1842 - Jameson, R. G. New Zealand, South Australia and New South Wales [Part] - CHAPTER XIV

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE fertility of the soil of New Zealand, and its great advantages of climate being well known to the speculative classes of Australia and Van Dieman's Land, it was manifest to them that the active spirit of colonization, which has arisen out of the condition of the British empire in the present day, would soon invade these fertile islands, and confer on the land a high and marketable value. In their appreciation of early land purchases, as a means of rapidly acquiring wealth, these thriving colonists do not yield precedence even to the Americans. Hence the purchase of land from the chiefs, some years previous to the appointment of a governor, became a favourite speculation, and vessels were dispatched weekly from the ports of Australia to New Zealand, with cargoes of merchandise and numerous passengers. The return freight of these vessels usually consisted of maize, potatoes, flax, pork, and whale oil; and the captains seldom failed, on their arrival in the colonies, to exhibit scraps of paper, purporting to be the title-deeds of land acquired by purchase from the natives. Most of these purchases

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were of preposterous magnitude, and in numerous instances it was found, on the comparing of notes, that the same "estates" were claimed by several owners. Never did ambition more completely overleap itself than in these ridiculous transactions.

One company, consisting of four gentlemen, claimed the middle island, which is very nearly as large as Ireland, in consideration of giving the chiefs a few hundred pounds in money and merchandise, and a life annuity of 100l per annum. Another individual, representing a commercial firm in Sydney, laid claim to several hundred thousand acres, including the site of the township of Auckland, for which he gave one keg of gunpowder. These instances will illustrate the insatiable appetite for land which prevails in the Australian colonies. It merits even the name of what nosologists would call bulimia, that is, a depraved avidity for things that do not contribute to the individual's nutriment or well-being; for it is manifest that the possession of all New Holland, without labour and capital to render it productive, would in nowise contribute to the owner's real well-being. Among those who had purchased land on a gigantic scale in New Zealand, was Mr. Wentworth, a very able and distinguished lawyer, born in New South Wales. When the rights of the New Zealand landholders were under the consideration of the legislative council of New South Wales, this gentleman defended, with great dexterity, and force of illustration and argument, the legality of his purchase. He cited the history of the colonization of America, from which it appeared that the native Indians were recognised to be the original owners of the soil, and as such, had at various times ceded it to strangers in

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consideration of receiving money or goods, and that in virtue of such acts, the purchasers retained undisturbed possession. Sir George Gipps endeavoured, not very effectually, to combat Mr. Wentworth on the question of abstract right. It is needless to say, that a decision founded on the expediency of annulling immoderately large purchases had already been made in the council. Mr. Wentworth's practised eloquence was therefore unavailing, and he himself, browbeaten, but not abashed, was compelled to yield to the weighty influence of a "foregone conclusion." The well-known talents of Mr. Wentworth, his wealth, and his connexions, both in New South Wales and in England, would have enabled him to carry out the colonization of his lands, on the same principles as those pursued by the New Zealand Land Company; other proprietors of land could have done the same; but if the task of colonizing the finest lands in New Zealand be left to the feeble and ill-supported efforts of the New Zealand government, they must for many years continue uncultivated.

I was led by business, shortly after my arrival in New South Wales, to visit what was then the cynosure of all eyes, New Zealand, and one beautiful morning in November, 1839, I found myself on board of a small schooner, of eighty tons burden, which was to touch at the Bay of Islands, on her way to the Feejees, in search of tortoise-shell, sandal-wood, yams, and other articles of South Sea produce. After our vessel had been searched, with their usual rigour, by the water police, in order to prevent the escape of convicts or debtors, we were permitted to get under weigh; and bade adieu, for a brief space, to the shores of Port Jackson, bathed in the golden radiance of

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an Australian morning. The water, thronged with myriads of medusae, was ruffled by the breath of the expiring land breeze, which blows throughout the night in these sunny latitudes; and, after an hour or two of calm, is succeeded by the sea breeze, which renders the atmosphere sufficiently cool and respirable throughout the day. This light air wafted us through the Heads, and ere the sea breeze set in strong, we had gained a sufficient offing.

Besides our crew, which consisted of seven or eight athletic fellows, accustomed to South Sea adventures, and to cope with the most formidable of the anthropophagi, whom they were about to visit, there were on board five passengers, including a retired officer of the army and his wife, a young lady of superior birth and education, who had recently arrived from England, This gentleman had already visited the Bay of Islands, and his return thither with his family might be viewed as an indication of the favourable sentiments which his former visit had led him to entertain regarding New Zealand.

