1841 - Bright, John. Handbook for Emigrants and Others - CHAPTER II. THE CLIMATE AND SOIL, p 21-40

       
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  1841 - Bright, John. Handbook for Emigrants and Others - CHAPTER II. THE CLIMATE AND SOIL, p 21-40
 
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CHAPTER II. THE CLIMATE AND SOIL.

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CHAPTER II.

THE CLIMATE AND SOIL.

FROM the foregoing description, if my account shall have been clear, it will not surprise, that an island, having a surface from which arise so many points of attraction, should be visited, I may say troubled, with a superabundance of rain; which, when in excess, chills the air. There, indeed, "it seldom rains but it pours;" and in the summer of 1839, I have known rain every day for six weeks, more or less, each day. This to an Englishman would appear wet indeed; and as the water must partly run off and down the hills, the low lands are liable to be wet over much, especially where there is a clayey substratum. Occasional defects of season, from excessive actions of sun and clouds, pertain to all countries, nor is New Zealand exempt. Yet I do not think that the summer rains generally are heavy enough to beat down standing crops; the grain ripens quicker under a hotter sun, while the wet, being sooner exhaled, does less harm. The time between the appearance of the blade and the ripened

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ear is short; the climate, aided by this rain, renders vegetation rapid; the winds at times, and from any quarter, blow very strong. Gales are frequent and severe. In the latter end of their autumn, in 1840, I had proceeded to the Bay of Plenty on a voyage of inspection. I landed and waited on shore, prosecuting my business; while the vessel in which I came, proceeded to other districts; it was in the beginning of the month of March. I was lodged in one end of a large barn-like building belonging to an English trader, for whom it had been built by the natives. The walls were formed of dried segs and reeds, and broad upright slabs of timber placed at wide intervals; a stratum of segs intervened between my mattrass and the earth. The family of the trader and myself, were in expectation of seeing the vessel return, the trader being in it collecting for the owner, who was also his employer, a cargo of native produce. Towards evening it blew fresh, and directly on shore--at bed time the wind was very strong and increasing--sleep had scarcely been enjoyed two hours before it was scared by the howling gale--the roof was being twisted. Fearing the further powers of the wind, I hastily dressed; on emerging from the building the burst of the gale stopped my breath; and then broke upon my ear the rush of waters, the cry of distress, the shouts of natives seeking their canoes, and hauling those not carried away beyond the intruding waves. Often

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the crushing of their houses and fences gave alarm, lest the inmates had not escaped; above all roared the troubled sea. The native settlement was seated near the mouth of a river, one mile distant from the sea; on looking seaward, a phosphorescent light, emitted from the sea, alone broke the pitchy darkness; and by that light, the spray seemed to reach the lower clouds, which hung heavily upon its line of light. The roar of the surf upon the beach was as if sea and wind had engaged in loud and angry strife; then a child would be missed and anxiously inquired after; while unpleasant thoughts crowded as to the fate of the vessel, which, if anchored off the coast, was surely wrecked; no human power could avert her doom; cogitations as to her whereabouts, all ended in the deep, deep sea: and the trader with his two young children were on board --boats could not live through a surf of breakers that neared the clouds--night wore away--the gale was gradually hushed. When morning broke, we saw that the sea had intruded very far beyond, and above high-water mark; land strewed with the material where the day before had stood strong tenements; the crops of maize near the coast prostrate on the ground under a load of seaweed; and the horrible anxiety about the vessel. The second morning, the face of the sea was calm; a canoe was spied with its triangular sail peak downwards, scudding over the deep; it steered through the rocks.

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Sixty natives formed her crew; and, joy to the mother! with them were her darlings; also two sailors from the wreck. The vessel, 180 tons, parted from three anchors, and fortunately drove with such force on a low sandy beach as to enable them, at some peril, to jump from her stern, a considerable height, as the waves swept back, or jump in them, and with them as they swept on shore. She soon broke, nor was a plank saved. The children were rescued by ropes fastened to the stern, their ends being hauled on shore. All was happily managed in a few minutes, except to the captain's ancle, severely sprained by his leap. On inquiring of the trader, his recollections seemed to confirm accounts given by the natives, that once in about three years they were subject to such visitations.

