1830 - Craik, George L. The New Zealanders - Chapter II

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CHAPTER II.

So early as the close of the thirteenth century, Marco Polo had announced that the further boundaries of Tartary and China were washed by the sea; but it was more than two centuries later before any European looked upon the immense ocean lying between Asia and America from its opposite shore. It was seen for the first time on the 25th of September, 1513, from the coast of the isthmus of Darien, by the Spanish commander Basco Nugnez de Balboa, who, immediately falling upon his knees, returned thanks to heaven with uplifted hands for having bestowed on him so great an honour. As the isthmus of Darien lies nearly east and west, the new sea, as first viewed, appeared to be situated to the south of the old, or Atlantic Ocean, and hence it received the name of the South Sea. It was several years later, however, before it was completely ascertained that this was the same sea with that by which China and India were bounded on the east. This was first established by the voyage of the celebrated Fernando de Magalhaens, or Magellan, as he is commonly called in English, whose ships traversed the South Sea from the western coast of the American continent to the Moluccas, in the year 1521. The tranquil weather

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TASMAN.

experienced in the course of this navigation obtained for the new ocean its other name of the Pacific.

Although in the course of the first century which succeeded the adventurous expedition of Magalhaens, many of the more northerly islands scattered throughout the Pacific Ocean were discovered by the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, and English navigators who followed his path across that immense expanse of waters, New Zealand lay too far to the south of the track uniformly pursued by those who attempted the western passage to India to fall in the way of any of them. Yet some geographers have supposed that this was the country at which Juan Fernandez arrived, when, having set out from one of the ports of the west coast of South America in the year 1576, he sailed for about a month towards the south-west, and then reached a land which is described as having been fertile and pleasant, and inhabited by a race of white 1 people, well made, and dressed in a species of woven cloth. There appears no reason to doubt that the navigation in question was performed about the time that has been stated; and New Zealand certainly is the only country yet known which at all answers the account given of Fernandez's discovery. It is not impossible, however, that the land at which he arrived may have been some other island or continent, not so far to the west, which has yet eluded the search of succeeding navigators.

It was on the 14th of August, 1642, that the Dutch navigator Abel Jansen Tasman, whose name now occupies so honourable a place in the history of nautical discovery, left the port of Batavia in the East Indies, on a voyage to the yet almost unentered regions of the southern Pacific. He was despatched

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on this expedition by Anthony Van Diemen, then governor of the Dutch possessions in that quarter of the globe; and had under his command the yacht Heemskirk, and the Zeehaan fly boat. The first reward of Tasman's research was the discovery of Van Diemen's Land. 2 After spending some days in navigating the coasts of this country, he proceeded towards the east, till, on the 13th of September, being then in latitude 32 deg. 10' S. and longitude 167 deg. 81' E from Greenwich, 3 he again saw land lying about a degree to the S.S.E. Next day, after having steered east, he was within two miles of the shore, beyond which the mountains were so high, that their tops could not be seen for the clouds which rested upon them. They continued to pursue the course of the coast to the northward, keeping so close to the land that they could see the waves break on the shore; and for some days could perceive neither houses, nor smoke, nor any other sign of inhabitants. At last, on the 17th, they reached the northern extremity of the land, and, turning to the east, anchored next day within a large bay, three or four miles wide. It was now that the natives for the first time made their appearance, two of their canoes having put out from the shore soon after sun-set, the people in which called out to the Dutch in a strong, rough voice, but in a language which the latter did not understand. They sounded also an instrument, which, Tasman

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TASMAN.

says, made a noise like a Moorish trumpet, and which was probably merely a species of shell, such as is used in other islands of the South Sea, for the purpose of convoking the people to war, and on other occasions. The New Zealand chiefs, it would seem, carry such shells at the present day as part of their usual accoutrements. "Mowenna had his shell hung upon his arm, which he immediately sounded; when his people flew to arms in all directions, and those that were with me girded up their loins, and prepared for war or flight, as circumstances might dictate." 4

