is inexpressibly comic. He has a sister lamed Josephine, a handsome girl.

OTAGO’S FIRST BIRTHDAY. Good Friday.—Anniversary of first settlers’ arrival. Cricket Club, Mecha--nics’ Institute and good inn in Dunedin. About 400 or 500 head of cattle, 6000 or 7000 sheep. About 750 settlers —fifty at Port Chalmers. Sow corn in June and July, but do not raise enough for consumption. Import from Nelson and Australia. Eight weeks’ incessant rain last winter. Can earn from £2 to £3 per week. Team of bullocks with two men get £1 per day. Gunpowder, 4s lb; shot, Sd and lOd; percussion caps, 10s per thousand. Timber in adjacent woods—red, white, yellow and black pine. Many settlers’ houses built close to water’s edge around the harbour. One among them, just opposite our anchorage, belongs to a weaver from Glas-

gow, a squatter. Quite alone and unassisted the man has built tip a mud cottage with timber frame and shingled roof. The owner hard at work clearing a garden on the hillside. Ilis bonnet and broad accent sufficiently indicate his fatherland. Blesses the change in his condition, which, rude as it necessarily is at present, he rejoices to see’ gradually becoming more and more tolerable by the unassisted labour of his single pair of hands. A couple of old barrels supporting two rough deals form his table, one ditto on a pile of stones serves for a chair; add a basin and two old tin pots and you have the entire plenishiing of his household. This certainly is a specimen of roughing it in the bush. Yet the Scotchman in the midst of his privations seems ruddy, fat and well liking, a strong contrast to his squalid, emaciated brethren of the loom at Iloftie. The poor emigrant in this country will alwaj's obtain the necessaries of life from agriculture. , Enough for his own limited wants is easily raised, and probably in time a surplus for the market. April 19.—A warm, unclouded sun is rapidly bleaching the damp and chilly decks, and gilds with his rays the vast amphitheatre of wood by which this harbour is encircled. Every mountain, pinnacle, whether flat, round or pyramidal, terminates in one unbroken fringe of waving forest. In such favourable weather we sailed from Otago to take up Dr Lyall, left behind to make collections as before mentioned in the country between Port Cooper and AkaBACK TO AKAROA. All day steaming along shore, with wind dead aft. Ninety Mile Beach is seen next morning, from which, to the base of the snow-capped Kikoras, the space seems occupied by a great and allwater lake called Waiora, about fifty miles from Banks Peninsula, and two or three from the Ninety Mile Beach. Reached the northern extremity of the beach, the land indented by frequent coves, bare and precipitous on either side, but often backed with vast wooded precipices. One of these coves had at its starboard point of entrance a very remarkable rock, worn and wasted by the elements. The captain, passing from the poop to the paddle box, examined the land through his glass for a few minutes, then extended horizontall}' his right arm. “ Starboard, fir,” shouted the steersman, and the good ship, obedient to the helm, swept round towards an opening of the cliffs. We soon found ourselves in a small harbour, at the bottom of which, on a level, were several mud hovels, the remnant of a whaling station called Peraki. Left again about noon after taking soundings. In passing cut noted myriads of white sea fowl. Just entering the rocky approach to Akaroa to our right, on almost the only level per: icn of the harbour, the eye is gladdened by the 'dew of the German, French and English villages detached—in really miserable hovels, but the sight of human habitation is always grateful in the wretched monotony of sea life. A case for the physiologists. A Native woman at Port Levi was recently delivered of a chi’d, and three months after of arether. Loth died. The last born was the biggest. ItusHanc! pul her away. Fancied herself haunted by childrens ghosts; i:liable ti sleep in consequence. Married again at Port Levi. Much native corn reaped this season on Maori farms about this harbour. (To be continued.)

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