In that same gale foundered at sea, having sailed two days previous, and has never been heard of since, a small schooner, bound for Sydney. The skipper was one of those characters which I describe, as common to meet with in these colonies. Time had accumulated his profits, till he acquired the property of a small schooner, about twenty-five tons. His lesiure from the occupations of trade was passed in the gratification of sensual indulgence; his address frank; his conversation blasphemous and obscene. Money, however it might be gained, women, tobacco, and drink, engrossed his thoughts; free in his hospitality, because he wanted and gained by the

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society; his mind had no regulating principle. He had on board a woman, with whom he lived as his wife, and two passengers. Before the vessel weighed for Sydney, drinking on shore one day, her free conduct with the passengers occasioned remonstrance, all being more or less drunk. The skipper fell, struck by a knife in his side, and died. The murder was laid to the woman, but denied. They buried the corpse and hurried in the vessel off to sea, soon to meet with a retributive fate; in the gale above alluded to, they all perished. Drink, all glorious drink!--the foxhunter's solace, the seaman's delight, the felon's and the hangman's companion--how many a fortune hast thou washed away! how many a soul hast thou destroyed! what revenues hast thou paid! Frequent indeed, and sad, are its effects to be witnessed out here.

The south wind is very keen in winter, and requires extra clothing. The atmosphere is very rare, and together with the power of the sun, prevents that inconvenience and harm from the rain which we suffer in England, and which would, from the redundancy of wet, be expected in New Zealand. The moisture is there sooner dissipated: you have not the same depression of feeling--the sensations of a heavy atmosphere--you have no withering east to shiver you--nor the dense fog through which you can scarce move, needing artificial light--nor snows lying deep on the ground; snow lodges only on the tops of the very highest

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hills, and is not seen at all past Ki-pa-ra to the northward; beyond Ho-ki-anga to the southward the temperature declines gradually, and the winter is colder--the gales in Cook's Straits are then frequent and powerful. You have no leaves turned over by which you may read the seasons, the golden tints which the dying summer leaves to autumn for her vestments; nor the brown and yellow heralds of winter drifting with the winds; no ice to bear a foot --to the northward the ice, if any has formed in the night, and it is there scarcely ever perceptible, the first rays of the morning rase it away. Spring is not perceived by trees and bushes putting on their green. The foliage of New Zealand is ever green throughout; the leaf shed, or replaced, or new buds, affect not the appearance of the country--the temperature and the length of day alone tell of the seasons as they roll.

Winter and spring, summer and autumn, are so blended, you think not of spring and autumn--the first year of residence observes one long season, now cold, now warm; and it is named when you light a fire in the chill of evening, or open a window to cool the morning, not otherwise, except with reference to the past year. In the summer sometimes, but rarely, the mid-day heat ranges to 90 degrees in the shade; light clothing renders the heat inoppressive; when the sea gives an unwaving reflection of trees and mountain, and nothing stirs but insects'

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sounds, you are glad to repair within doors; this is but seldom, nor stays the common course of business; even with the native there is no regular siesta taken, fully evidencing that the heat is not oppressive. Children enjoy their pastimes in the sun's rays uncovered; none fearing their power. Though the European may not be unmindful of coup-de-soleil during spring and autumn, which you note only by the shortening of the days, you occasionally feel it cold enough to enjoy a fire within. The long day closes with little or no twilight. The winter can be endured without fire; except towards evening, when a blaze is resorted to. The thermometer now occasionally sinks from 45 degrees to 40 degrees, not often, nor for long. I have described the temperature of the north--the south is much colder, although much difference is not observed in the thermometer. From Ho-ki-anga on the west, and the Thames on the east coast, the cold increases to the southward, where winter is really felt, not however to compare in severity with that of England.

I am certain that the orange would live, and bear fruit luxuriantly, in the northern districts; I doubt its growth to the southward would not be so rapid, except in particular, sheltered situations, and there it would be uncertain in its yielding. The winter at Port Nicholson was not complained of by the settlers. Such is the temperature north and south. The mornings are serene, mid-day mild, evenings pleasant, in

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summer; in winter, morning and evening cold, midday temperate.

The rareness of the air, and, on the whole, the evenness of its temperature, should render this island healthy. It is so. The long continued wet can, however, not be endured in any country, whatever the general climate, without bad effects. In England I have observed it affect, especially with the old and young, that membrane which, lining the nose and mouth, is continued throughout the interior of the body, and is extremely sensible of change of temperature, the affections of which often lead to consumption; the action of damp air, surcharged with moisture, is rendered evident on this membrane by various symptoms. In England you have the catarrhal and the influenzal affection; in New Zealand catarrhs are very common, and influenza occasionally severe. When I was in the Bay of Islands, the surgeon of the Church Mission Society had lost his children, as it were swept off, many like fatal cases occurring at the same time. The absorbents, vessels which, as their name denotes, take up, and are by anatomists described to be for purposes of taking up matter (running every where from the surface to the interior of the body), nutritious and otherwise, and of conveying those matters into and about the body--these vessels are very apt to assume disorder; in an excited state of the frame, they are prone to inflammatory action; sudden variations of