At night-fall, the canoes returned to the shore; but next morning a boat with thirteen men in it made its appearance, and approached within a stone's cast of the ship. The people, now more distinctly seen, appeared to be of common stature, and strong boned, their colour between brown and yellow, and their hair black, which they wore tied up on the crown of the. head like the Japanese, each having a large white feather stuck upright in it. Their vessels were double canoes, fastened together by cross planks, on which they sat. Their clothing seemed to be of mats, or of cotton; but most of them had the breast naked. It is remarked, that their language seemed to bear no resemblance to that of the Solomon Isles, with a vocabulary of which Tasman had been furnished by the General and Council at Batavia.

The people in this canoe also rowed back after some time to the land, having been in vain tempted to come on board by the exhibition of fish, linen, and knives. Immediately afterwards, however, seven other canoes put out towards the ships, and one of them came within half a stone's cast of that in which Tasman was. Meanwhile a boat, in which were a quartermaster and six seamen, was despatched from the

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Heemskirk to the Zeehaan, which lay at a little distance, to direct the people in the latter to keep on their guard, and not suffer too many of the canoes to come alongside. No sooner had the boat put off than the natives in the nearest canoes called to those that were further off, making at the same time a signal to them with their paddles; and when she had got quite clear of the ship, such of the canoes as were within reach, rushed with their beaks violently against her, so as to make her heel. At the same time one of the savages, with what Tasman calls a blunt pointed pike, gave the quarter-master a violent blow in his neck, which made him fall overboard. The others then attacked the rest of the boat's crew with their paddles, and with short, thick clubs, which the Dutch had at first taken for clumsy parangs(knives used in some parts of the East Indies for cutting wood); and in a few moments three of the seamen were killed, and a fourth mortally wounded. After this the assailants made a precipitate retreat, carrying with them one of the dead bodies; and before those on board the ships could be ready to avenge the murder of their comrades, they were out of reach of the guns.

Having no hope of obtaining refreshments after what had happened, Tasman immediately left the scene of this bloody transaction, which he designated the "Bay of Murderers." Cook supposes this to be, not the opening which in his first voyage he named Blind Bay, but another, a short way to the north-west of it, and about six leagues to the east of Cape Farewell, the north-western extremity of the southern island. 5 When they were under sail, twenty-two more boats put off from the shore, and advanced towards them, at which they fired, but without hitting any person on board, except a man

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TASMAN.

in the foremost canoe, who was standing with a white flag in his hand. The shot, however, striking against the canoes, made them all retreat towards the shore. Instead of continuing his course towards the east, Tasman now stood to the north, and soon came again in sight of land ahead. He now took it for granted, that in his tack eastward he had only entered a large bay, and that the land before him belonged to the same island or continent with that which he had left behind.

Attack on Tasman's Ships -- a fac-simile of the drawing in his Journal.

At this time, and for more than a century afterwards, the existence of a land extending around the South Pole, which was denominated the Terra Incognita Australis,was the favourite dream of geographers; and upon this Tasman imagined that he had

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now touched: "it is a very fine country," says he, "and we hope it is part of the Unknown South Continent."Twenty-six years before this, his countrymen, Schouten and Le Maire, on penetrating into the Pacific through the strait which bears the name of the latter, had given that of Staten Land, or States' Land, to the coast which appeared on their left, and which they conceived to belong also to the long-sought Polar Continent. Tasman accordingly gave the same name to the land which he had just discovered, under the impression that it might be only another part of the same extensive region. It happened, however, that, within three months after this, Schouten's Staten Land was found to be merely an inconsiderable island; another Dutch navigator, Hendrick Brouwer, having sailed round its eastern and southern coasts in making a voyage to Chili. Upon this discovery being announced, the country which Tasman had called Staten Land lost its first name, and received, instead, that of New Zealand, by which it has ever since been known.

