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AUSTRALASIA

*® [la bUSTRATED &

OY,

| 2A) 2 ah Nef AD 2h

HON. ANDREW GARRAN, M.A., LL.D., M.L.C.

ILLUSTRATED BY

LEADING AUSTRALIAN AND AMERICAN ARTISTS

UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF FRiEDERIC B. SCHELL,

WITH OVER EIGHT HUNDRED ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD.

MEL aE. 3
a)
ae
THE

PicTURESQUE ATLAS PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED,

SYDNEY, MELBOURNE, LONDON, ann NEW YORK.

1892.

CONTENTS.

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND, By

R. A. A. SHERRIN.
Earty Discovery H
INTERCOURSE WITH SYDNEY

EarLy MIssIONARY ENTERPRISE

THE FAILURE OF THE First CoLonizinc COMPANY
Mr. WAKEFIELD’s NEW ZEALAND ASSOCIATION

THe TREATY OF WAITANGI
British INsriruTIoNns

THe WarrRAu MASSACRE
Governor Firzroy
GOVERNOR GREY

PoxiricAL ProGRess

Tue Native DiFricutry
Tue Poustic Poricy
Heke’s WAR

Tue Hurr DisrurRBANCES

THE OvuTBREAK AT WANGANUI
Minor ALARMS AND Ou'TRAGES

4 “Tue KinG MOVEMENT”
Tue Firsr TARANAKI WAR
THe Watkaro War
Tue East Coast CAMPAIGN
Tue ‘‘Havnau” FANaAtIcisM
TrrokKOWARvU’s OUTBREAK

: Te Koort AND THE PovERTY Bay MASSACRE

Te Wuirti’s LAND AGITATION

| DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND,

By J. M. Geppis.
| AUCKLAND
Tue Far Norru
| Tue REGION oF GOLD

THe WONDERLAND or New ZEALAND

TARANAKI
Tue Crry oF WaLueion

THROUGH THE MANAWATU GorRGE TO WanGhWir?

Over THE RIMUTAKA ‘10 MASTERTON
Tue ToPpoGrapHy or NEw ZEALAND

| MARLBOROUGH AND NELSON

WESTLAND AND CANTERBURY

CHRISTCHURCH ,

| Tue SourTHERN ALpPs

Oraco

; Tue City or biemaptis
Tue Oraco LAKEs
Tue Wesr Coast Sounps

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA.

New Guinea, By Rev. W. G.

Lawes, F.R.G.S,

PAGE.

THe New Brirain Group, By Rev. GEorGr
Brown . :
THE SOLOMON Gaoun, By Rev: Ses BROWN
Tue New Hesrines, By Rev. Roperr Sree,
Pu.D., D.D. * ; F
Tue FiytAn Istanps, By Rev. Lorimer Fison
Tie Samoan Group, By Rev. Grorce Brown
Tonca, OR THE FrienpDLy Istanns, By Rev.
GEORGE BROWN = :
Lorp Hower AnD NorFro.k TAANe By FRANK
J. Dononur ;
New Ca.eponia, By Senne aE Denouvs

PHYSIOGRAPITY OF AUSTRALASIA.

GrOLOGICAL ForMATION, By C. S. WILKINSON,
F.G.S.

CLIMATE AND RAIN-FALL,
B.A., F.R.A.S., F.M.S.

THE PRR ABORIGINES, By Rev. Reais
Fison, M.A., M.A.I., Lonpon

Firora, By Baron von Muetter, K.C.M.G.,
M. & Pu.D., F.R.S. ; : é

Fauna, By Wi.ttam A. Hasweit, M.A., D.Sc.,
F.L.S.

By H. C. RussE1t,

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL, By Frank J,

DONOHUE.
THe Mrininc InpDustry
THe PasroraL INTEREST
Tue AGRICULTURAL INTEREST
COMMERCE
THe RAILway Bhcces
THE PosraL SysrEM
TELEGRAPHS

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL.

A CENTURY OF ProGress, By FRANK J, DONOHUE

Epucatrion, By FRANK J. DoNOHUE AND JAMES
T. Donovan 2 .

Rericion, By FRANK J. Denies AND JAMES
T. Donovan 5

THe LecaL INTEREST, BY Duds is owes

LireEkATURE AND Art, By Frank J. DonoHur
AND JAMEs T. DONOVAN

Sport AND AMUSEMENT, By FRANK J. Teveave
AND JAMES T. DONOVAN

ConcLusion, By FRANK J. DONOHUE

“ APPENDIX, By Frep. J. Broomrie.p,

THE GROWTH OF POPULATION TO THE YEAR I8gI

PAGE.

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1381 ~
1396
1400
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1417

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1459
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1468

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Tawutao, THE Maort Kine . FRONTISPIECE,

GisBorNE, Poverty Bay, IN 1890
Dusky SouND, MippLe ISLAND F

Tue Rev. SAMUEL MarsDEN LANDING AT THE Bay

or IsLANDS ? F
Tue Rev. SAMUEL MARSDEN . :
THe Firsr Mission House, WAIMATE
Tue Scene or THE ‘‘ Boyp” MASSACRE

Te Pant, Cuier OF THE Bay or IsLANDs .

THE WAIKATO AT ATEAMURI 3

A Maort WAR-DANCE . ; 3

A Srace For A Maort FEstivaL

A Maori SALUTATION. ‘

THE BREAKWATER, New PLYMOUTH

Tue Treary MONUMENT * ‘
Bussy House ie ¢ i
PLANTING THE BririsH FLAG AT AKAROA
THE REMARKABLES * F .
BisHop SELWYN : : F

Tue Carvep Gatrr-way OF AN OLD ‘ PAH”

A Carveb House 1n KinGc Country
THE MANAWATU GORGE : -
Sir GEORGE GREY : ‘ 2
Lake TAupo = ‘ : .
CHRISTCHURCH IN 1852 r A

AUCKLAND HARBOUR FROM CEMETERY GULLY
Wi.iiaAM THOMPSON, THE MAoRt KING-MAKER :

Maort CANOE OBSTACLE RACE
Sik WILLIAM JERVOIS . :
Hone HEKE 3 n f ;
MANGONUI ( ‘ ; F
TaMAtI WAKA NENE . i

A Maori CANOE RACE = ,
Tue Roap ON THE TEREMAKAU :
WANGANUL TO-DAY % 4
Mount RuaPrenu A .
Roto AIRA r F

THE CONSTABULARY STATION, PUKEARUHE .

Tue Mission Srarion, WAIKATO RIVER
Tre WHEROWHERO : ;
Tur Nikau PALM - P
WAITARA 3 é

THE SIFGE OF PUKERANGIORA
GENERAL CAMERON ‘

THE Barr.e-F1ELD OF Mauku
Rewt MAni Potro 2
RANGIRIRI ~

FAcInG

THe CHARGE oF THE NEW ZEALAND CAVALRY AT

THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU .
Tue Gare “PAH” AFTER THE CONFLICT
An IncIDENT AT THE GATE ‘‘ PAH”
MAIL STEAMER LEAVING AUCKLAND .
Tue Soipiers’ Graves At TAURANGA
VOLKNER’s CHURCH 2 ;
MAJOR-GENERAL TREVOR CHUTE
Major Ropata .,

FACING

998

1001
1003

1005
1007
1007
1009
IOII
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1015
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1021
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1035

1037°

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1059
1060

1061
1063
1065
1067
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1069
1071
1072

Te Wuitl'’s VILLAGE OF PARIHAKA . 4 ‘
Tue WairaKet Hor SprINGS AND THE TE HuKA FALis
A FLeet oF WHALERS IN THE BAy OF ISLANDS .
THE QUEEN Strreer WHARF, AUCKLAND : :
Tur AucKLAND Free Liprary AnD Art GALLERY
Queen Street, AucKLAND, LooKinc ‘TOWARDS WIND-
MILL HILL : ; : ;
Tue OL_p WIND-MILL. 2 i ‘
Tue ALBERT PARK, AUCKLAND * ~ :
A COALING-STATION IN THE Bay oF ISLANDS ‘
RussELL . ; s F 3 s -
THe Wairua FAs i ; : F .
Tue WaloronGoMAl TRAM-wAy, TE AROHA :
GRAHAMSTOWN > Fs ‘ ‘ ; a
Tue Wuire TERRACE IN A STATE OF ERUPTION
FAcING
Tue Wuire TERRACE . r : - ¥
THE Pink TERRACE ; ? . r 5
Maori Girts BATHING AT WHAKAREWAREWA
THe Geystrs, WHAKAREWAREWA r 3 3
Mounr TARAWERA AFTER THE Eruption. ;
A Native ‘‘WHARE” Buriep BY THE ERUPTION .
THE Ferns oF NEW ZEALAND ‘ ;
Tur FLtowrers oF New ZEALAND 4 ; :

Tue Town oF NAPIER : F ; ;
THROUGH THE SEVENTY-MILE BusH . : ¢
Mount EGMONT FROM THE SEA i ‘ ‘

Tue RecrREATION GRouNDS AT New PLymMourH :
THE WELLINGTON Post OFFICE , 5 r

WELLINGTON HEAD Z . - & ‘
THE QUEEN’S WHARF, WELLINGTON . = F
Tue Ciry oF WELLINGTON ; - - :

Sr. ANDREW’'s PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
THE Houses oF PARLIAMENT 4 F ;
THE GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS - ‘ -
WELLINGTON HARBOUR . ‘ ; ;
PLIMMeER’s STEPS z : : ;

THe RimuTAKA GORGE 5 > ‘
Tue Town oF Picron AND QUEEN CHARLOTTE

SounD 7 ; ; ( ; %
THE FRENCH Pass f 5 " : :
Tue Hop Harvest In THE Nerson Districr 5
Tue Town oF NELSON i

Tue Bunter Roap anD RIvER
Loapinc CoAL at GREYMOUTIL
Tue INCLINE NEAR WESTPORT
Tue Town OF GREYMOUTH . 4 A

THe Wire TRAM-WAY OVER THE TEREMAKAU -
THE TRAM-WAY BETWEEN GREYMOUTH AND KUMARA
THE TERRACE OF THE BEALEY - ‘
THE OvirRA GORGE W - is ,
Porrer’s Pass, ON THE West Coast Roap
Tue CATHEDRAL SQUARE, CHRISTCHURCIL
Hicu Srreer, Curisrcuurce ; ; ’
GLOUCESTER STREET, CHRISTCHURCH . >
Vicror1A BripGE, AND THE SUPREME CouRT

PAGE.
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IIol
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I105
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1129

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II52

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Tue CATHEDRAL PULPIT ‘ ‘ : 5
THe West Door oF THE CATHEDRAL A ‘
Tue SratruE oF JouN Roperr GopLty

Tue HicH ScHOoL, CHRISTCHURCH . 2 ‘i
SKELETONS OF A MOA AND A MAORI

A REACH ON THE RIVER AVON ‘ : ‘
Tue CHRISTCHURCH MUSEUM . : : ‘
Tue Ascenr OF HocuHsTErTeER DOME FACING
THe STATUE OF SUPERINTENDENT MoorHOoUusE

Tue Town AND Port or LYTTELTON

THe BREAKWATER AT TIMARU ‘

Tue Cave Rock, SUMNER : ‘ - :
TIMARU FROM THE WIND-MILL

THE MACKENZIE PLAINS J a

Lake TEKApPO, MACKENZIE CouNTy . : d
Lake PuKakt AND Mount Cook y . é
AN AVALANCHE IN THE SOUTHERN ALPS

Mount Cook anp tHE Hooker GLACIER. F
AN ALPINE CLIMBER : é :

Mount SEFTON AND THE HooKER RIVER . F
SURMOUNTING A GLACIER . : ;

A GuimpesE ON THE Francis JOSEPH GLACIER ¢
A GLACIAL CAVE 4 i é é :
THe VALLEY OF ‘THE TASMAN * 7 ‘
In THE PuBLIc GARDENS OF OAMARU 7 %
THAMES STREET, OAMARU ‘ 3 - $
Porr CHALMERS * F :

ScENES IN AND AROUND DUNEDIN ’

Tue HicuH ScHoo.t, DuNepin’ F

Tue INTERIOR OF THE MusguM, DUNEDIN

Tue DUNEDIN UNIVERSITY é : é ;
Tue Knox PresByreriIAN CHURCH .

