CHAPTER II. FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
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CHAPTER II.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
OUR anchor was scarcely down when we received a visit from the Captain and officers of the Midlothian. They were instantly surrounded by a crowd of anxious emigrants, eager for authentic accounts of their future home.
Even to myself, though only a visitor to the colony, the accounts they gave were truly depressing. But to my fellow-passengers, who had embarked their whole substance in the venture, they were of the most disheartening character, and my poor friends began sadly to anticipate their utter misery and ruin.
It seems that the passengers by the Midlothian had been seized with a panic which at that moment had reached its height. They had been greeted on their arrival (as indeed, singularly enough, had almost every emigrant
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ship) with a "sow-wester"--a wind which in this island is invariably accompanied with rainy, miserable weather, and which, in addition to these discomforts, blows directly down the harbour, and is often dangerous to vessels lying there. This species of welcome to the colony had not tended to raise the spirits of the new arrivals; and when, upon their landing, they found provisions dear and house-room almost unattainable; and were moreover encountered by some of those facetious individuals who take delight in exercising their invention by frightening "new chums," as they term them, with all kinds of disheartening accounts of the colony, their consternation degenerated into a complete panic. Up to the time of our arrival one only of the Midlothian adventurers had penetrated as far as Christchurch, a distance of only nine miles, though a few had had the courage to climb the hill at the back of the town to gain a view of the plains. Nor did their hardihood, such as it was, lessen in any degree the despair of their less venturous companions. The wind still continued to blow from the southwest, the hills surrounding Lyttelton were
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still capped with snow, the hail and rain had not ceased, and under such depressing circumstances it could not be expected that a vast and uncultivated plain should present an inviting prospect to, the unpractised eye of a "gentleman colonist." So thoroughly indeed were they frightened by this inauspicious commencement, that even the clearing up of the gale,---as after blowing for three days it invariably does,--and the return of warm and beautiful weather had not in any degree reassured them; and at the time of our arrival, the unfortunate adventurers, at least all the cabin passengers, had determined upon proceeding in the Midlothian to try their fortune at Nelson or some more propitious settlement.
It was midnight when the boat which brought these harbingers of evil came alongside. They were immediately ushered into the cuddy; and there, until three o'clock, we sat in conclave, listening in breathless attention to their dismal stories. At each succeeding tale the visages of the land-purchasers grew visibly longer. They heard with dismay of provisions at ruinous prices; of houses, not even water-tight, at exorbitant rents; of
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land partly sand hills and partly irreclaimable swamp; of young gentlemen, who had come out with bright expectations and small capitals, reduced to work on the roads, or employed at daily wages by those they had brought out as servants. These and other stories of similar character, are indeed sufficiently startling to adventurers fresh from the old world; but a very short experience of colonial life shows them to be evils inseparable from the condition of a new country; and though ruinous to the indolent and desponding, are easily surmounted by a stout heart and a willing hand, and sink into actual insignificance when compared with the advantages afforded by a new and uncrowded field for industry or speculation. In confirmation of this view, I would add that our visitors and their friends subsequently found occasion to alter their opinion, and that when I left the colony they were all comfortably settled in Canterbury, and were doing well.
This view of the subject is, however, the result of after-experience; and I must confess that on the evening in question we were thoroughly infected with the "Midlothian" panic.
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Nor was the effect produced on us at all lessened by the rising gale which was even then setting in from the south-west to welcome our arrival. One unfortunate individual was in truth so overcome with fear as to bargain for the sale of his two hundred acres of excellent land for the small pittance of 25l. In justice, however, to the purchaser, I should add that the bargain was never enforced, nor intended so to be.
At length our visitors returned to their vessel, and we were left to retire to rest, and such of us as had sufficient philosophy, to sleep.
Sleepers and watchers, however, were both early afoot to catch the first daylight glimpse of the settlement. And certainly, even had we heard no unfavourable accounts of it, the aspect which it now presented would in itself have been sufficiently discouraging. All the warmth and softness of the air was gone; the cold, damp wind howled dismally through the rigging, whilst every few minutes a shower of hail, such as I have never witnessed elsewhere, would compel us to make a precipitate retreat into the cuddy. In the intervals
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between the squalls, we managed to get an occasional glimpse of the shore; and anything more desolate it would be difficult to conceive. The hills were covered with snow; the leaden sky threw a gloom over the whole picture; and as we were not aware that our captain had not ventured sufficiently up the harbour to gain a view of the town, the few straggling huts that we could see gave rise to most unpleasant anticipations upon the subject of lodgings. Small was the consumption of breakfast that morning; and when, as we were leaving the table, three gentlemen came on board from the town, our eyes mechanically turned towards their boots to ascertain the correctness of the terrible stories we had heard, the preceding night, of the Lyttelton mud. Small was the satisfaction to be obtained from the inspection. They were covered to the knee with thick yellow clay; and this sad sight put the finishing stroke to the consternation of our colonists. Fortunately, however, the "Canterbury" emigrants were somewhat stouter-hearted than our friends of the "Midlothian." Perhaps a more protracted voyage, with the accompaniment of bad and
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insufficient provisions, had better prepared us to encounter hardships; and the discomforts on board, like other trials, might have been attended with beneficial effect, by enabling us to contemplate with more philosophy the rough life of a newly-imported emigrant. I at least, for one, was heartily tired of the ship, and gladly accepted a passage on shore in the boat which had brought the gentlemen to the Canterbury,