After the attack made upon the boat in Murderers' Bay, Tasman did not attempt to put in at any other part of the coast of New Zealand; but on passing its north-western extremity, off which he arrived on the 4th of January, 1643, he bestowed upon it the name of Cape Maria Van Diemen, in honour, it is said, of a young lady, a relation of the East India governor, to whom he was attached. Two days afterwards he came to an anchor on the north side of an island, lying a few miles to the north-west of the cape, which, in allusion to the day (Epiphany-day), he named the Island of the Three Kings. 6

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TASMAN.

This was all that Tasman saw of New Zealand, the existence of which, however, he was certainly the first to make known.

It was a considerable time after Tasman's voyage had been performed before any narrative of it was given to the world. An imperfect account at last appeared in Dutch, which was soon translated into English and French, and became very popular. But although more complete details of it were subsequently given, and especially by Valentyn, in his magnificent work on the possessions of the Dutch in the East Indies, published about a century ago, where we find the relation illustrated by copies of charts and views from Tasman's own journal, it was only very recently that that interesting document itself was rescued from oblivion. The public are indebted for its preservation to the late Sir Joseph Banks, who, having purchased the manuscript, which was written in Dutch, had a translation of it made into English: and this, accompanied by accurate copies of the principal drawings in the original, has since been printed in the third volume of Admiral Burney's History of Discoveries in the South Sea. Among the plates are a chart of the west coast of New Zealand, as far as it was seen by Tasman, and a sketch of the attack upon the boat in Murderers' Bay (which we have copied in a preceding page), together with a picture of one of the canoes, which is curious from the representations it has preserved of the figures and attire of the natives.

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Canoe and Natives--from Tasman's Journal.

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COOK.

After Tasman's departure no account has been preserved of any visit paid to New Zealand till the year 1769, when, on the 6th of October, it was seen by Captain Cook, bearing W. by N., on his return from the Society Isles, in the course of his first circumnavigation of the globe. There is great reason, however, for believing that some European ship had put in at New Zealand only a few years before this visit of Cook's. Some of the communications made by the natives to the great English navigator when he was there, both in October, 1774, and February, 1777, are scarcely to be understood without supposing them to refer to such an event. Indeed two young New Zealanders, whom he took away with him on his last departure from the country, expressly told him that another ship had touched at the island a short time before the appearance of the Endeavour, and gave their account in such a way as convinced Cook that they could not be mistaken. This unknown vessel seems to have come to New Zealand from the west, and to have put in either on the west coast, a little to the north of Tasman's Bay of Murderers, or perhaps on the north side of the same large opening in which that bay lies. There is too much ground for apprehending, both from the tenor of some of the confused and imperfect statements which Captain Cook received in the country, and from this visit, if it ever was made, never having been heard of in Europe, that both the unfortunate vessel and her crew must have perished on these barbarous coasts, having been destroyed, in all probability, by the natives. 7 The land, which Cook

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ascertained to be New Zealand became, we are told, the subject of much eager conversation onboard; "but the general opinion," it is added, "seemed to be that we had found the Terra Australia incognita."On drawing nearer they saw smoke ascending from different places on shore; and at last they could perceive that "the hills were clothed with wood, and that some of the trees in the vallies were very large." Cook was now approaching New Zealand on the opposite side from that on which Tasman had been, nearly one hundred and twenty-seven years before, and in a latitude considerably to the north of that in which it had first presented itself to the Dutch navigator. For some time, in consequence of a violent north wind, he found it impossible to weather a point of land which formed the south-west head of a bay he wished to enter; but at last, about four o'clock on the afternoon of the 8th, he came to an anchor on the north-west side of the bay, in latitude 38 deg. 42' S., and longitude 181 deg. 36' W. from Greenwich. 8Here he lay before the entrance of a small river, about half a league from the shore. The sides of the bay were "white cliffs of a great height; the middle low land, with hills gradually rising behind, one towering above another, and terminating in a chain of mountains, which appeared to be far inland."