Tue Crry or DUNEDIN ; 3 2

Tue PRESBYTERIAN First CuurcH . P

Tue Roserr Burns Sratur, DUNEDIN P .
Mitrorp SouND 3 s : FACING
Tue Dunepin Town Hai. 7 ;
Tue CARGILL Monument, DUNEDIN . é .
Tue Roman Carnoiic CarHeprat or St, Josepi’s
HARVESTING ON THE TAERt PLAIN. . 7 ‘
Tue BLurr ‘ . F ¥ :

Dee Srreer, INVERCARGILL. . 2 “ fe
QuEENSTOWN AND LAKE WakariPpu . d ‘
THE KAWERA VALLEY . 3 4 P ‘
Tue Ascent oF Ben Lomonp é F :
Tue Heap or Lake WAKAtIPU x . r
‘THe WATER-FALL NEAR SKIPPER’S ; ; .
Tue WILD-FLOWERS OF NEW ZEALAND ; .
Tue ENTRANCE TO MILFORD SouND, ON ‘THE West

Coast 5 a - 7 3 "
Mount Ecmontr ‘ “ TAIL-PIECE ;
Suva, oN Naviritevu IsLAND, THE CAPITAL OF THE

Fiyis - : . A r .

A Woman rrom THE Sourn Cape, New GUINEA .
A Port Moressy New GUINEAN 4 ~ ‘|
A House or A New Guinea CHIEF é ~
Port Moressy, New GUuINEA P 5 ;
A New Guinea TREE-HOUSE . a - ;
A New Guinea Girt CarryInG WATER : :
A New Guinea Deap-House , :

Dr. Str Wittiam MacGrecor : : 3
Tue ‘Dux Duk,” New Brrrain Group . 3
A New Barrratn CANNIBAL FamiLy . ; F
Suettinc A Native VILLAGE IN THE Soutn Seas
A Native Dance sy Sotomon IsLANDERS . :
A Sotomon ISLANDER . a) ie 5 ;
Havannaun Harsour, New Hesripes ° .
A Lasour Vesset SHIPPING KANAKAS ~ :
In tHe Hoip or a Sourn Sea LABour VESSEL.
A Trapinc Depor IN THE SOUTH SEAS « ;
Narive Drums In THE New HeEsripes : Fi
Levuxa, THe IsLanp oF OVALAU, Fij1 Group :

PAGE,
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{219
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A Fiy1an MALE a 6 ‘ a
A FIjIAN FEMALE a es : . ‘
A Native VILLAGE OF THE Fijt Group P ;
A Fijian Mountain CHIEF * , : i
Tue FiytAn Kinc, THAKAMBAU ; . E
Kinc THAKAMBAU’s HOUSE ; ‘ “
Kinc THAKAMBAU’s CANOE : ; 4 :
Tue Rewa River, Naviritevu Istanp - rn
Sir Joun Bares Tuursron, K.C.M.G, ; ,
Tue BackaA Tree, Fit IsLANDS : -

Apia, Upotu Ist.anp, SAMOAN GrouP ’ ¥
A Matt SreaMer at TUTUILA 4 5 2
THE Harsour oF PANGO PANGO, TUTUILA

Tue SAMOAN KING, TAMASESE 3 : ;
Tue SAMOAN Kinc, MALIETOA ‘ ; i
A SAMOAN PRINCESS ‘ ‘ e : ‘
NUKUALOFA, THE CAPITAL OF TONGA 3 7
Tue Srone Arcu, Nivrova, Tonca ; f
Kine GreorGE OF TONGA A &

Tue Mission CHURCH AT NUKUALOFA é

JoHN ADAMS ‘ . . 5 ‘

A ToNGAN BELLE ; 4 s A :
THE PRAYER-BOOK USED BY JoHN ADAMS.

Orr THE Coasr oF PiTcaAIRN ISLAND 3 F
LANDING THROUGH THE SuRF At Norro.k IsLAND
Kincsron, Norro.kK IsLAND . ° : i

Noumea, THE CAPITAL OF NEW CALEDONIA r
Tue INTERIOR OF A NEW CALEDONIAN PRISON s
New CALEDONIAN Convicts MAkiInGc Roaps

Convicrs WASHING CLOTHES, NEw CALEDONIA ?
A Convicr Compound IN New CALEDONIA é
A Papuan VILLAGE, NEw CALEDONIA ‘

Kanaka Weapons, New CALEDONIA si ‘
Mutter AND Duconc FisHiInG . § ‘
FIsHING WITH SPEARS. ‘ ; , -
Tue Oxpsequirs oF A KANAKA CHIEF : ;
Norre Dame Rock 3 ‘ ° ’ r
Sitver Wren’s Nest F 2 TAIL-PIECE F

Tue SYDNEY OBSERVATORY . om A A
OnE OF ‘THE TELESCOPES IN THE SYDNEY OBSER-

VATORY : . ; ‘ x '
Tue TrANsIt TELESCOPE IN THE MELBOURNE OBSER-

VATORY 3 4 7 ; ?
Ture Moon 2 é : ‘ é ‘
A MA.Le ABORIGINAL ; 5 . , ‘
A FEMALE ABORIGINAL . . - : :

A Brack Gin anp Her CHILD 4 : ;
AN ABORIGINAL WARRIOR “ ; ‘ 4
AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES MAKING A BARK CANOE :
A Narive Trooper FOLLOWING A ‘TRAIL J 7
ABORIGINAL MrrHops OF DIsPposING OF THE DEAD .
AUSTRALIAN VIOLETS i . “ 3
THE DIANELLA TASMANICA ; Fi .

AUSTRALIAN ‘TERRESTRIAL ORCHIDS . ‘ .

THE SILVeR-BusH 5 . : , ‘
MARIANTHUS BIGNONIACEUS F 2 = 3
AsTeR ASTEROTRICHUS . ‘ i . ‘
TASMANIAN WILD-FLOWERS - ‘ 3 ‘
Epacris IMPRESSA ‘. ‘| P ‘
CuristMaAs BELLS r i . ; :
LIMNANTHEMUM EXALTATUM . : :
THE WARATAH . r ; ; . y
Tue CuristMas BusH . . : x :
Tue AUSTRALIAN GRASS-TREE , is ' :

A Lity-poot, Mounr Macrpon, VicrorIa .
A BASKer OF AUSTRALIAN WILD-FLOWERS .
AUSTRALIAN BUTTERFLIES A : ; :
THE BUTCHER-BIRD 3 f 4 < ;
Some New ZEALAND Birps 5 ' ;

Tue WomBAT AND ‘THE PLATYPUS : ; =
Tue Biack Duck P F r é
Tue Lyre Birp ; ‘ : ‘ A

VI LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.

Tur WEDGE-TAILED EAGLE ‘ : ; 1353 THE ‘‘Z1G-zAG” ON THE WESTERN LINE, NEw
THE OpossuM : . . : ‘ 1353 SourH WALES i ; : ; ;
Tue Native Cat - F ; 1353 THe Raitway Line ar Mr, VIcroria : é
Tuer NATIVE BEAR : A ‘ 1353 A Back-BLtocks Post OFFICE . : ; °
Tue EmerALp Birp oF PARADISE - . 1354 GATHERING THE MAIL FROM THE PILLAR-BOXES :
LEADBEATER’S COCKATOO . 1355 A ‘TELEGRAPH MESSENGER, SYDNEY . : F
Tue Riete Biro G 1356 Srone Cairn ON Mount Kosciusko . TAIL-PIECE .
THe LAUGHING JACKASS . Z 1357 Initia, Lerrer “G” , x : 5 ;
THe Recent Birpd A - 1358 Tue Lawn, GovERNMENtT Housr, SYDNEY . ,
THe AUSTRALIAN PipING Crow x 1359 THE UNIVERSITIES OF ADELAIDF, SYDNEY AND MEI-
KANGAROO HUNTING IN AUSTRALIA, ‘ 1360 BOURNE F . . ‘ : ;
RETURNING FROM A KANGAROO HuNT A . 1361 A IIALF-1IME SCHOOL-TEACHER, AND A STATE SCHOOL
A Kanaka Donkey Boy 4 TAIL-PIECE . 1362 IN THE BusH “ i : ; 2
InrriaL Lerrer “T” . “ : x 1363 AN AUSTRALIAN STATE SCHOOL IN THE CITY :
Epwarp HAMMOND HARGRAVES 5 i 1364 RIVERVIEW, Lane Cove RIVER . ,
Tue Goin Diceincs ar Opuir, 1851 . . 1365 Sr. Icnarius’ CoLLece, RIVERVIEW, SYDNEY .
Tue “Precious” Nuccer : 5 1366 Tue LEADING GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF MELBOURNE
Tue “ Wetcome” Nuccer A “ é . 1366 THE MopeEL SCHOOL, MELBOURNE : - 7
‘* PROSPECTING” FOR GOLD IN AUSTRALIA. 4307 THE ScorcH COLLEGE, MELBOURNE . i -
Tue ‘‘Day Dawn” ReeErF, CHARTERS TOWERS . 1368 Sr. Puiiip’s Or1GINAL CHURCH, SYDNEY - 4
Hypravutic Mininc In New SourH WALES . 1369 Dr. Lano’s CHURCH, JAMIESON STREET, SYDNEY .
A Diamond DriL~t ar Work 3 . a ESTE Ciry AND SUBURBAN CHURCHES, SYDNEY - :
Tue Tin MINES NEAR EmMAviLLE, New Souru THE INTERIOR OF THE ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL OF Sr.

Watrs SE gh ; : ‘ . 1373 ANDREW’s, SYDNEY . : Z :
Tue Homes oF NEwcastLe MINERS : wy Nay5 THE Roman CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL OF Sr, Mary’s,
COAL-MINING AT NEWCASTLE . : ‘ 1 907. SYDNEY : . - : * ‘
HARGRAVES DISCOVERING GOLD FAcING 1379 A Cuinese ‘‘Joss” House IN AUSTRALIA. F
An OLb-rIME SQUATTER ‘ R : + 1379 Sir JAmMes MARTIN : ; % r r
Carrain JOHN MACARTHUR 5 : : 1381 MeELBouRNE Cup — RACE-cOURSE FROM MEMBERS’
Dryinc Woo. at A Recetvinc Deror i - 1383 STAND ‘ ; 5 - FAcING
SHEEP-SHEARING IN AUSTRALIA * 3 » 1385 Mounted PoLick AND A BLACK TRACKER . 3
A Tar Boy ON A SHEEP STATION . ’ - 1386 ApaMm Linpsrty GORDON ‘ : : 5
Bo.tinpA VALE SravTion, LANCEFIELD ; af SORT Henry KENDALL : : ; ; .
LoapING WOOL FOR SHIPMENT AT SYDNEY - 1388 Marcus CLARKE . . : ° ;
PressING Woot, FOR SHIPMENT ‘ ‘ . 1389 THE INTERIOR OF THE SyDNEY ART GALLERY ;
AN AUSTRALIAN BOUNDARY RIDER F 5 . 1390 THE INTERIOR OF THE Princess THRATRE, MEr-
A SHEARER “‘KNocKING Down” His CHEQUE . 1391 BOURNE ; ‘ : ‘ ;
ERCILDOUNE SHEEP STATION, VICTORIA é + 1393 THe FLemMincron Lawn on ‘‘Cur” Day ,
HARVESTING ON THE WIMMERA PLAINS é + 1395 A BicycLe Race AT THE MELBOURNE CRICKET-GROUND
A VINEYARD NEAR SINGLETON, New Sour Watts 1397 Rapsir CourstinG IN AUSTRALIA : : .
CLEARING LAND BY RING-BARKING TREES. ~ . 1398 Parapinc A “Cup” WINNER 5 : i
A CHINESE GARDEN IN AUSTRALIA, 1399 A Yacutr Race 1n SypNEy Harsour . .
AN AusrraLiAN ‘‘SUN-DOWNER ” 4 6 . 1400 A Yacut RAcE on tHE Derwent, Hopart, TASMANIA
THE TRAVELLING HAWKER OF THE AUSTRALIAN BusH r4or In THE BRISBANE Boranicat, GARDENS . :
Tue Union Bank, Pirr Streer, Sypney . . 1403 Tur JewisH SYNAGOGUE, SYDNEY . TAIL-PIECE ,

PAGE.

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—

CO a

Captain W. R Russet, M.P

THE DELEGATES FROM NEW

Sm GerorGe Grey, K.C.B.

Sm H. A. Atkinsoy, SPEAKER L C,

ZEALAND TO THE FEDERATION CONVENTION, SYDNEY, 1891.

GISBORNE, POVERTY BAY, IN 1890.

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND.

EARLY DISCOVERY.