Our vessel, called, in honour of the Australian fair sex, the "Currency Lass," proved, notwithstanding her tiny dimensions, an excellent sea boat, and on the ninth day from our departure, we sighted the Three Kings, a group of rocky islands situated about forty miles to the westward of the North Cape, and nearly twenty miles from the low and bleak promontory to which the adventurous Tasman gave a name seldom absent, it is said, from his thoughts, that of Maria Van Dieman.

The Three Kings are a cluster of conical and pinnacled rocks, whose bases one might suppose to lie far beneath the surface of the ocean. The largest of them is, or was

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recently, inhabited by a few families driven from the northern districts of the neighbouring mainland, by the wars of Shongi. This chief, the soi-disant Napoleon of New Zealand, returned from England strongly impressed with the splendid results, in the way of conquest and massacre, which would attend the introduction of muskets and gunpowder into the warlike operations of his countrymen; and being ambitious of power and distinction as a warrior, he resolved to turn his knowledge to advantage by cutting off, with the aid of gunpowder, those tribes against whom he entertained an hereditary enmity, and whose means of attack and defence were as yet limited to the use of the club and the patou patou. In fact, with motives intrinsically not less irrational than those which have led to the greatest and most lauded of European conquests, Shongi undertook to exterminate all the southern tribes, and establish the Ngapoui domination throughout the island, and by sudden and ferocious onslaughts on defenceless villages, he very nearly accomplished his ruthless purpose. He almost depopulated the Thames district, whose inhabitants were either slain, without distinction of age or sex, or forced to take refuge in Taranaki and the shores of Cook's Straits. An enemy armed with a power of destruction which rendered strength and courage of no avail, was too formidable to be encountered, and Shongi was left to the undisputed possession of the Waikatto country.

But this conqueror, as might be expected, found it impossible to retain possession of his acquired territories, by reason of the small number of his followers, who were soon reduced to a mere handful by the fatigues and privations of campaigning in an enemy's

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country, with nothing to subsist upon but fern root. He returned to the Bay of Islands, after his successful expedition, and soon afterwards died of wounds which he had received. The traces of conquest are very speedily swept away from the face of the earth. The Waikatto tribes returned to their homes; their villages were rebuilt, and their ravaged plantations were again cultivated. Armed with muskets, they no longer fear the Ngapouis; and peace, if not amity, prevails throughout the island. On several occasions, moreover, the massacres of Shongi have been avenged; and the echo of his renown, like the memory of his atrocities, has already all but passed away. The presence of a few exiles on the Three Kings is one of the few circumstances which recal to mind his sanguinary career, and even these people would long since have returned to their homes, but for the inducement of trading in fish and potatoes with the whaling ships that frequent these waters. In rounding the North Cape, we encountered a singularly rough and irregular sea, caused by conflicting tides and currents, which were not unaptly compared by our captain to the boiling of a pot. A strong breeze set in with rainy squalls as the night came on, and ere we had brought the Cape to bear westward of us, it was necessary to crowd all possible canvas upon the little vessel, at the risk of carrying away her masts and yards. When we guessed, by dead reckoning, that we had no longer a rocky and dangerous coast close under our lee, I retired to rest. Extensive voyages, in various parts of the world, had rendered me inaccessible to the sense of danger when in the open ocean, although, perchance, thousands of miles from land; but no amount of experience will convince me

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that a vessel's position is safe with a rocky shore three miles to leeward, and the masts bending under the force of what seamen denominate a gale of wind. On this occasion it was interesting to remark the strange phosphoric brilliancy of the waves. An imaginative genius might have compared the scene to that which Milton has described as the abode of the fallen angels; and when the sea broke in over the schooner's bows and ran aft, it appeared as if every part of the deck was enveloped in flames. The Currency Lass, however, carried us safely through our dangers, which partook in some measure of the nature both of Scylla and Charybdis; and the morning's dawn shewed to us, far astern, the promontory which had caused us so much uneasiness. We were abreast of a deep indentation of the coast called Sandy Bay, to the southward of which rises the lofty and isolated peak of Mount Camel.