Captain Cook's first intercourse with the New Zealanders was not calculated to prepossess either party with favourable sentiments towards the other. On the same evening on which he arrived in the bay, he went on shore, accompanied by Mr. Banks

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and Dr. Solander; but they had not long left their boat when they were attacked by a party of the natives. They were at last obliged to fire in self-defence, and one of the New Zealanders was shot. Another attempt, which was made the following morning, to establish a friendly intercourse with them was attended with no better success, although it was now found that a native of Otaheite, named Tupia, who was on board the ship, could make himself perfectly understood by speaking1 to them in his own language. In the course of the day, however, Cook at last succeeded in getting some of these suspicious islanders on board; but it was only by using force, and after a contest, which unhappily proved a very bloody one. He had set out along with three boats to make the circuit of the bay in search of fresh water, that in the river being found to be salt, when he met one of their fishing canoes coming in from the sea, having seven people on board, four men and three boys. As soon as the New Zealanders perceived the boats, which they did not do till they were almost in the midst of them, they took to their paddles, and plied them so briskly that they would actually have effected their escape, had not Cook ordered a musket to be fired over their heads, thinking this would probably make them surrender. But unfortunately it had not that effect; for although, on the discharge of the piece, they immediately ceased paddling, and began to strip, it was only that, unequal as was the contest, they might meet and fight their assailants. They themselves, indeed, as soon as the boat came up, commenced the attack with their paddles, and what other weapons they had with them; and so obstinate was the resistance they made, that the scuffle did not end till the four men were killed. On this the boys, the eldest of whom was about nineteen, and the youngest about eleven,

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instantly leaped into the water; but although even here they continued their resistance by every means in their power, they were at last taken up, and placed in the boat. It is but just to Captain Cook to give his own remarks on this unfortunate transaction. "I am conscious," says he, "that the feeling of every reader of humanity will censure me for having fired upon these unhappy people; and it is impossible that, upon a calm review, I should approve it myself. They certainly did not deserve death for not choosing to confide in my promises, or not consenting to come on board my boat, even if they had apprehended no danger; but the nature of my service required me to obtain a knowledge of their country, which I could no otherwise effect than by forcing my way into it in a hostile manner, or gaining admission through the confidence and good-will of the people. I had already tried the power of presents without effect; and I was now prompted, by my desire to avoid further hostilities, to get some of them on board, as the only method left of convincing them that we intended them no harm, and had it in our power to contribute to their gratification and convenience. Thus far my intentions certainly were not criminal; and though, in the contest, which I had not the least reason to expect, our victory might have been complete without so great an expense of life, yet in such situations, when the command to fire has been given, no man can restrain its excess, or prescribe its effect." 9

When the boys were first brought into the boat, they seemed evidently to have no hope of anything except instant death; but, upon being kindly treated, and furnished with clothes, they very soon forgot both their alarm on their own account, and even their grief for the loss of their friends, and gradually got into high spirits. When dinner was set upon the

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table they were anxious to partake of every dish, and seemed particularly delighted with the salt pork and bread. They ate voraciously, and at sunset made another enormous meal, devouring as before a large quantity of bread, and drinking above a quart of water. But although they had been so cheerful during the day, and had taken apparently a great deal of interest in whatever their attention was directed to, the recollection of what had befallen them seemed to return to them after they were in bed, and during the night they sighed often and loud. By Tupia's encouragements, however, they were soon once more enabled to escape from their gloomy reflections, and were even induced to amuse their entertainers with a song. "The tune," says Cook, "was solemn and slow, like those of our psalms, containing many notes and semitones." In the morning they again ate with extraordinary appetite; and having then been dressed, and adorned with bracelets, anklets, and necklaces, expressed at first the greatest joy upon being told that they were to be sent on shore. When they came to the place, however, at which it was proposed to land them, they entreated with great earnestness that they might not be put ashore there, "because," they said, "it was inhabited by their enemies, who would kill them, and eat them." But their fears left them, when, upon landing in company with Captain Cook and the boat's crew, they perceived the uncle of one of them among the Indians who had assembled on the beach. Yet after some hesitation, and an attempt to ascertain the disposition of their countrymen, they finally preferred returning with the English; and they were accordingly again taken on board the boat. They changed their minds once more after dinner, and with their own consent were again sent on shore; but on seeing the boat that had conveyed them put off from the land, they waded into the water, and earnestly