HE French and Portuguese both claim the honour of discovering New Zealand, but
the Dutch are entitled to the distinction. Captain Abel Janszen Tasman anchored
in Cook Strait during December, 1642. He had been sent on a voyage of discovery
by Van Diemen, the Governor of Batavia, having under his command the yacht
Heemskerck and the fly-boat Zeehaen. After visiting Mauritius, he stood to sea on the
8th of September, and discovered Van Diemen’s Land in November of the same year,
whence he proceeded to the eastward and sighted land on the 13th of December, 1642,
which he named Staaten Land, but which was subsequently named “ New Zealand” by
Captain Cook. At sunset on the 18th of the month the vessels ‘cast anchor in Cook
Strait, when an hour after, says the journal of Tasman, “we saw several lights on the
land, and four vessels coming from the shore towards us. Two of these were our own
boats. The people in the other boats called to us in a loud, strong, rough voice; what
they said we did not understand; however, we called to them again in place of an
answer. They repeated their cries several times, but did not come near us; they sounded
also an instrument like a Moorish trumpet, and we answered by blowing our trumpet.
Guns were ready prepared, and small arms for an emergency, and strict watch kept.”
On the day following, a canoe paddled near the Zeehaen; but, though tempted by

the proffer of food and objects of desire, none of the persons in the canoe could be

988 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

induced to venture on board the vessel. On the canoe returning to the shore,
seven other double-canoes forthwith proceeded to the /eemskerck, and Tasman, not
knowing their intention, sent a boat with seven men to warn his comrades to be on
their guard and not to allow too many persons to come on board at once. When the
boat had cleared the ship, the canoes paddled towards her, and the foremost of - the
natives, ‘with a blunt-pointed pike, gave the quarter-master, Cornelius Joppe, a blow on-
his neck that made him fall overboard;” but Joppe and two others swam to the vessel
and were taken on board. In the scuffle that ensued three of the strangers were killed
and a fourth mortally wounded. A dead man was carried away by the natives, and,
without doubt, eaten. Tasman, finding there was small chance of getting supplies, hoisted
in the ships’ anchors and called the place ‘Murderers’ Bay.” When the ships were
under weigh, twenty-two canoes crowded with natives put off from the shore, but they
were greeted by Tasman with a broadside, and a man, in the foremost canoe was seen
to fall. The lesson was not lost on his fellows, who fled to the shore. Leaving the
Middle Island, Tasman went north and rounded the northern portion of the North
Island, calling its western extremity Cape Maria Van Diemen, after the daughter of the
Governor of Batavia. He sighted some small islands which he named the Three Kings,
it being the anniversary of the Epiphany. A boat was sent to the largest island in |
search of refreshments, but returned without landing, the heavy surf forbidding the
attempt; while the sight of “thirty-five natives of large size, taking prodigious long
strides, with clubs in their hands,” apparently justified the caution. Tasman left the
new land with an unfavourable impression of its inhabitants, whom he described as
blood-thirsty and prone to hostility without provocation. He had heen off the coast for
some three weeks without landing. - :

More than a century and a quarter elapsed before another European is known to
have visited New Zealand, when Captain Cook, after “having observed the transit of
Venus at Tahiti, went to the south in search of new lands, and re-discovered Tasman’s
“Staaten Land.” He landed in October, 1769, at a place which he named “ Poverty

”

Bay” from the hostility of the natives and their lack of hospitality. He circumnavigated |
the main islands, and remained in New Zealand in 1769 and 1770 no less than one
hundred and seventy-six days, surveying the coast-line and observing the country and its
people. In November, 1769, he touched at a point on. the coast which he named
Mercury Bay, where he landed and erected an observatory for the purpose of observing
the transit of Mercury—one of the chief objects of his expedition on that occasion. A
signal-station was erected on the headland from which Captain Cook took his observa-
tion, now known as Shakespeare Head. On the 30th of January, 1770, Cook erected a
flag-post on the summit of a hill in Queen Charlotte’s Sound, where he hoisted the
Union Jack, and after naming the Bay where the ship was at anchor after the Queen, he
took formal possession of the country in the name of his Majesty King George the Third.

Cook made three voyages to the South Pacific, during which he visited New Zealand
five different times, sojourning there on the several occasions three hundred and twenty-
six days. His graphic description of the country and of its aborigines has led to his
being generally regarded among English-speaking people as the discoverer. Examination

of the east and west coasts of New Zealand proved that it consisted of two or more

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 989

islands, and was not part of a Great Southern Continent which, in the imagination of
geographers, stretched across the South Pacific and extended over some thirty degrees
of latitude. Men engaged in commerce became impressed with the value of the various
articles which New Zealand produced, and hence of its importance as a market for
manufactured goods; while the savant and the scientist regarded with great interest the
information recently published respecting a race of people who, while having a° real
though hitherto undescribed form of civilization, were yet greedy eaters of human flesh,

Cook’s various visits to New Zealand extended from the 6th of October, 1769, to

DUSKY SOUND, MIDDLE ISLAND.

the 25th of February, 1777. In the second voyage in the Aeso/utzon, Captain Furneaux,
of the Adventure, was associated with him, and lost in Cook Strait nine men, who
were killed and eaten. Pigs, potatoes, and garden seeds were the memorials of Cook's
visits among a race which possessed a land void of all quadrupeds, save dogs and rats.
Going north in his first voyage, after leaving the Bay of Islands, Cook named
Rangungu “Doubtless Bay.” He crossed its waters on the same day that De Surville,
in the S¢. Jean Baptiste, was approaching the land at Mongonui. This early navigator
shared the belief that the English had found an island of gold in the South Seas, and
came from India to see if he could participate in the golden discovery. He was
received by the natives with great hospitality; but finding nothing more valuable than
spars for his ship, he proceeded to South America, carrying away in irons the Rarawa
chief Ngakinui, who had entertained him and his sick seamen with great hospitality

while on shore. Ngakinui pined on ship-board for his native food, and died some

990 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

eighty days after his seizure; while De Surville, eleven days only after the death of
Ngakinui, was drowned in the surf at Callao.

In May, 1792, Marion du Fresne anchored his two ships, the MJarguzs de Castries
and the JJascarin, at the Bay of Islands. Lieutenant Crozet, in command of the King’s
sloop Jfascarin, had lost his masts, and the two ships put into the Bay of Islands to
refit. Du Fresne was frequently on’ shore during his stay, and habits of intimacy~ begat
confidence in the mind of the French commander in the friendship of the natives. Both
races lived in harmony for several weeks. “They treated us,” Crozet said, “with every
show of friendship for thirty-three days, with the intention of eating us on the thirty-
fourth.” On the 12th of June, an attack was made on the French, when twenty-eight
of the party and the commander were killed and eaten. A boat's crew had desecrated
the sacred places of the tribe, and the payment for the sacrilege was the lives of the
strangers. Crozet, who had a party of men engaged getting spars on the Kawakawa
River, was also in danger of being entrapped by the treacherous savages; but being
forewarned, he was enabled to punish those who had killed his companions and sought
his own destruction. Here he refitted the ships, and after a stay of sixty-four days

in the Bay of Islands, prosecuted his voyage.

INTERCOURSE WITH SYDNEY.

In 1787 the colony of New South Wales was proclaimed. It included in the wide

expanse of its territorial limits not only New Zealand but all the islands in the Pacific

Ocean within the latitudes of Cape York and the southern portion of Van Diemen’s

Land, as far east as the hundred and _ thirty-fifth degree of longitude. In 1792 inter-
course with New South Wales was established, and the first Europeans became located
in New Zealand. Mr. Raven of the 4rtannia, placed a sealing gang under the
command of Mr, Leith, the second mate of the ship, at Dusky Bay. It was not until
more than a year had elapsed that Mr. Raven went to look for Leith and his
companions. He found that they had collected some four thousand five hundred skins,
but had been “ principally occupied in constructing a vessel to serve them in the event
of any accident happening to the Arztannza.” The vessel was, although nearly completed,
left behind by the Arztannia. The sealers reported that they had received no molesta-
tion from the natives, who were apparently as sparse as when Cook visited them, and
that the part of the Islands where they had resided for over a year offered but few
advantages for commerce or settlement.

In September, 1795, Mr. Bampton, of the ship Ezdeavour, in company with the
Fancy, \eft Sydney Cove for India, but on reaching Dusky Bay found his vessel so
leaky that she was run on shore and scuttled. The vessel that had been built there
by the sealers now came into request, and being found in the same state as she had
been left by Mr. Leith, was completed and launched by Mr. Bampton. Collins tells us
“that in addition to the large number of persons which Mr. Bampton had permission
to ship in Sydney, nearly as many more found means to secrete themselves on board
his ship and the Fancy.” For these, as well as his officers and ship’s company, Mr.
Bampton had now to provide a passage from New Zealand. He accordingly, after fitting

as a schooner the vessel he had launched, and naming her the Providence, sailed with

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 991

her and the Fancy for Norfolk Island, having on board as many of the officers and
people as they could contain, leaving the remainder to proceed in a vessel which one
Hatherleigh, formerly a carpenter's mate of HAZ.S. Szrzus, undertook to construct out
of the Lxdeavour's long-boat. Hatherleigh was, however, unable to bring away all who
were left behind by Mr. Bampton, and the fate of those remaining on the shore is
unknown. The vessel he constructed at Dusky Bay was named the Asszstance, and sold
in Sydney for the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds sterling.

The skins of the seals caught by Mr. Leith and his fellows were the first articles

of export the produce of any part of the colony of New South Wales, and the _first-

THE REV. SAMUEL MARSDEN LANDING At THE BAY OF ISLANDS.

fruits of the Australian seal-trade which proved so lucrative to the settlement, until
the unrestricted slaughter of the animals, between 1800 and 1820, caused their capture
to be no longer regarded as a generally lucrative enterprise. The two vessels, the
Providence and the Asszstance, built in New Zealand, were the earliest essays at ship-
building in Australasia. The merchants of Sydney soon learned from visitors to New
Zealand that timber from the Hauraki Gulf could be obtained and carried to the Cape
of Good Hope and India, and disposed of at a profit; and thus, before New Zealand
waters became celebrated for the abundance of whales, amicable relations sprung up
between the Maori people and the colonists of New South Wales. Two New Zealanders
were brought to Sydney in 1793, and sent to Norfolk Island to teach the people there
the Maori mode of dressing flax, and Captain King, when accompanying them to their
homes later in the year, gave them maize, wheat, peas and a quantity of garden seeds,

besides pigs and hardware.

992 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Some of the sailors on King’s ships were sufficiently charmed by the prospect of a
semi-savage life among the Maoris to be readily induced to throw in their lot with the
tribe and remain in the country. There were from time to time a good many settlers
of this class, of whom George Bruce was one. When the chief Te Pahi was returning
from his voluntary trip to Sydney, this sailor had shown him considerable kindness
during his illness on the voyage, and on the chief's arrival in his own country he easily
persuaded young Bruce, with the offer of his daughter and a large piece of land, to
leave his ship and remain. The young Englishman allowed himself to be tattooed, and
conformed in every respect to the customs of
the tribe. When he learnt the language he made
himself very useful to the whalers by interpreting
between them and the natives, by whom he was
held in high estimation, until the arrival of an
English vessel, the General Wellesley. Captain
Dalrymple persuaded the lad, on the faith of a
solemn promise of return, to come on_ board
with his wife and assist in the search for gold
near the North Cape. The search was not
successful, and Dalrymple carried off his guests.
He left Bruce at Malacca, but conveyed his

wife away with him in his ship, selling her after-

wards to the captain of another vessel at Penang.

Bruce found her here after persistent search,

THE REV. SAMUEL. MARSDEN.

and by invoking the aid of the authorities suc-
ceeded in getting his wife restored to him. They were given a passage to Calcutta, where
they hoped to find a ship going to Sydney; but at this point the story losés them,
and the daughter of Te Pahi and her husband returned to her native land no more.
Captain Enderby has recorded that whalers visited the dependency in 1794, and
from that date to the present time the New Zealand waters have been frequented by
the whaling vessels of many nations. In the full flush of the whaling trade, over a hun-
dred vessels called at the Bay of Islands during the year, and Pomare, the grandfather
of Hare Pomare, for whom Her Majesty. became godmother, kept at one time ninety-
six slave girls, who were in the habit of forming temporary unions with whaling visitors.
Thus, each successive industry established in New Zealand—the sealing, felling and ship-
ment of timber, whaling, the preparation of flax—each of which required the presence
of European workmen on shore for considerable portions of time, led to the establish-
ment of friendship between the Europeans and natives, resulting in- unions which were
sometimes of life-long continuance, and thus gradually prepared the country for those
amicable relations which so much facilitated the first establishment of a small number of

European settlers in a country possessing so large and warlike a native population.

