ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Western Star, 26 April 1940, Page 2

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

GREAT FRENCH NAVIGATOR’S VOYAGE. OTAGO HARBOUR CHARTED. One hundred years ago the great French navigator, Jules Sebastian Cesar Dumont d’Urville, was returning from his exploring voyage to the Antarctic. On 30th March, 1840, his two ships, the Astrolabe and the Zelee, dropped anchor in Otago Harbour. It was by no means his first voyage to this country. In the Coquille, as an officer under the command of his friend Duperrey, he had visited the Bay of Islands in 1824. In late 1826 and early 1827 Dumont d’Urville, himself in command of the same vessel, rechristened the Astrolabe, revisited New Zealand, making charts and discoveries that supplemented the work of Cook and whose importance' is not generally realised in this country.

D’Urville had come up from the Antarctic —h© left. France on Ids long scientific voyage in 1837 by way of the Auckland Islands, which did not impress him much as a site for settlement. All the fish there had worms, and the wood, good for nothing but fuel, gave out a disagreeable odour as it burned. Stewart Island he much preferred. On 26th March as he coasted past the Island a pilot came out offering J.o take him into a safe anchorage, but d’Urville was too anxious to get on to the South Island. However, he bought some, fresh fish and vegetables from the pilot and learned that there was a settlement of about twenty Englishmen on the island who lived by selling vegetables and poultry to passing whalers. Diynont d’Urville was pleased to find an old, acquaintance at anchor in Otago Harbour, the French whaler Havre, Captain Privat, a ship which lie had met on the coast of Chile and which had in the interval been back to France. Three other whalers were at the port; —two American and one. British. The place they had chosen to anchor in was so narrow that during the night the Astrolabe fouled the Havre, only damaging a little of her rigging’. J , jy’ext day d’Urville detailed an officer, M. Duroch, to chart the anchorage, work he hoped would take only three days, while nearly all the other officers went ashore to inspect the surrounding country. They immediately noticed unfavourably the habits and appearance of the local Maoris. Most of them were in European dress, generally in tatters, so that they took on a scarecrow appearance, quite foreign to their old dignity. D Uiville decided, though on very short acquaintance, that they lived as hangers-on of the white whalers, even their chief importuning the French with his shameless begging. Certainly they were abandoning tlieir ancestral arts.