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entreated to be taken on board. The people in the boat, however, had positive orders to leave them, and could not comply. Cook was, some time after, distinctly informed that they had received no injury.

Finding it impossible to procure supplies of any kind where he lay, Captain Cook next morning weighed anchor, bestowing the name of Poverty Bayupon the place where he had been so inhospitably received. It was called Taoneroaby the natives. He then sailed along the coast towards the south, in which direction he proceeded as far as Cape Turnagain, in latitude 40 deg. 34'. From this point he returned towards the north, touching at various places as he proceeded. On the 25th of December, they were attacked by a tremendous gale of wind, which increased to a hurricane on the following evening. The Endeavour was not the only European ship which chanced at this time to be contending with the tempest on these inhospitable shores.

Cook was now on the same side of New Zealand which had been coasted by Tasman; and in proceeding as he did to the southward, he merely sailed, but in an opposite direction, along the track of the Dutch navigator. On arriving at the large opening, on the south side of which Tasman had found his fatal anchoring-place, he turned into it; and eventually discovered that it was not a bay, as had been supposed, but an open passage between the east and west coasts of the country. To this passage, the name of Cook's Strait has been given. Having passed through it, and afterwards sailed towards the north till he came again in sight of Cape Turnagain, thus ascertaining the country he had been coasting to be an island, he next proceeded to examine the other land, which he had seen to the south, which he also entirely circumnavigated. In the course of this survey of the coasts of New Zealand, Captain Cook had a

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great deal of intercourse with the inhabitants, and enjoyed many opportunities of observing their manners and method of life, as well as of examining the various natural productions of the country. But we must refer to the published account of his voyage for these more particular details. His visit must be considered the most important that has ever been made to those islands, in so far, at least, as respects the geography of the country. The notices derived from other authorities have, in fact, added but little to the geographical information for which we are indebted to Cook. The chart of New Zealand, so far as we are in possession of it, is almost entirely the result of his examinations; and if to the discoveries made on his first voyage we add the corrections and more minute specifications which are to be gathered from the journals of his subsequent visits, we shall certainly have a sufficiently particular and exact delineation of these remote, and still, in great part, unfrequented regions. He himself states his conviction that the situation of few parts of the world is better ascertained than that of at least a portion of the coasts of New Zealand, which he investigated. To this we may add the testimony of a French navigator, who, as will immediately appear, had occasion, soon after his departure, to sail along the western coast of the northern island. "As soon as I got hold of the voyage of the English," says M. Crozet, "I compared with care the chart which I had drawn of the portion which we ran along of the coast of New Zealand, with that taken by Captain Cook and his officers. I found it to possess an exactness and minuteness which astonished me beyond all expression. I doubt whether our own coasts of France have been delineated with more precision." 10

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A late writer, Mr, Nicholas, has, by the aid of Cook's chart, attempted an estimate of the extent of the two islands composing New Zealand, according to which, the northern island, called by the natives Eaheinomauwe, is laid down as containing about 26,160 square miles, and the southern, to which Cook at first understood them to give the name of Tovai Poenammoo, about 36,000. But this measurement, which has been adopted and copied in subsequent works, is evidently very considerably under the truth. The area of the northern island is certainly above 30,000 geographical, or 40,000 English square miles, while that of the southern is considerably more than a third larger. The extent of the two is at least 95,000 English miles square.

View in New Zealand, from Cook's Voyages.