Earty Missionary ENTERPRISE.

During the latter part of the days of Governor King, from 1805 to 1807, the first
natives voluntarily went to England and to New South Wales. Te Pahi, the famous

’
'
’
,

ee eee Te

enemies

tion. From the time

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 993

Bay of Islands chief, was the most notable of these. Ruatara was another. While quite
a lad he joined one of the whalers that touched at the coast in 1805, and after
spending four years at sea he reached London in 1809. He came back with the
Reverend Samuel Marsden, at that time the senior chaplain of the settlement at Port
Jackson, and after spending a year there returned to New Zealand by way of Norfolk
Island, where he was detained for some time. He visited Sydney again in 1814, and
when Mr. Marsden with his missionaries went to New Zealand he accompanied the expe-
dition. But perhaps the most famous of all, or only second to the ill-fated Te Pahi,
was Hongi Hika, of the Ngapuhi nation. He was known among his own people as a
brave warrior and a powerful chief. In 1814 he accompanied Ruatara to Sydney, and
stayed for some time at the house of Mr. Marsden, observing the manners. and
customs of Europeans, and, we are told, embracing the Christian teaching. However, the
models of Christian life and conversation brought under his notice in the convict times
of the mother-colony do not appear to have influenced his character very beneficially, for
we find him, soon after his return to New Zealand, as the pioneer of Christianity, engaging
in destructive and successful wars with the tribes in the neighbourhood of Roturua, Hoki-
anga, Whangaroa, and :
the Bay of Plenty.
Some years later, as
we shall presently see,
Hongi Hika went to
England, with another
chief, and was pre-
sented to George IV.
These visits brought
Australia and New
Zealand nearer to-
gether, and it only re-
mained for missionary
enterprise to establish
a permanent connec-

of the senior chaplain’s

THE FIRST MISSION HOUSE, WAIMATE.

first acquaintance with
these Maori visitors he seems to have entertained the project of instituting a mission to
New Zealand, and from the date of the visit of Te Pahi and four of his sons in

1806, Mr. Marsden, to his death in 1838, never ceased his efforts to Christianize

the New Zealanders. Between the missionary and the Maori chief a very warm friend-
ship existed, and it was Te Pahi’s innate nobility of soul, singular intelligence, and
natural suavity of manner, that kindled in Mr. Marsden the desire to bring under the

influence of the Gospel a race which he felt could not be otherwise than superior
when it produced so fine a type. Te Pahi was the lion of his day in Sydney. He
was féted at Government House, shewn the sights of the city, and returned to his

people impressed with the wondrous power of the white man, and anxious for the

994 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

introduction of his religion. He did not benefit, however, by his connection with the
English. They stole his favourite daughter, his most promising son died from a disease
contracted in England, and though the survivors of the Boyd massacre were rescued
by him at the peril of his life, the Europeans, who took a blind and_ indiscriminating
revenge for that deed of blood, destroyed his village, put his people to the sword, and
severely wounded himself. He died at the hands of the Whangaroa natives for his act
of humanity in saving and protecting the survivors of the Boyd affair.

In 1807 Mr. Marsden accompanied Governor King to Europe, and enlisted the aid
of the Church Missionary Society in establishing a mission settlement in New Zealand.
On his return to the colony in 1810 he brought with him two lay catechists for his
mission, Messrs. King and Hall were both craftsmen, who expected to follow their
useful and most honourable callings—carpentering, and the working in iron—and by their
life and conversation to teach the natives the arts of civilization as well as the truths
of Christianity and its benefits. It was not until his return to Sydney that Marsden heard
of the disaster to the Foyd. This vessel, bound to England from Port Jackson, and
carrying many passengers, had been burned to the water's edge at Whangaroa, about
the end of November, 1809, and over seventy persons killed and eaten. Four only of

all the passengers and

crew were spared—a

woman, a_ cabin-boy,

and two little damsels,
both natives of New
South Wales.

| It had been pur-

posed by the merchants
in Sydney about this
time to form a New
Zealand Company in
f * New South Wales, and
‘e& My the preliminary ar-
om 7 by 4 bi | rangements had been
; completed before news
of the massacre came
to Port Jackson; but
when the tragedy was

made known the idea

was abandoned, and

THE SCENE OF THE ‘‘ BOYD” MASSACRE,

the catechists for the
New Zealand Mission proceeded to. Parramatta, to wait for a time when the public indigna-
tion had cooled. Local feeling ran so high that it was hardly safe for a Maori to be
seen in the streets of Sydney. Meanwhile Mr. Kendall came to join the Mission, but he
also was sent with his wife and family to Parramatta until continued peace on the New
Zealand Coast begat confidence. During the time of the disorder in New South Wales,

consequent on the Governorship of Captain Bligh and his successors, a disastrous license

— a

CC — -

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 995

appears to have been taken by the ship-masters trading from Port Jackson to New
Zealand, which provoked reprisals on the part of the natives, entailing some loss of life.
In 1814 Governor Macquarie gave Mr. Marsden leave of absence to go to New
Zealand to establish his Mission, provided the natives on the east coast of the North
Island were reported to be in a peaceful condition. To obtain the necessary information
Mr. Marsden dispatched the brig Acteve to the Bay of Islands, under the command of
Mr. Peter Dillon, who subsequently
became celebrated for his discovery
of the remains of La Pérouse and
his expedition to the New Hebrides.
Mr. Kendall accompanied the brig, |
and several native chiefs returned in
her to’strengthen the chances of Mr.
Marsden’s visit. -On the Governor
being satisfied of the report, the chap-
lain departed on his three months’
leave of absence. He was accom-
panied by the catechists, Messrs. King,
Hall and Kendall—the last of whom
had been appointed Resident Magis-
trate of the Bay of Islands—and a
Mr. Nicholas. Mr. Marsden opened
his spiritual crusade at the Bay of
Islands on Christmas Day, 1814. The
natives had made rude preparations
for the event by enclosing half an
acre of land with a fence, erecting
a pulpit and reading-desk in the

centre, covered with native mats dyed

black, and using as seats for the
Europeans some bottoms of old TE PAHI, CHIEF OF THE BAY OF ISLANDS,
canoes, which were placed on each .

side of the pulpit. A flag-staff was erected on the highest hill. Mr. Marsden writes :-—
“On Sunday morning when I was up on deck I saw the English flag flying, which
was a pleasing sight in New Zealand. I considered .it as the signal and the dawn
of civilization, liberty and religion in that dark and benighted land. I never viewed the
British colours with more gratification, and flattered myself they would never be removed
till the natives of that Island enjoyed all the happiness of British subjects.” After the
celebration of the service, which was heard with much decorum and attention, Mr.
Marsden preached from the passage in St. Luke, “Behold I bring you glad tidings of
great joy.” The natives of course knew not what he said, so that the sermon was
perhaps more interesting than effective. After it was over they danced their war-dance.
Christianity and cannibalism had come into contact. A new and bright morning had

dawned on an ancient land.

996 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

After visiting the Thames, Mr. Marsden returned to New South Wales, leaving the
catechists at the Bay of Islands. He did not again visit there until 1819, when an
ordained clergyman, the Rev. S. Butler, was appointed. to take charge of the station.
The mission brig, the Acééve, which had been purchased by Mr. Marsden in 1814, was,
however, kept running between Port Jackson and-the Bay of Islands, so that the
catechists were not left forlorn, while the whale-ships frequenting the Bay gave them
the protection of their occasional presence. Acting under instructions from Governor
Macquarie, Mr. Mars-
den explored a con-
siderable portion of the
northern part of New
Zealand. He appears
to have been the first
European who pub-
lished a description of
the Hokianga River,
which had been made
known by Governor
King from the map of
the North Island
drawn by the New
Zealanders Tuki and

the Governor’s house
at Norfolk Island.

The year following he

THE WAIKATO AT ATEAMURI,

visited New Zealand
in H.M. store-ship Dromedary, which was sent thither to procure spars for topmasts for
the Navy. He remained there for several months exploring the Thames, Tamaki and
Kaipara Districts. He succeeded in reaching Katikati, which he considered to be the
Mercury Bay of Cook, and was aided in so doing by the store-ship Coromandel being
engaged in the Thames District on a similar mission to that in which the Dromedary
was employed at the same time farther north.

About the time when the Dromedary arrived at the Bay of Islands; Hongi and
Waikato, two Maori chiefs, accompanied by Mr. Kendall, proceeded to England in the
New Zealander, whale-ship. The object of Hongi was the acquisition of fire-arms, for the
purpose of settling a blood feud of some dozen or more years’ standing with the Kaipara
natives. Mr, Kendall wanted aid to put the Maori language into a written form, writing
being a mode of communicating thought unknown to the native race. Both succeeded
in their object. Hongi obtained an introduction to George the Fourth and the leading
men of England. He was loaded with gifts, among which was a suit of armour; this
he carefully cherished, but on returning to Sydney he disposed: of his other presents
and converted the proceeds into muskets and ammunition. Mr. Kendall obtained the

assistance of Professor Lee in the construction of a vocabulary and a grammar of the

Huru on the floor of *

-HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW $ ZEALAND. 997

New Zealand language. Hongi, on his return, settled his feud and killed a large number
of his foes, and for the subsequent five years, aided by the superiority of his weapons,
earried death and destruction wherever he led the Ngapuhi people and their allies. His
ravages extended as far south as the East Cape,’ while in the Waikato some two

thousand persons were killed and partly eaten at a fah situated near the site of the

present town of Alexandra. Probably ten thousand persons were killed in his various

A MAORI WAR-DANCE,

raids, though many writers have not hesitated to double the number of this estimate.
The New Zéalanders, it may be said, do not appear to have ever been so numerous
as Captain Cook, Dr. Forster and others imagined them to have been. Only the
harbours were visited by the early voyagers, and the natives being a race of fishermen
were found congregating at fishing-stations—from which circumstance their numbers were

somewhat disproportionately estimated.

Tue FAILurRE oF THE First CoLonizING COMPANY.

In 1825 the first New Zealand Association was formed in London. It was composed
of men of influence, among whom was Lord Durham. A vessel was fitted out for the
purpose of exploring the country and conveying settlers to New Zealand. The command
of the ship, called the Rosanna, was given to a Captain James Herd, a seaman well
acquainted with the New Zealand Coast. No later than the year 1822 he had been in
the River Hokianga in the ship Provzdence, when he witnessed a deed of- conveyance

of land from native chiefs to one Charles, Baron de Thierry, who in his absence was

998 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.
represented by Mr, Kendall. The expedition arrived in the Hauraki Gulf in 1826,
reached the Bay of Islands on the 26th of October of that year, and proceeded thence

to Hokianga, where a purchase of land was made by Captain Herd at a place known

to the present day as Herd’s Point. A war-dance at one of the places visited by the

Rosanna was said to have terrified the colonists, who insisted on being carried back to

England, it having been a stipulation between them and the Company before leaving —

the port of departure
that they should be re-
conveyed to England
if they disliked remain-
ing in New Zealand;
and of all the emi-
grants—said to be
some sixty in number—

remain in New Zea-
land, Messrs. McLean,
Nimmo, Gillis and
Nesbet. The Rosanna
went to Sydney early
in the year 1827,
where the stores of the
expedition were sold
by public auction, and
Captain Herd, and

land. The cost of the
adventure was said to

have been twenty

thousand pounds.
A STAGE FOR A MAORI FESTIVAL. Through the influence

of the missionaries who

were desirous of seeing some kind of authority established, thirteen of the chiefs of the

Bay of Islands applied in 1831 to King William *IV. for British protection, as the

Governors of New South Wales, after the régime of Macquarie, no longer regarded
New Zealand as one of the dependencies of the colony, while an Act of George III.
stated New Zealand to be a place not within his Majesty’s dominions. Representations
were about this time forwarded to the Imperial Authorities from the Governor of New
South Wales suggesting the appointment of a British Residént; and in the following
year Lord Ripon dispatched Mr. James Busby, a civil engineer of New South Wales,
who was then on a visit to England, to fill that position. /.IZS. Imogene was employed
to carry him to his Residency, where he arrived on the 5th of May, 1833, and stationed

only four elected to’

those of the emigrants —
who felt disposed to |
' do so, returned to Eng-

*
.