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temperature and heavy atmospheres I have observed affect them, producing enlargement of glands, followed by eruptions and excruciating rheumatic twinges, or ulceration. Rheumatism is indeed common; I have seen many cases of rheumatic fever in the native settlements--and Europeans are subject to it. I have also noticed symptoms of phthisis--one case I saw a little while previous to death; and cases of mesenteric disease (an affection of the glands about the bowels), likely to have a similar termination. I noticed also frequently among the natives swellings and indurations of the glands (vulgarly called kernels) about the neck; having an unpleasant look of scrofula about them, as they proceed to ulcerations, forming nasty sores. I have succeeded, however, in reducing and dispersing them; therefrom changing my opinion of their nature. Mr. E. J. Wakefield, in an account dated May 1, 1841, apparently written for the information of the New Zealand Company, describes "that they (a tribe with whom he had then, for the first time, become acquainted) seem to be entirely free from all cutaneous diseases, which cover the inhabitants of all parts of Cook's Straits." Fever is rare--dysentery infrequent. Temperate life in an air, not drawn on by numbers, especially near the sea, will conduce to perfect health--avoiding fevers, eruptive and other disorders, which, for the most part, are generated in atmospheres vitiated by numbers, and are independent, although apt to be modi-

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fied or aggravated by the climate in which they may appear. From this brief review of sickness in New Zealand, its tendency to catarrh, rheumatism, and influenza will be evident; also its absolute freedom from other diseases; whilst the action of the pure and rare air of the northern districts renovates the body, and imparts cheerfulness to the mind.

Avoid low lands for your residence, and drain well the foundations of your houses; from which, if practicable, you should dig out the mould, and fill up with gravel.

As compared with the climate of England, the climate of New Zealand has a great superiority; the escape from English weather usual from November to April is a sensible relief, and to some systems, which that season is apt to affect detrimentally, the change would be very desirable. The hepatic, yellow-skinned disease of India would be far more likely to yield to its influences than it would to the climate of Australia, or of England. Cases of consumption should not be sent out. As compared with the climate of Australia, its superiority is considerably augmented. The summer heats of Australia render the frame very irritable, and the extreme changes to which you are there liable endanger health. The European, on landing there, finds the action of the skin greatly increased; 1 the perspiration,

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incessant, relieves at first, but soon frets the system; in such state any undue excitement, or exposure to vitiated air, produces fever, increasing arterial action, to be allayed only by death; or in such state, if exposed to the causes of cold, a violent dysentery sets in, extremely difficult to manage; uncertain, often fatal in its results; or causing chronic affections, which impede efforts for subsistence. Diarrhoea is frequent, and a virulent ophthalmia; it is no uncommon thing to witness a blind eye amongst the aboriginal inhabitants. The north blasts of Australia blow, as if from the mouth of a furnace; the soil, finely pulverized, owing to deficiency of moisture, is shovelled up by the wind; and, in addition to the suffocating heat, you are terribly embarrassed by showers of dust poured upon you--eyes, nose, clothes are filled with it. I have known it blown through the shingled roof, and descend in clouds where no ceiling has intervened, rendering food uneatable, and linen unfit for use. Spasmodic complaints are frequent--I experienced a severe form of it myself, and the agony was tremendous It was followed, after frequent attacks, by erysipelas about the legs, and inability to move without pain; at the same time I attended frequent cases, all alike to my own. I sought a change of climate; and a month in New Zealand renovated me entirely. Meat in Australia becomes blown in a minute. A limb that was amputated was, previous to the operation, covered with maggots, like

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a liver buried in a pot to produce maggots for angling. Parturition to the new comer is not unattended with danger--the dysentery and ophthalmia are the diseases peculiar to the clime, and are highly dangerous; they attack those who arc careful as well as the intemperate: as elsewhere, the latter are most obnoxious to disease. The climate evidently tends to a premature developement, and to early decay; yet old people, whose systems are not sapped by disease, coming from cold climes, and avoiding exposure to mid-day heats and midnight chills, feel an invigoration; and might, if threatened by ill-health at home, prolong existence in Australia. I have met with many elderly persons out there who have praised the climate. I remember one, a Scotch gentleman, who had been a lawyer in Scotland, and had left an extensive and harassing profession, to cure himself of indigestion, in Australia; he would argue long and loudly in praise of the climate. He was relieved of all his symptoms, forgetting that he was there relieved, not only of his complaint, but equally so of those causes which had tended to produce it--the sedentary pursuits and anxieties of his profession, and was there in constant habits of activity most inimical to such disorders.