Between the North Cape and the Bay of Islands there are only two localities of interest to the intending settler in New Zealand. The first of these is a spacious bay, called Manganui, in the native language, and Lauriston Bay, on some of the charts; the latter name having been given to it by Marion, a French navigator. The bay penetrates for eight or ten miles into the interior, and is bounded by a country less rugged in appearance than is generally to be seen along the coasts of New Zealand. It receives two streams; the largest of which, called the Oudu Oudu, is navigable for small vessels. The district is said to be extremely fertile; and its aspect appeared to us, as we surveyed it from the vessel's deck, to be of an undulating character, and not overburdened with timber. Whaling captains resort frequently to Manganui for re-

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freshment, in preference to the Bay of Islands, having less to dread from the desertion of their crews; and although grog shops are less numerous than in the latter port, Manganui numbers among its sixty or seventy European settlers a fair proportion of individuals devoted to that profitable pursuit. In Manganui and its neighbourhood there is room for a township, and for a numerous agricultural population, who might, by the culture of grain, tobacco, vegetables, and fruits, including the fig, the vine, and perhaps the orange, surround themselves with a far greater share of substantial abundance and enjoyments, than the alternately frozen and scorched farmers of Canada. To this locality, one or two families from South Australia had bent their steps, attracted by a good harbour, abundance of level and cultivable land, and Kaori timber--objects of first-rate consequence in the eyes of a New Zealand settler. The other important locality, to which allusion has been made, is the harbour of Wangaroa, ten miles north of the Bay of Islands.

Between Manganui and Wangaroa the coast is rocky and elevated; and that part of the country which is visible from the sea consists of hills heavily timbered, and separated from each other by deep ravines. Along the coast, at the distance of one or two miles, there occur numerous rocks and islets, which are of trap formation, and usually assume the pinnacled or sugar-loaf shape; but several present the basaltic structure, with something of a castellated outline, like that seen in the rocks of Bass's Straits. Far inland we beheld several peaks, towering high above the surrounding country. In one part of the coast I observed an elevated plateau, of a very singular appearance, closely resembling a regular breast-

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work or fortification, of vast dimensions, with sloping walls and angles. Whether this was a mass of elevated marine deposit, or a trap formation, it was not easy to determine, as rocks of both classes frequently present a terraced and mural outline.

The scenery of New Zealand in this part I found to be widely different from that which I had so much admired in New Holland. In vain I looked for grassy, open, and undulating plains, like those which in Australia constitute the fertile source of pastoral wealth and beauty. We now beheld a broken and rugged country, overspread with a most luxuriant but dark and sombre vegetation. The bright verdure of meadows and fields was nowhere to be seen; we could discern neither villages, smoke, nor the sign of a human habitation; nor did it appear that any part of this coast was, or ever had been, under cultivation. It seemed impossible to reconcile the idea of agriculture with a surface so rugged; and even Bruce or Park would have shrunk from exploring its dark and wooded ravines, and climbing its steep hills. Such is the aspect of the coast-line of New Zealand, generally; but where an estuary, a bay, or an inlet advances into the interior, we meet with undulating tracts, and sometimes with table lands of great extent, without a tree; the country being everywhere overspread with a low gregarious vegetation of ferns and myrtles. The scarcity of grasses amongst its indigenous vegetation is the grand defect of New Zealand. In Poverty Bay, and near the frith of the Thames, there is no scarcity of grass; in the district of Taranaki, which is possessed by the New Zealand Company, it is also said to be in sufficient abundance for the maintenance of cattle. Wheresoever the ground has

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once been broken up for cultivation by the natives, and afterwards abandoned, I have always observed an abundant crop of a long, fine grass; but, in general, the traveller who visits Australia and New Zealand must be struck by the opposite character of their scenery, not only in the aspect of the vegetation, but in the appearance of the sky. Although not a cloud overhung the neighbouring sea, the land, as far as it was visible, from north to south, in New Zealand, was canopied by white and fleecy vapours, which enveloped the bases of the mountains, and showers of rain were seen falling over various parts of the interior. Finally, in the dense and magnificent forests, which clothed the valleys and hills in all directions, it was easy to perceive the effect of a climate permanently warm and humid.

Towards the afternoon we were off the harbour of Whangaroa, which, from a narrow entrance flanked by rocks of great height, opens into a spacious harbour, where the largest merchantmen have anchored. It is bounded by an amphitheatre of hills, where Kaori spars of the finest dimensions were at one time plentiful, but the best have been cut down. Wangaroa was the scene of a very tragical occurrence towards the year 1815. The ship "Boyd," on her way from Sydney to England, arrived in this harbour to take on board some spars. Besides a numerous crew, she had several passengers; and among the former was a young New Zealander, the son, it is said, of the principal chief of Wangaroa, who, during the voyage, had been most unadvisedly flogged by order of the captain. Shortly after the vessel had anchored, the natives being informed of the treatment which one of their number, and he a person of consideration, had received, dis-