Islands /7.M.S. Alliga-

. where the town of New

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 999

himself at Waitangi, in the Bay of Islands, a short distance from the Paihia Mission
Station. His appointment not. answering the expectations formed, Governor Bourke
recalled him in 1837. In 1835.Mr. Busby suggested that the New Zealanders should
have a national flag enabling vessels built in New Zealand to possess freedom of. trade
in British ports, and the proposal being approved, H.M.S. Alligator was sent to the

Bay’ of Islands with

for the chiefs to select

three patterns of flags : | ‘TTT a
|

from. The flag was
chosen accordingly,
and saluted as the
standard of an_ inde-
pendent country.

From ‘the Bay of

tor proceeded to the
west coast of the North
Island to punish the
Ngatiruani tribe, who
had behaved with in-
humanity to the crew
of the barque Harriet
in April, 1834. This
vessel had been

wrecked near the spot

Plymouth now stands.
She was commanded
by one Guard, a sealer
in Cook Strait, who
had been to: Sydney

for supplies, accom-

Pamee ey ms yEuro- A MAORI SALUTATION.

pean wife. According

to their general custom the natives attacked the shipwrecked party, and Guard, after
defending himself with some resolution, fled with about a dozen of his crew, leaving
his wife and two children prisoners, and his dead in the hands of the conquerors.
While making their escape, Guard and his followers met a party of another tribe,
about a hundred in number, to whom he surrendered. He was sent to the Moturoa,
z¢., “The Sugar Loaves,” where the fugitives were hospitably treated. Guard carried
the story of the wreck and the capture of the woman and children to Sydney, and
Sir Richard Bourke sent by the A/zgator a company of the Fiftieth Regiment to
rescue the prisoners. Mrs. Guard and the children were released, two villages crowded

with a mixed multitude of men, women and children were cannonaded, the habitations

1000 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

in two fahs, or fortified villages, and their accumulated store of provisions were burned,
and the head of the principal chief, who had been slain, was cut off and kicked by
the triumphant soldiers and marines as a foot-ball along the beach.

The same year ‘Charles, Baron de Thierry, styling himself a sovereign chief of
New Zealand, and King of Nukuheva,” one of the Marquesas Islands, laid claim to the
rights of a sovereign chief in New Zealand. A meeting of the chiefs took place in
response to an address from Mr. Busby, and a declaration of independence on the
part of the Maori population was published under the style of “The United Tribes
of New Zealand.”

In 1837 Captain Hobson was at Sydney in command of //.AZ.S. Rattlesnake. A
serious war was then raging among the tribes at the Bay of Islands, and Sir Richard
Bourke thought it his duty to request Captain Hobson to proceed thither and_ protect
British interests, and to report on the condition of the country. In the report, which
attracted considerable attention, Captain Hobson proposed that factories should be
established after the manner of the early trading companies of the English and Dutch.
When making the recommendation he was probably not aware that the Sydney merchants
had, in 1815, made a similar proposal to Governor Macquarie. He also made the
humane and sagacious recommendation that a treaty should be made with the New
Zealand chiefs for the recognition of the factories, and for the protection of British”

subjects and property.

Mr. WaAKEFIELD’s NEw ZEALAND ASSOCIATION,

In the same year, 1837, a second New Zealand Association was also formed, Mr.
Francis Baring being the Chairman. Several of those gentlemen who were in the
venture of 1825 were on the Committee, as well as some of those who were active in
colonizing South Australia. Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, in his evidence before a
Committee of the House of Commons on Colonial Lands in the previous year, had
drawn attention to New Zealand as being a field suitable for emigration and coloniza-
tion. He said, in 1840, before the Select Committee on New Zealand :—‘‘In consequence
of that statement a Member of the Committee spoke to ‘me on. the subject, and after-
wards other persons, and we determined to form an Association for the purpose of
obtaining if possible from Parliament some regulation both for the colonization and
Government of the islands” of New Zealand. Lord Glenelg was willing to grant the
Association a charter of colonization under certain conditions, provided the consent of
the chiefs could be obtained. One of these conditions was objected to by the promoters.
Lord Glenelg insisted that a certain amount of capital should be subscribed and a fixed
proportion paid before the Association should assume any authority. Lord Durham said
the Association would ‘neither run any pecuniary risk nor reap any pecuniary advan-
tage,” and so the negotiation came to an end. :

In June, 1838, Mr. Francis Baring obtained leave to bring in a Bill for founding a
British colony in New Zealand, and though the first reading was carried by seventy-four
votes to twenty-three, it was thrown out on the second reading by a majority of sixty.
The Wakefield system of colonization, as it was called, was the establishment of

colonies in which the grades of English society might be reproduced. The land, as in

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1001

England, was to belong to the employer, the cultivation of it to the workman, who,
however, could easily work up into the position of a proprietor. The public lands were
sold at such a price as would preclude their too easy acquisition, and labourers were to
be conveyed from the one hemisphere to the other by the proceeds of the sale of the
soil. The system was one of the means devised to provide labour and a public works
fund, but the discovery of gold-fields in California and in the South Pacific about the
middle of the century tended in some measure to destroy its applicability.

A month before the rejection of the Association’s Bill a public meeting was held

at Kororareka, in the Bay of Islands, to consider the best means of preserving life and

THE BREAKWATER, NEW PLYMOUTH.

property in the district, when the Kororareka Association was formed on the lines of
vigilance committees in America. Soon after the information of the proceedings at
Kororareka reached England, the Colonial Office saw that further delay would be fatal
to British interests, and the annexation of New Zealand to the Empire was resolved on.
Still it proceeded tardily. In December, 1838, it was proposed that a British Consul
should be appointed to reside in New Zealand, and Sir George Gipps was _ officially
informed of the intention; but it was not until the middle of the next year that the
selection of a consular agent was made, and it was determined that “certain parts of
the islands of New Zealand should be added to the colony of New South Wales as a
dependency of that Government, and that Captain Hobson, R.N., should proceed thither
as British Consul to fill the office of Lieutenant-Governor.” In June and July the
arrangements were gazetted; in August, Lord Normanby gave the Consul his instruc-
tions, and that official at once prepared to proceed with his family in /7.JZ.S. Druzd to
Port Jackson, where he arrived on Christmas Eve of 1839.

Captain Hobson’s instructions were to establish a form of civil Government with the

consent of the natives, to treat for the recognition of her Majesty’s authority over the

1002 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

whole or any portion of the Islands; to induce the chiefs to contract that no lands
should in future be.sold except to the Crown; to announce by proclamation that no
title to land acquired from the natives of the dependency would be recognized except
confirmed by a Crown grant; to arrange for the appointment of a Commission to
determine what lands held by British subjects had been lawfully acquired; and to
appoint a Protector to supervise the interests of the Maori population.

But while the Colonial Office was making the arrangements described, Mr. Wakefield
was not idle. After the collapse of the Association of 1837, he had been with Lord
Durham to Canada, but returned with his chief to England and formed a New Zealand
Land Company, of which Lord Durham was. Governor, and Mr. Joseph Somes Deputy-
Governor. The first paragraph in the prospectus of the Company declared its character,
and showed that it was not open to the objection made to the Association. It said:
“This Company has been formed for the purpose of employing capital in the purchase
and resale of lands in New Zealand, and the promotion of emigration to that country.” -
The capital was four hundred thousand pounds in four thousand shares of one hundred
pounds each, with a deposit of ten pounds per share. Rusden says :—‘ A capital of one
hundred thousand pounds was paid up, and a hundred thousand acres of land in New
Zealand had been. sold before a title to one had been acquired. They (the share-
holders who paid money) drew lots for sections unknown, of lands which the Company
was about to seek.”

The Zory, a vessel of four hundred tons burthen, was prepared to sail in April
with the first body of the Company's settlers, and letters of introduction were solicited
at the Colonial Office to Governors of colonies. The answer was that the Queen would
be advised to take measures to obtain by cession the sovereignty of the Islands, and
that no pledge could be given for the future recognition on the part of the Crown of
any titles to land which the Company or any other persons might obtain by grant or
by purchase from the natives. Nothing daunted, however, by this rebuff, the 7Zory
sailed in May, 1839, under the control of Mr. Wakefield’s brother, Colonel William
Wakefield, of the Spanish Legion. Two days after the departure of the TZory the
Directors announced to the Government that the Company was formed, and Lord
Normanby was informed that preparations for a very extensive emigration were in progress
in various parts of England and Scotland. |

The Zory, which carried an exploring staff and a cargo of “trade” for barter with
the New Zealanders, arrived at Queen Charlotte Sound after a rapid passage, at the
time, of ninety-six days; and after wandering about Cook Strait on land-purchasing
expeditions, Colonel Wakefield, on the last day of September, 1839, took formal posses-
sion of Port Nicholson in the name of the Company, and the New Zealand flag was
hoisted under a salute, on an immense staff erected for that purpose. Colonel Wakefield
reported to the Company that he had ‘purchased a territory as large as Ireland,
extending from the thirty-eighth to the forty-third degree of south latitude on the west
coast, and from the forty-fourth to the forty-third degree of latitude on the east coast,
in exchange for goods valued at something less than nine thousand pounds. His purchase
embraced localities where the Company’s settlements of Wellington, Nelson and New

Plymouth were subsequently formed. The interpreter of the Company was a man

a a ee

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1003

named Barrett, who had been many years in Cook Strait, first sealing and then whaling,
and who had “picked up” the usual “ pigeon” Maori in use among the whalers, but
was quite unable to render complex sentences into the Maori language, which frequently
requires the use of words having several meanings. The deeds of sale were written~ in
English, the true meaning of which Barrett could not translate into Maori.

After dispatching the TZory, however, the Directors in England, presuming on the
success of their agent, actually proceeded, as we have seen, to sell land to the value of
more than one hundred thousand pounds, and to send out emigrants before they knew
that a single acre had been assigned. In October, 1839, a vessel named the Comdée de
Paris, having on board emigrants, left France for Akaroa, in the Middle Island, while

the French frigate Z’Auéde was destined for the same port.

Tue Treaty or WAITANGI.

Captain Hobson left Sydney in A.M7.S. Herald for the Bay of Islands, where he
arrived on the 29th of January, 1840. He was accompanied by a Treasurer, a Collector
of Customs, a Police Magistrate, two clerks, a sergeant and four men’ of the mounted
police of New South Wales. As soon as the Herald left Port Jackson, Sir George
Gipps issued three proclamations, the first extending his Government to any territory

which had been or might be acquired in sovereignty by Her

Majesty, within the group of Islands in the Pacific Ocean, commonly

called New Zealand; the second, appointing Captain Hobson
Lieutenant-Governor of any territory that might be acquired by
Her Majesty; and the third declaring “that Her Majesty would
not acknowledge as valid any title to land which
either has been, or shall be hereafter acquired in that
country, which was not either derived from or con-
firmed by a grant to be made in Her Majesty’s name
and on Her behalf.” To the Sydney land claimants
the latter proclamation was especially obnoxious, as
the traders there had bought large tracts for specula-
tive purposes. Captain Hobson, on his arrival at the
Bay of Islands, issued an invitation to all British
subjects to meet him at the Church of Kororareka
the next day, where he read two commissions—one
extending the limits of New South Wales, and the
second appointing him Lieutenant-Governor over such
portions of New Zealand as might thereafter be
added to Her Majesty's dominions. Two proclama-
tions were also read, the first announcing that Her
THE TREATY MONUMENT. Majesty’s authority had been asserted over British
subjects in New Zealand; and the second that Her

Majesty did not deem it expedient to acknowledge as valid any titles to land in New
Zealand which were not derived from or confirmed by the Crown. After the proclama-

tions had been read, in the “presence of a concourse of persons,” forty of the - settlers

1004 3 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

present signed a declaration descriptive of the day’s proceedings, and on Monday, the
4th of February, an address of congratulation, written by Doctor, now the Honourable
Dr. Pollen, M.L.C., was presented to his Excellency by the inhabitants of Kororareka,
assuring him of their loyalty and desire to “aid him in establishing law, order and
security for life and property in an improving and important colony.” Notices in the
native language had been circulated on the Friday previous stating that Captain Hobson
would, on the 5th of
February, hold a
meeting of the chiefs
for the purpose of
explaining to them the
Royal Instructions he
had received, and of
placing before them a
copy of a treaty he
would submit for their
adoption. This treaty,
since known as_ the
famous ‘‘Treaty of
Waitangi,” on which

was based the title

of the Crown to the

BUSBY HOUSE,

North Island, may be
thus condensed :—The preamble stated that the Queen of England, in her regard for
the Maori people, desiring to preserve for them their rights as chiefs and the posses-
sion of their lands, and also—having heard that many of her subjects had settled in
New Zealand, and that more were about to follow—to prevent troubles arising between
the two races, had thought it right to send William Hobson, Captain in the Royal
Navy, to be a Governor for all parts of New Zealand now or hereafter ceded to Her;
to carry into effect which object the following articles of agreement are proposed :—

I. The chiefs of New Zealand cede to the Queen forever the right of Government
over the whole of New Zealand.

Il. Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and
tribes of New Zealand, and to the respective families and individuals thereof, the full,
exclusive and undisturbed possession of their land and estates, forests and fisheries, and
other properties which they may collectively and individually possess, so long as it is
their wish and desire to retain the same in. their possession. But. the chiefs of the
united tribes, and the individual chiefs, yield to Her Majesty the exclusive right of pre-
emption over such lands as the proprietors may be disposed to alienate, at such prices
as may be agreed upon between the respective proprietors and persons appointed by Her
Majesty to treat with them on Her behalf.