In and about the settlements, and in the cleared districts, are the most unhealthy residences. In the wilds you may pass the night with heaven for your tester, and the earth your mattress, provided

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you keep a burning log at your feet, uninjured. It is given as an evidence of a salubrious climate; it is rather to be looked at as evidence of the dryness of the air, and want of moisture in the land; and to be feared, as any excess in any one quality of climate may affect the frame obliged to long residence, and that which at first was so pleasing and innocuous, becomes absolutely pestiferous.

Australia has no rivers compared with its extent; large bodies of water flowing through a country tend in many ways to mitigate the oppressions of its heat. Here, however, they are too infrequent--the evenness of surface of its immense plains promote objections to it; the severity of its droughts sweep away whole herds in New South Wales. That which affects one part will be found more or less adverse through its whole extent. In South Australia those droughts are not so much felt; but at the period of their occurrence there is excess of heat, and weather prejudicial to farming is observed there; these periods are at intervals of five or seven years; then an affection, they term there influenza, frequently sweeps away whole flocks. Forests have decidedly a great effect on climate, and in Australia, where the surface is so even, the heat is much increased by their removal, as is the case in Germany and Italy.

When in Adelaide, I addressed a letter to the then resident Commissioner, pointing out a necessity for planting the centre of the streets with a line of trees,

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as the site of the town was originally covered with large trees expanding their huge branches in every direction.

Certainly more disease appeared as the trees were cleared away; a belt of open land surrounds the town---judiciously left, but much too clear of timber.

The want of water, in some seasons, is truly a sad one in all parts of the Australian continent. I shall introduce further remarks on Australia in the course of the work.

The rich deposit of alluvial soil in the valleys of New Zealand, under judicious culture, promises years of ample return; the substratum is for the most part clay; near the marshes the soil appears hungry, denoting a need of draining; the sides of the mountain show frequently rich brown mould, an aluminous earth--also on the tops of the lower hills; near the coast, sandy loams are met with, and mixed with decayed shells; the summits of the higher mountains denote a covering of clay, slippy in wet weather, and cracking with the sun. About the Ro-tu-ro-a Lake you meet with pumice-stone, also on the east coat. Before the emigrant pronounces on the soil of a country, he must consider the climate; the soil may not fairly be judged apart from climate, as that conduces to its productive power: the profuse and rapid vegetation of New Zealand denotes goodness of soil and climate--that, in fact, they need but little observation to work profitably.

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Clayey soils are frequent: there appears at present a lack of lime, as there are only the shells of small shell-fish as yet found to form it. Clays abound: I have witnessed fair specimens of brick and coarse pottery manufactured in the Bay of Islands; of a blue clay found in the banks of rivers, the natives frequently make use to their hair as soap. The natives use no manure, except burning the fern upon the ground, the ashes being left; they seldom use the same spots of ground for two successive crops. The ground left fallow, soon assumes its primitive covering of ferns: according to the soil, so will you observe the vegetation--high ferns--sow-thistle--herbaceous plants--a tree in its pithy stem, and branches externally resembling our elder--and the flax plant--also large peach trees, indicate good soil in the lower lands. The uplands, bearing also nearly the same varieties and shrubs, tell of an available soil;--the tea-tree bush, and stunted fern, are on poor soil; where you have noble timber, you have good land; not that dwarf trees are to be regarded as indicative of sterile earth. Purchasing land, you will not do well at once to set about clearing it of the timber; no coal being as yet found, your timber is to be looked to for fuel, such as will not suit the sawyer. The fern-covered grounds should first employ your attention to cultivate.

To clear these, you are not situated as the Canadian, who finds, in girdling and felling his woods,

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that he undergoes at the onset great fatigues, that ease is as remote from him, as from the toiling worker in the English factories.

The roots of the fern dive deep into the soil, weaving webs laborious to extract; although a labour not equalling in harass to Canadian clearings; offering more gradual introduction to the labours of a life in the wilds. Spade husbandry is best adapted, if labour is to be procured without exhausting capital Ploughs must have strength, particularly in the share, to turn up the roots; and then might not clear the ground so perfectly as would be necessary.

Draining must be well thought of in New Zealand. The eye must not forget this, or decline considering the inclination of surface, as it looks to purchase land; future efforts in such a country will be much impeded by its neglect; and properly attended to, looking at the results obtained by the simple efforts of the natives, we may expect to realize great profits for our operations. They, with their humble labours, have sent vast quantities of produce to the Australian markets, supplying, for many, many years, at the same time, their own tribes and numbers of residents; when to their attempts European skill and energies are added, how great may we expect will be the results, not only to him who so directs his efforts, but also to his fellow colonists on the Australian continent, whose comforts are so frequently impaired by the want of those supplies.