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sembled their resentment for the purpose of carrying more easily into effect a dire and sanguinary project. Whilst the crew and officers were separated through the wood, having been assisted in their preliminary operations by the natives, the chief accosted the captain, and pointing to the back of his son, which yet bore the marks of his punishment, inquired whether that was fit treatment for the son of a Rangatira; and before the captain could reply, he was struck to the earth by the stone hatchets of the savage and his adherents. This was the signal for a general massacre of the crew and passengers, who, being separated and unprepared, were overpowered by the savages without difficulty. One female only was spared to tell the tale. She lived for several years among the natives of Wangaroa, and is said to have been well and kindly treated, until through the influence of the missionaries who arrived in New Zealand some years after this event, she was restored to her surviving relatives in Sydney.

There is no reason to suppose that this massacre would have been committed had the captain abstained from an act of severity which, whether just or unjust, was in the highest degree impolitic under the circumstances.

The New Zealanders of the present day are far less cruel and treacherous than their forefathers. Their intercourse with Europeans, combined with the instructions of the missionaries, has so changed their character, that mildness, industry, and hospitality, have taken the place of that ruthless ferocity which distinguished them in former times. But even in the present day, they feel keenly all insults or attacks upon their personal dignity; and it is easy to account for the catastrophe of the "Boyd," at a

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period when their minds had not as yet received a single ray of civilization. Their practice of demanding utu or payment for insults and injuries, as a salvo for the sense of wounded dignity, leaves room for the amicable adjustment of all differences; and it is only when such reasonable compensation is refused, a very rare event, that recourse is had to a personal conflict. A ready compliance in such cases is never deemed humiliating; and whether it is owing to the operation of this usage, or to a clear, intuitive perception of right and wrong, combined with a sense of dignity, it is certain that altercations and quarrels are of singularly rare occurrence among the New Zealanders. Nothing excites the ire of a native more readily than the abusive epithets and profane expressions in which Europeans too frequently give vent to their angry feelings. They have been taught by the missionaries to regard such expressions as the mark of low station and a depraved character. To frown at a New Zealander is by him reckoned an insult; but to swear and rail at him is an offence for which he will demand immediate payment.

A family, recently arrived from South Australia, had taken up their abode at the Frith of the Thames, and unfortunately a slight difference occurred one day between its head and an old and respectable chief named Kahukote. The settler, unadvisedly on this occasion, forgot himself so far as to make use of some unpolite expressions, and Kahukote, feeling his dignity sorely wounded, made the usual demand of utu. To this the latter would by no means consent, being ignorant of the nature of this usage, and unwilling besides to make any concessions to a native. Kahukote, unable peaceably to obtain the pound

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of tobacco, or some such trifle, which would have been a sufficient atonement, took his departure in an angry mood, intimating that he would soon return.

This promise he fulfilled. Surrounding the house of the obdurate white man, he and his tribe proceeded very formally to plunder it. The precaution which he adopted rendered resistance on the part of the settlers so obviously unavailing, that they made no attempt to save their goods and chattels; and having loaded a good-sized canoe with male and female wearing apparel, pots, chairs, and other furniture, Kahukote took his departure. During these proceedings no personal violence was offered, even to the females of the household, who were both young and pretty.

Ultimately, almost every article taken on this occasion by the natives was surrendered to the family, at the instance of one or two ship captains, to whom the chief was known. I had myself the honour of Kahukote's acquaintance, and found him to possess, like many of his countrymen, much good sense, with that shrewdness and love of mirth, which is so common among the New Zealanders, as to have obtained for them, on some occasion, the appellation of the Irishmen of the southern hemisphere. In other respects, a resemblance to the common Irish has been observed in their attachment to potatoes and tobacco, in their extreme disregard of their personal comforts, and, in a more important point of view, in the nature of their feelings on religious subjects, which approaches to a species of enthusiasm. Nor will this comparison be reckoned derogatory to the countrymen of Wellington by those who are acquainted thoroughly with the character of the New Zealanders. But for one stigma

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which belongs to their past history, and from which the rising generation is entirely free, I would not hesitate to class this people among the noblest aboriginal races of the world.

Having passed the detached conical rock which seems to guard the broad entrance to the Bay of Islands, and has therefore been called the Sentinel, we beat our way to the anchorage of Kororadika, leaving on our right hand a range of remarkable black rocks, running perfectly horizontal, raised ten feet above the surface of the water, and presenting such an appearance as we might look for in a coral reef upheaved above its natural element.