III. In consideration for consent to the Queen’s Government, the Queen will protect
all the Maori people and give them all the rights and privileges of British subjects.

Under this Treaty the natives not merely ceded to the Queen the right to purchase

rs,

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1005

such land as the owners were willing to sell, but ‘the pre-emptive right of selection
over all lands;” and the practical interpretation put upon this by each of the Governors
except Fitzroy was that the Queen might have the refusal of all lands the natives were
willing to sell, and if that refusal were given no one else would be allowed to buy.
This was one of the chief grievances that underlay the Maori disaffection of the future.
Soon after Captain Hobson arrived in Sydney, Bishop Broughton, the first Bishop
of Australia, wrote to the Rev. H. Williams, who held the greatest amount of influence
in the Church Mission, that upon the fullest consideration his judgment inclined him
very strongly to recommend Mr. Williams, and through him all other members of the
Mission, that ‘their in-
fluence should be exer-
cised among the chiefs
to induce them to
make the desired sur-
render of sovereignty
to Her Majesty. Cap-
tain Hobson had, it
will be seen, the Mis-
sion influence on_ his
side, though the British
Resident, Mr. Busby,
held aloof from sign-
ing the address of con-

gratulation to his Ex-

cellency, and nearly all
the land-claimants resi- PLANTING THE BRITISH FLAG AT AKAROA.

dent in New Zealand

viewed the advent of the Governor with alarm. The Treaty was adopted in great part
all over the land by Mission influence, and the singular spectacle was manifested of
the Church and Wesleyan societies relinquishing the power it had cost them some
quarter of a million sterling to acquire.

On the 1st of March the Governor, while looking for a place to found a city to
be the seat of his future Government, became partially paralyzed in his right arm and
leg. The Rev. Henry Williams had, however, a day or two before, shown him the
Tamaki District, and he tells us how “his Excellency was not long in pointing out the
spot, the present site of Auckland, seeing immediately its various advantages.” On_ the
Governor becoming ill he was taken to the Bay of Islands, and in a Mission family
nursed back to health, while the missionaries took up the task of getting the Treaty
signed, which may be regarded as their handiwork; for though the -Governor’s suite
were witnesses in many places to the signatures of the chiefs, it was the personal
influence of their teachers that made-the natives rally round the officers sent them by
the Queen of England. On the 21st of May, 1840, the Governor proclaimed the
sovereignty of the Queen over the North Island of New Zealand by virtue of the Treaty

of Waitangi, and over the Middle and Stewart’s Islands on the ground of discovery.

1006 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

The New Zealand Land Company meantime had been actively at work. When the
proclamations declaring the sovereignty of the Queen were published, there had been landed
from the Company's vessels in Port Nicholson more than a thousand’ passengers, who had
“formed themselves into a Government, elected a Council, appointed Colonel Wakefield
President, and had proceeded to enact laws and appoint magistrates.” As soon as the
Governor heard of their proceedings, ‘without one hour's delay” he sent thirty men of
the Eighth Regiment, who had been drafted from New South Wales, and Lieutenant
Smart with five of the mounted police of that colony, under the command of Lieutenant
Shortland, R.N., with instructions to publish a proclamation declaring the Provisional
Government of the Company illegal and usurping, and calling on all persons, upon their
allegiance to the Queen to withdraw therefrom, and to “submit to the authorities in
New Zealand legally appointed.” The settlers informed Lieutenant Shortland that they
had formed themselves into a Council only until the Governor was enabled to act. All
they had done was to make provision for their own good order and safety in a country
possessing no settled form of Government. They had no disloyal intent or purpose
whatever, and welcomed his arrival amongst them. The proclamation was read and
responded to by both races, while an address of congratulation was carried by Colonel
Wakefield to the Bay of Islands and presented to the Governor.

Lord John Russell, on receipt of Captain Hobson’s despatch detailing his proceeding,

’

gave his “entire approbation” to all that had been done, and stated that he would
soon transmit Letters Patent constituting New Zealand a separate Government, with a
commission appointing Captain Hobson the first Governor. The latter pursued his
inquiries as to the best site for the seat of Government, and at last determined to select
Auckland for various reasons, as set forth to the Secretary of State, namely, on account
of its central. position; the great facility of internal water communication; the facility
and safety of its port; and finally, the fertility of its soil, which was stated by persons
capable of appreciating it, the Governor said, to be exceptionally well adapted for every
agricultural purpose. Previous, however, to his fixing the site, he had been assured, in
the address presented to him by the inhabitants of Port Nicholson, that they had antici-
pated as far as possible the wants of the Government, and set apart the most- valuable
sections of land for the convenience of the Public Offices, and the personal accommoda-
tion of his Excellency, feeling assured that sooner or later Port Nicholson would
become the metropolis “and the seat of Government.

The selection of Auckland as the capital disappointed the expectations of the New
Zealand Land Company, and apparently deprived the Governor of the good-will of the
Company's agents and settlers, the latter of whom had been led to expect that the
spot selected by the Company’s agents would be the future capital of the colony. It
was also the Governor's duty to report to Sir George Gipps that the title of the
Company to Port Nicholson itself was disputed by the natives, and thus to manifest to
them his determination to honourably fulfill the conditions of the Treaty, which, on behalf
of the Crown, he had concluded with them. A great deal of angry feeling was evoked
in consequence of these two circumstances, and the Press, under the influence of the
Company, both in Wellington and in England, misrepresented much that the Governor
did, impugning his motives and assailing his Administration. Conscious of his rectitude,

hi i il
{Ml |
V | Ht

THE REMARKABLES.

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1007

writhing under the attacks of anonymous writers, and irritated by the petition that had
been sent to England for his recall, he wrote to the Secretary of State in May, 1841:
“Had I been base enough to prefer my own comfort to what I believed to be the
public benefit, I could have established myself at Port Nicholson, when, surrounded by
a compact society all identified with the place, I might have left it to the Company’s
agents or their Press to answer any censure which might flow in upon me. from any
quarter. Or, had I been still more base, and kept in view my ‘pecuniary advantage,
there could have been no scheme devised

better calculated to ensure my fortune and

Za 7
f=
Aw

that of-my friends than presented itself at Port
Nicholson. I needed but to have speculated
largely in the Company’s shares, and_ having
raised their value by the location of Govern-
ment, to have sold off my interest while they
preserved their artificial value.” The reply was
-a conclusive one.

Two other incidents in the Governorship
of Captain Hobson are especially worthy of
note. The French frigate Z’Aube had reached
the Bay of Islands before the Comte de Paris
had arrived with the immigrants intended to

be placed at Akaroa. Suspecting the captain of

the frigate of cherishing designs on the Middle
Island inimical to British interests, the Governor
sent /7.M7.S. Britomart to Banks Peninsula, ‘-

directing the commander to proceed thither with all dispatch, so that before the

BISHOP SELWYN,

arrival of the Z’Aube or the Comte de Paris possession might be taken.

British INstiruTIons.
* A Charter for establishing in the colony of New Zealand a Legislative and an
Executive Council, and for granting certain powers and authority to the Governor, was
signed by the Queen on the 16th of November, 1840, and published in the colony on
the 3rd of May, 1841. The Letters Patent described the new colony as consisting of the
group of islands lying between thirty-four degrees thirty minutes and forty-seven degrees
ten minutes south latitude, and one hundred and sixty-six degrees five minutes and one
hundred and seventy-nine degrees east longitude; and declared that the three principal
islands known as the Northern, Middle, and Stewart's Islands should in future be desig-
nated New Ulster, New Munster, and New Leinster.

The New Zealand Association, in 1837, pointed out the necessity for a bishop for
New Zealand, and the idea engaged the attention of the New Zealand Land Company ;
but early in 1841 the proposal was adopted on an extended. and proper basis by the
Church of England, and a Colonial Bishoprics’ Council was formed, which wisely chose
the Rev. Augustus Selwyn, curate at Windsor, for the office of the first Bishop of
New Zealand. He sailed by way of Sydney about the end of the year 1841, and

1008 A US TRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

landed at Auckland, the seat of his diocese, on the 29th of May, 1842. He soon
proved an important factor in the spiritual and temporal affairs of the country.

Having lawyers of remarkable ability associated with him, the Governor was able
to report that Ordinances had been passed to establish a Supreme and County Courts;
for the constitution of juries; for regulating the practice of petty sessions; for estab-
lishing municipalities; for promoting religion; for regulating postage; for registration of
deeds and instruments affecting real property, and for facilitating its transfer; to render
certain marriages valid; for regulating the sale of liquor ; ‘for licensing auctioneers; for
securing copyright in books ; and for repealing the Ordinance which gave force in New
Zealand to the laws of New South Wales. . .

Captain Hobson died on the 1oth of September, 1842, from a paralytic seizure, at
the age of forty-nine. years. Few British Governors have had to peacefully acquire the
countries they governed. His Treaty of Waitangi was “a Christian mode of commencing
the colonization of the colony.” ‘His justice,” said Swainson, his Attorney-General, “was
inflexible.” The Maori opinion of his merits was noted in a letter to the Queen from
Te Wherowhero, the future Maori King, which said :—‘* Mother Victoria: My subject is
a Governor for the Maori and Pakeha in this Island. Let him be a good man. Look
out for a good man. A man of judgment. Let not a troubler come here. Let not a
boy come here, or one puffed up. Let him be a good man as the Governor who has

just died.” Captain Hobson’s monument is the city of Auckland, where he died.

Tue Wartrau MASSACRE.

Lieutenant Shortland, the Colonial Secretary, assumed the duties of Governor on the
death of Captain Hobson, and continued acting until December, 1843, the period of the
arrival of Captain Fitzroy, who was appointed Captain Hobson’s successor. The Acting-
Governor ruled by proclamation, with the aid of laws already enacted, and avoided
calling the Legislative Council together. During his rule there occurred what was known
as the “ Wairau Massacre,” when Captain Wakefield, the brother of the Company’s principal
agent, and nineteen of the settlers imported by the Company, were killed in the Wairau
Valley. The Company claimed to have purchased the land, but the natives asserted
that they had not sold it. Surveyors were, however, sent to survey the Valley, and the
natives considering their action as preliminary to occupation, burned down the surveyors’
hut by way of protest, after first taking care to scrupulously remove all the property
the structure contained. The claim of the Company to the Wairau Valley was of a
twofold character.. It assumed direct purchase from Rauparaha and the Negatitoa, who, |
however, constantly denied ever having sold it. There is no reason to doubt but that,
through imperfect translation, Colonel Wakefield had been misinformed as to the
boundaries of the lands the natives agreed to sell, and that the native contention was
in accordance with fact.

The other claim of the Company to the Valley was the purchase of the rights of
a woman in 1839, who claimed to be the wife of a Captain Blunkinsopp. It appears
that some time in the year 1831 Blunkinsopp had been whaling in Cook Strait, and
during the time of his visit, according to whaling custom, the daughter of Te Pehi, a

kinsman of Rauparaha, lived with him as his wife. As payment for her, and the privilege

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1009

of wood and water for his ship, he gave the natives an old cannon, but drew up in
English a deed of purchase of Wairau and its neighbourhood, and put the six-pounder
into the document as purchase-money. The deed was mortgaged to Messrs. Unwin and
Co., solicitors, Sydney, for two hundred pounds, and as Captain Blunkinsopp was not
able to redeem the mortgage,
the deed of conveyance was
forfeited. The captain was
drowned in South Australia
before the New Zealand Land
Company had agents in New
Zealand, and the daughter of
Te Pehi, on hearing of his
death, had gone north to Hoki-
anga. There Colonel Wake-
field met her in December,
1839, and bought her rights,
if any, to the Wairau Valley.
Her claim consisted of the
copy of the deed of convey-
-ance, the original of which

was in Sydney.