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Besides the alluvial soil, you have a loam composed of aluminous earth and vegetable matter; it may require lime, which may be procured with some trouble, however, by the burning of shells of the small shell-fish, formed in great quantity at the mouths of rivers, washed by every tide upon, and into the sands.

Wheat sown in the latter end of August, and all September, will yield well in January. Barley I should expect would thrive well, being a grain most suited to the climate.

The climate about the northern districts would, however, permit seed-time to be extended, so as to harvest in February--offering advantages to farming not to be obtained at home.

The volcanic soil of the Ro-tu-ro-a district may be expected to answer well for vineyards. There is a small plantation of different varieties of the vine at Ho-ki-an-ga, of some years' growth, looking very flourishing, and yielding an abundance of fine fruit. The sides of the hills planted in terraces, as is so frequently done in wine countries, may produce great profit, and render available ground otherwise too steep for working.

The weather experienced in the latter end of autumn and the winter, will enable the farmer to be up and a-doing; when at home, he would be exposed to multifold severities in attempting to do a little, or be obliged to rest in idleness. I should warn the

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new colonist not to despise the wet he will he here exposed to, but to be careful to prevent too much of it lodging about his young crops.

It is highly important that climate and soil should not be mistated. From the accounts he reads, the emigrant prepares his plans before he sets sail; and their qualities form great considerations with him. What boots it to a dying man, the money he is turning in?--Is life desirable merely for money getting? A man might peril his own life to obtain wealth for their provision; but ought he wittingly to peril his wife or his children? If life can be enjoyed for money only, why have we, or why should he be induced to venture them in situations which, had he been truly informed, he would have shunned? Is a man justified from listening to interested narratives, in resorting to his pen and exerting his talents to the utmost, to paint scenes he has never witnessed, that he may induce to the peopling of a new country?-- If the climate digs graves, have not his writings, teeming with glowing descriptions, supplied their tenants?

This has been done in respect of Swan Biver, South Australia, and other places. There is scarce a colony but has its deluding tales; even with New Zealand, arrows from the goose's wing are shooting in all directions; the same extent of exaggeration does not prevail. It is, however, attempted: everything is done to excite, and that too while various

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distresses are clouding the prospects of home. Does it really promote emigration? I say no: companies may be formed with their numerous officers having salaries, to whom such schemes are incomes; and however honest they may be as men, their salaries must give them a direct interest, influencing their statements; they assail a man whose threatening prospects have unsettled his thoughts, the dread of distress weakening the force of the associations at home, those fastenings of society; he is told his circumstances will be improved amidst foreign scenes; he forgets for a moment those associations, thinking only of the distresses he is suffering--he hears the detail of a golden land--Quid non mortatia pectona cogis, auri sacra fames? Home is lost sight of, he sets sail; and landing, he seeks the grounds of promise, and finds them not as they have been painted, and then loathes them as they are; he bends not energy to the necessity--magnifying the evils, he is infested and unsettled by despair.

Absence, we are told, makes the heart's fondness increase; the emigrant soon feels this is no idle tale of poetry; and all that is miserable becomes ten times more so. Perhaps he resorts to the dram, vice and destruction ensuing, or schemes followed without hope fill not his coffers; he, or perhaps his suffering partner, write home, to tell of disappointment, and term themselves victims--to solicit aid. The tale reaches home, and is conveyed from one friend to

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another, until a strong under current is towing away public opinion; whilst yet a tide of emigration seems to flow, until all at once it is stopped; and then comes the tale of arrears told to parliament, in a prayer for assistance for numbers of countrymen likely to be destitute upon a foreign strand.

Let us read what was published of South Australia, in 1835:--

"The climate appeared to me very temperate, and not subject to oppressive heats; nor do the rains fall in torrents, as at Sydney."

"For making that experiment (i. e. of colonization), that spot has been chosen concerning whose natural fertility there is better evidence than touching any other wilderness open to British enterprise."

It is a dry climate, and the heat is in mid-summer most oppressive; when the rain does come, it is as heavy as in Sydney.

Considering the information received at the time the above was written, the accounts of fertility in Africa excelled it; also the Texas. What stronger evidence of fertile soil can we have, than is given in the exports of South America, and the accounts of those there resident?

How very strangely the style of New Zealand and South Australian works appear to assimilate!

1   In the day time the skin acts in excess; at night the bladder, from the decrease of temperature.

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