A warrant to arrest two
leading chiefs who disputed
the sale of the lands (Rau-
paraha and Rangihaeata) was
obtained, and a Mr. Thomp-
son—a police magistrate—eight
of the Company’s settlers and
forty labourers, accompanied
him to aid the service. Thirty-
‘five of the party were armed,
but the majority of them were
unacquainted with the use of
fire-arms, and were useless in
such a contest as afterwards
arose. The expedition sailed
from Nelson, the third of the

Company's settlements, and

THE CARVED GATE-WAY OF AN OLD “PAH.”

anchored in Cloudy Bay on

the 15th of June. Two days after landing, Rauparaha was found encamped by a stream
with about one hundred followers. A canoe was in the creek, and Captain Wakefield,
Mr. Thompson and others, crossed the creek in it to where the natives were assembled.
The Police Magistrate told Rauparaha that he had come to arrest him and Rangihaeata

for having burned the surveyors’ hut; he had not come about the land, Rauparaha,

1010 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

who as usual was the spokesman, distinctly refused to be arrested, told the Magistrate
that the hut was his own property, and desired that the dispute about the title to the
land should be referred to the Land Commissioners’ Court for settlement.

Thompson was averse to any other course than the arrest of the chiefs, and called
on his men to fix bayonets and execute their warrant. Wakefield cried out, “ Englishmen,
forward!” and in the rush that followed the command a shot was fired and a woman
fell, who happened to be Te Ronga, the daughter of Rauparaha and the wife of
Rangihaeata. On this the natives returned the fire, and the English, who had formed
into line, broke and fled, and Wakefield and Thompson could not rally them. A white
handkerchief was waved in token of submission, and five of the settlers and four of the
labourers, who refused to run, surrendered themselves to Rauparaha; but Rangihaeata,
who had lost his wife, tomahawked them all. Nineteen bodies were found and _ buried
by Mr. Ironsides, a Wesleyan minister, a few days after the slaughter. Four natives
were also killed. None of the dead had been mutilated or eaten.

The Company’s agents and settlers were anxious to avenge the death of their
companions, but Lieutenant Shortland, who held a tight rein on the Company, reserved
the question of punishment for the consideration of Captain Hobson’s successor. Lieu-
tenant Shortland’s Administration had been beset with difficulties, but his firmness and
sagacity preserved the peace of the colony, and the general feeling prevailed that he
was entitled to the gratitude of the Home Government and the colonists for the manner
in which he had conducted the affairs of New Zealand. When party feeling had worn
away, this opinion was generally shared both by his successors and _ others. Emigration
to New Zealand was checked by the news of the Wairau conflict. Memorials were sent
to the Governors of adjacent colonies for troops, and seven hundred persons petitioned _

Her Majesty to inquire into the condition of the colony.

GOVERNOR FITzRoy.

In November, 1843, Captain Fitzroy reached New Zealand, and in January ‘of the
following year proceeded to Wellington in A.AZ.S. North Star; Captain Sir Everard
Home arriving there about the end of the month. From Wellington he went to Nelson,
where he publicly rebuked the magistrates who had signed the warrant for the arrest
of Raupar ha and Rangihaeata, telling them that “arson” was the burning of another
man’s house, while the natives had burned only their own property when they set fire
to the surveyors’ hut. The natives had never sold the Wairau. Several of the magis-
trates thus rebuked immediately resigned their commissions. From Nelson he went to
the northern side of Cook Strait to visit Rauparaha at Waikanae. On this occasion he
was accompanied by Mr. Forsaith—afterwards Premier, and at that time a Sub-protector
of the native population—as interpreter. At the interview there were several Europeans
and some five -hundred natives present.. Rauparaha was seated close to the Governor's
chair, and Rangihaeata on the outer portion of the semicircle formed by the natives.
Captain Fitzroy told them that he had heard the European version of the causes of ©
the fray, and he was there to hear the Maori side of the story. Rauparaha was invited
to speak, which he did reluctantly. He said the land was the cause of the dispute, it
not having been purchased from the rightful owners, and narrated how often he had

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. IOrl

warned the Company’s servants not to occupy it. He stated that Mr. Thompson twice
ordered his party to fire on the natives, and when, after having been made a prisoner,
he appealed to him to save his life, Rangihaeata made him remember his wife, Te
Ronga, and added, “A little while ago I wanted to talk to you in a friendly manner,
and you would not. Now you say, save me. I will not save you.”

When Rauparaha had concluded his narrative the Governor spent some half-hour in
consultation with the Europeans, after which he rose and said: “Hearken, O chiefs and

elder men, to my decision. . . . In the first place the Pakehas were in the wrong;

A CARVED HOUSE IN KING COUNTRY.

they had no right to build houses upon the land, the sale of which you disputed, and
on which Mr. Spain had not decided; they were wrong in trying to apprehend you
who had committed no crime. . . . As they were greatly to blame, and as they
brought on and began the fight, and as you were hurried into crime by their miscon-
duct, I will not avenge their deaths.” He further told them that a terrible crime had
been committed in murdering men who, relying on their honour, had surrendered. They
must live peaceably. He would do equal justice, and promised that no land should be
taken from them: which they had not sold.

The English Government had sent out a Mr. William Spain as a Commissioner to
hear evidence as to reputed purchases of land in New Zealand. He arrived in the
colony in December, 1841, but his court at Wellington was not opened until May
following. The Company averred that they had purchased some twenty millions of acres

—a territory, in fact, as large as Ireland. Mr. Spain insisted that the Company, like

1012 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

other claimants, should prove that the signers of the deeds of sale “had a right” to
convey the land they sold, In England and in the colony, Mr. Spain’s mode of proce-
dure was strenuously opposed by the New Zealand Company and its agents. Colonel
Wakefield submitted to the Court six purchase deeds; those of Port Nicholson, Nelson,
Taranaki, Wanganui, Porirua and Manawatu, for which he sought to obtain Crown
grants. Prior, however, to the taking of evidence as to ownership, Mr. Spain told
Colonel Wakefield that to ask the Government for a Crown grant of land, whether the
native title was extinct or not, was calling upon it to do that which was totally out of
its power to do, as the Crown could not grant that which the Crown did not possess.
After many sittings of the Court, Mr. Spain reported in 1843 that the New Zealand
Land Company’s agents had bought two hundred and eighty-two thousand acres: seventy-
one thousand nine hundred acres in the Wellington District, one hundred and fifty-one
thousand in Nelson, and_ sixty thousand at New Plymouth. The latter award Captain
Fitzroy objected to ratify, and limited the area he considered the Company had fairly
purchased to three thousand five hundred acres. This. decision, which the Governor had
power under the law to give, created much discontent among the Europeans of Taranaki.

Governor Fitzroy regarded in a somewhat loose manner the Treaty of Waitangi.
The spirit of the instrument, in the interests of colonization, consisted in the Crown’s
right of acquiring all lands alienated by the natives. By proclamation he allowed private
persons to purchase land direct from the natives on payment to the Government of ten
shillings an acre royalty on the acreage purchased. The natives, when discussing the
Treaty before signing it, said the shadow of the land went to the Queen, but the
substance remained with them; now they found the Government wanted the substance,
as those who bought land under these conditions impressed on the sellers that the
pittance they gave as purchase-money was all they could afford to give, since the
Governor got ten shillings for every acre purchased. It is not surprising to learn that.
only one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five acres were thus acquired, He then
reduced the royalty payable to the Crown to a penny per acre, when ninety thousand
acres were purchased, much of which, situated in the immediate locality of the city of
Auckland, would have proved of great subsequent value to the public at large if it had
been acquired by the Government.

In May, 1844, the Governor sanctioned an Ordinance to issue debentures and- make
them a legal tender, being sorely pressed for money; but the Ordinance was disallowed
as being contrary to the Royal Instructions and the welfare of the colony. In June he
amended the Ordinances of 1841 levying custom dues, and imposed a duty of thirty
per cent. on guns, gunpowder, or weapons of any description, or “any munition of war.”
In September of the same year he passed an Ordinance repealing all customs duties and
declaring all the ports in the colony free, and imposing a tax of one per cent. on
property, real and personal, over the value of one hundred pounds. The Ordinance of
September was, however, repealed by a new law made in April, 1845, which abolished
the property tax and the customs Ordinance of the previous year. The sudden changes
in taxation arose from the Maori dissatisfaction in the Bay of Islands District and from
the decrease of whalers frequenting the Bay. When customs dues and port charges were

levied consequent on the establishment of civil Government, whaling-masters found that

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND, 1013

THE MANAWATU GORGE.

other places in the South
Pacific were less expensive than
Kororareka had become, and
the cheaper ports of call were
chosen as refreshment places.
Tobacco became scarce, and
new blankets not being easy
to acquire, the natives con-
sidered that the emblem of
British authority—the flag-staff
on the hill overlooking the
town—was the cause of the
decay in their shipping revenue, and, as a writer remarked, the idea arose” in the native
mind ‘that if the flag-staff were cut down, the fine old days of Kororareka would return.”

On the 8th of July, 1844, a native chief named Hone Heke cut down and burned
the Kororareka flag-staff and carried away the signal-balls.5 The Governor sent to
Sydney for troops, which arrived in New Zealand early in August. The chiefs, inter-

viewing the Governor, promised to maintain peace, and the flag-staff was again erected ;

1014 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

but was again cut down. In March, 1845, it had been erected thrice, and on the 11th
of the month was cut down for the fourth time, and the town of Kororareka .destroyed
by fire when occupied by the British troops. It contained some four hundred souls,
who were sent on board a ship in the Bay and conveyed to Auckland, the settlement

being abandoned. About the end of April the Governor proclaimed war against the

.
g
native insurgents, re-inforcements having arrived at Auckland from Sydney. Several
expeditions were undertaken against the rebels, in which the British troops suffered
great loss without gaining any advantage. These reverses diminished the British prestige,
and induced many malcontents who lost faith in the troops’ invincibility to join the
insurgents. The war, coupled with the lack of funds for almost any purpose whatever,

caused Captain Fitzroy to be recalled by Lord Stanley in May, 1845.

GOVERNOR GREY.

Captain Grey, who was now appointed Governer, was courteously received on his
arrival in Auckland on the 14th of November, 1845, by Captain Fitzroy, from whom
he obtained the most valuable assistance and information upon entering on his new
duties. He found that some naval
and military forces had arrived from
China, and that others were to follow.
Naval and military men of known
ability had been selected with consider-
able care to aid him in the difficult
circumstances in which he was _ placed.
He thus occupied a much stronger
position than that in which his pre-
decessor had laboured. Among the
officers was Colonel Despard, in com-
mand of the troops, who had already
acquired some experience in Maori war-
fare; Commodore Graham, a_ distin-~
cuished naval officer, the brother of
Sir James Graham; and Sir Everard
Home, who bore a high reputation not
only for naval ability but for his
scientific attainments. After the Gover-

nor’s installation he proceeded to the

iii | |

Bay of Islands, where the war was

Mi Hi i

SIR GEORGE GREY.

Wl !
NA OA

still in progress. He gave thé. natives
to understand that after a certain fixed
date he expected the belligerents to return to the loyalty which they had promised to
observe by the Treaty of Waitangi, the conditions of which he also intended scrupulously
to maintain. Returning to the seat of Government before the 13th of December, he passed
the “Arms Importation Ordinance,” prohibiting the natives from acquiring arms, gun-

powder, or other warlike stores. This step on his part alarmed many people, who

ee , td oa ee Otol RY or my QE re ae

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. IO15

feared the Ordinance might affect many neutral tribes to the extent of inducing them
to join the chiefs in revolt, especially those who were residing between Auckland and
the Bay of Islands. On the rith of January of the year following, the strong fortress
of Ruapekapeka was captured by a party while its defenders were engaged in Divine
Service, the day being Sunday. Then the northern disturbances came to an end, the
natives pledging themselves to maintain for the future an inviolable peace—a promise
which has never since been broken.

The difficulties in the northern portion of the colony having been thus concluded,
the Governor turned his attention to the south, which was in a troubled condition.
Several murders had been committed by the natives on settlers who occupied lands of

which the titles were disputed. In February +846, the Governor left Auckland for

I
&

LAKE TAUPO,
(From a Picture by Mr. Charles Blomfield.)

Wellington with all the force at his command. The relations between the two races
continued to be unsettled, until in May and June the natives attacked the troops in
the Hutt Valley, killing and wounding several. A general feeling of insecurity prevailed.
In all the skirmishes occurring between the two races, more soldiers were killed than
natives. At the end of July the Governor received information that an attempt would
be made to drive away the settlers from Port Nicholson, and that to achieve this
purpose the tribes from the Wanganui District would co-operate with those in the vicinity
of Wellington. Rauparaha was supposed to be an ally of the whites since his meeting
with Governor Fitzroy, but the settlers suspected his good faith and considered that he
was aiding the insurgents. At last his intentions were made plain. A Mr. Deighton,
one of the New Zealand Company’s settlers, was at this time living at Wanganui, and
was fortunate enough to obtain sight of a letter bearing the signature of Rauparaha,
addressed to the inland natives up the River, strenuously urging them to rise and join
the party. which was harassing the settlers. He communicated the substance of the
letter to the Police Magistrate at Wanganui, who, seeing its importance, proposed

sending it to the Governor. A few days afterwards, a party of men, over two hundred

1016 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

in number, with fire-arms and ammunition, appeared in the settlement, announcing their
intention to go to Wellington to join their chief, who was associated with the party
then busily pillaging the settlers. Deighton, learning their intention, told Mr. King that
if he would write a despatch he would undertake to deliver it to Captain Grey, accom-
panying the natives in their journey to Port Nicholson.

The despatch was written with Indian ink on tissue paper, and sewn up in the
collar of Deighton’s coat. During their journey he was suspected of carrying letters to
the Governor, and was in danger of losing his life in consequence; but, being searched,
the despatch sewn in the collar of his coat eluded discovery, and on his arrival at
Wellington he was enabled to deliver it to the Governor. Possessed of the proofs of the
intention of the natives, the Governor, on the night of the 23rd of July, 1846, caused
an armed force silently to surround the abode of Rauparaha, who was found asleep in
his bed and conveyed on board A.AZ.S. Calliope, which was waiting in the Porirua
Harbour for his reception. It is noticeable that the Authorities always allowed themselves
considerable latitude in their dealings with questions in which Maori rights were concerned.
Things were sometimes done, whether called for by the exigencies of the time or not
it is for the judgment of history to say, that the agents would scarcely allow themselves
to do had their opponents not belonged to the coloured races. The capture of Rauparaha
is one of these, but it is just possible that in this instance there were adequate extenua-
ting circumstances; the general statement may therefore be made here without any
invidious effect. The cunning and adroit capture of the most celebrated living Maori
warrior instructed the natives that they had now a Governor to deal with whose
vigilance they could not hope to elude, and who was swift to execute the plans his
sagacity had matured, The capture made a profound impression on Maoridom. Who
could be safe if Rauparaha was outwitted and imprisoned? He was given the choice of
standing a trial for treason, or of remaining in custody of the British, a prisoner of
war. He wisely chose the latter alternative, and the Wanganui natives, after his capture,
dispersed without delay to their homes. Shortly after their return to Wanganui, the
troops marched on the fah of Rangihaeata, who left the position he occupied, broke up
his war-party, and his followers retired to their own district, |

Te Heu Heu, the great chief of Taupo, who had long refused his adhesion to the
Queen, was, on the 7th of May, 1846, buried alive, with fifty-four of his followers, by a
land-slip at Taupo, and the elements of discord in the native population, incident to the
change of their condition in having to live- under a_ settled form of Government,
seemed to be disappearing one after another. The settlers having drifted into uneasy
relations with the natives at Wanganui, a detachment of soldiers was sent to the
district in December, 1846. A desultory warfare continued till the end of the year,
when the natives, who were cut off from all communication with the sea, and their usual
markets, wrote begging for peace, and on the 21st of February, 1848, the principal chiefs
met his Excellency the Governor in the presence of Major-General Pitt, who was in
command of the troops in the colony, and peace was ratified and a general pardon
granted. This was the last occasion during the period Captain Grey was Governor that
peace between the Europeans and natives was in any way disturbed, and the people of

both races were left free to devote their energies to the development of the resources

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1017

of the country, and the building up of laws and institutions suited to the novel circum-
stances existing in the young colony.

Immediately on his first arrival at Wanganui, the Governor, while skirmishing was
going on between the forces and the natives, received certain official despatches from
the Home Government, by which he obtained the first intelligence that Parliament had
bestowed a new Constitution on New Zealand, and that new modes of dealing with
native land were to be adopted concurrently with the new institutions. The despatches,
which had been already published in the London Gazette, contained language regarding
the rights of the natives to their lands that was liable to be misunderstood, and similar
language it appeared had been used during the debate in Parliament on the new
Constitution, and had been republished in newspapers which arrived in the colony at
the same time as the despatches. It seemed quite possible to the Governor, therefore,
that the intention to deprive the natives of their lands, which appeared to be the new
line of policy proposed for adoption, was, in the unsettled state of the country, likely to
give rise to a general national combination among all the native tribes, and thus to
result in a long-continued, destructive and costly war. For these, and _ possibly other
reasons, the Governor thought it his duty to return to the Home Government the
despatches, and the Charter which accompanied them, in order that the subject might be
further considered in England, and also that delay should be obtained in the promulga-
tion and enforcement of documents, which, it was to be feared, would, in their present
unsuitable form, give rise to such serious calamities.

There were many thousands of armed men residing in the centre of the North
Island, who were generically known as the Waikato tribes. At irregular distances along
the sea-coasts were isolated and defenceless European settlements. The Tamaki District
and the shores of the Manukau formed the road by which the northern and southern
tribes went to wage war with one another, and the Governor resolved to occupy this
highway of armed men, which was close to the seat of Government. When Kororareka
was destroyed, Auckland became panic-stricken at its defenceless condition, and now in
the time of peace the occasion seemed opportune to make provision for its permanent
safety against attacks from the south. To ensure this purpose the Governor obtained a
number of discharged soldiers in England, who were enrolled for seven years’ service in
New Zealand, and stationed in four settlements around Auckland. The new force became
known as the “New Zealand Fencibles,” and it has been stated by a competent witness
that all the old veterans thus humanely provided for who deserved success obtained it.
Each man had a cottage built on an acre of land, which became his own, with a claim
for five acres more on completing seven years’ service.

The first detachment arrived in October, 1847, and in a few months this military
colony, with the wives and children, numbered two thousand souls. On the 26th of
February, 1848, Lord Grey writing to the Governor said :—‘1 have very great pleasure
in communicating to you the information that Her Majesty has been pleased to approve
of your being a Knight Commander in the. civil division of the Order of the Bath, for
the great ability and success with which you have administered the affairs, both of
South Australia and of New Zealand.” Two native chiefs, Waka Nene and Te Puni,
were the squires on the occasion of the investiture. In April, 1848, the Ngatiawa tribe,

1018 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

led by William King, with some six hundred followers, migrated from Waikanae, Cook
Strait, to Taranaki, locating themselves on the south bank of the Waitara River, which
had been from time immemorial their ancestral home. They had gone southwards earlier
in the century by pressure from the Waikato tribes, and the desire to obtain land in the
vicinity of Cook Strait, where the whale-ships brought guns and ammunition for barter.

After the Governor had arrived in New Zealand he received official advice that a
sum of ten thousand pounds had been placed to his credit, to be applied to the
purchase of native lands for the purposes of colonization. He was thus enabled to
secure sites for the settlements of Otago and Canterbury, that were founded in the
years 1848 and 1850 respectively. Otago was settled by the members of the Free
Church of Scotland, and on the 22nd of March and the 15th of April, 1848, the first
emigrant vessels, the /ohn Wickliffe and the Phzljp Lang, arrived at Port Chalmers.
Three vessels, with the first body of settlers, under the auspices of the Canterbury
Association, the Charlotte Jane, the Randolph and the Sir George Seymour, arrived in
Lyttleton Harbour on the 16th and 17th of December, 1850, and were received by the
Governor, who was awaiting their arrival.

In July, 1850, the New Zealand Company gave their Charter of Incorporation back
to the Crown. No clear statement of its financial affairs has ever been published, but
the Company appears to have received nearly a million of money, all of which was
spent save some thirty thousand pounds, and to have been indebted to the share-holders
and the Government at the time of relinquishing their Charter, to the extent of some
five hundred thousand pounds. The sum of two hundred and thirty-six thousand pounds
owing to the Government by the Company was cancelled, and two hundred and sixty-eight

thousand three hundred and seventy pounds was made a charge on the lands of the colony. .

PoLiricAL PROGRESS.

In 1852, a representative Constitution was granted to New Zealand under the
Imperial Act, 15 and 16 Vict. c. 72. It was just about this time that the agitation in
the same direction on the part of the mother-colony showed signs of being crowned
with success. The long-continued and reiterated representations of the colonists on the
subject had at length begun to produce some effect on the Colonial Office, and public
opinion in England was being rapidly educated up to recognizing the right of people at
the antipodes to govern themselves and make laws to suit their own local circumstances.
Sir John Packington, the Colonial Secretary, was mainly guided by Sir George Grey’s
recommendations in framing the New Zealand Constitution. Six provinces were created
—Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, Otago and Taranaki—the Governor defining
their boundaries. Superintendents were to be elective, but the Governor had the power
to veto the Bills passed in the Provincial Assemblies. The first election took place in
1853. The General Assembly was to consist of the Governor, a House of Representa-
tives, composed of thirty-seven Members, and a Legislative Council, to consist of fourteen
persons, the right to nominate all of whom was vested in the Crown.

Sir George Grey distinguished his term of rule by remarkable zeal in the public
service. He arrived in the colony at thirty-three years of age, full of activity, and fresh

from his experience as Governor of South Australia. He had already earned a name

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1019

for himself in Australian history by his services in connection with the work of explora-
tion in Western Australia, where he received a spear-wound of which the effects
remained. Captain Grey published an account of his travels in the interior which is
one of the most remarkable contributions to the literature of the story of that once
mysterious waste, rivalling the journals of Sturt for vivid word-painting and _ realistic
descriptive power. He brought to New Zealand the same qualities of energy and zeal
that first earned him the notice of the Colonial Office. He established many boarding-
schools for the poor and the destitute children of all races in the South Pacific. There
were separate establishments for boys and girls under the control of various religious
bodies that had Missions in New Zealand, presided over by married persons who
resided on the premises with the children. Supported by endowments, the pupils received
an industrial training
coupled with religious and
secular instruction. They
were especially taught
English, with a view to
making it the standard
language of the Pacific;
and as this supplemented
the efforts of the Mission

schools, the result was that

in a very few years many
of the native population CHRISTCHURCH IN 1852.
of the younger generation
could read and write, and had the advantage of being trained in European habits.

Endowed hospitals were also established in various parts of the colony, on the same
principle of being open to all races in the Pacific Islands. His Excellency also devised
a constitution for the Church of New Zealand, which has since been adopted in Canada
and Ireland. The fact that he had originated the frame-work of the constitution of the
New Zealand Church was made known only by the statement of Bishop Selwyn when
he was leaving the colony to return to his diocese of Lichfield, in 1867. Sir George
Grey left the colony on the last day of the year 1853. Since the Wanganui trouble
in 1842, peace had prevailed all over New Zealand. The European population, which
numbered twelve thousand seven hundred and seventy-four in 1845, had increased in
1853 to thirty thousand six hundred and seventy-eight souls. The revenue in 1845 was
twelve thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine pounds; in 1853 it amounted to one hun-
dred and forty-seven thousand eight hundred and twenty pounds. His wise and steadfast
rule brought prosperity to the country and he left it in peace. On his arrival in
England he was made a “D.C.L.” of the University of Oxford, and the demonstrative
undergraduates, when the title was conferred, gaye a round of cheers for the “ King -of
the Cannibal Islands.” © |

Upon Colonel Wynyard of the Fifty-eighth Regiment, as senior military officer,
devolved the Government of the country on the departure of Sir George Grey. He-
had lately been elected Superintendent of the province of Auckland, and, according to

1020 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

the Secretary of State, should have resigned the Superintendency when called upon to
administer the Government of the colony. By a proclamation dated on the 18th of
January, the General Assembly was called together on the 24th of May, 1854. Mr.
Charles Clifford, of Wellington, was elected Speaker of the Lower House, and Mr,
William Swainson, the Attorney-General, appointed to preside over the Council. As soon
almost as the Assembly met, a difficulty arose, as there was no provision laid down in
the Constitution Act for what was called Ministerial responsibility, the Act having left
it open for the colony to choose the form of its Executive Government. The offices
of Colonial Secretary, Treasurer and Attorney-General were ‘held from the Crown, and
their holders formed, with the Governor, the Executive Council of the colony. To the
demand for responsible Government, Colonel Wynyard replied by adding to the Execu-
tive Council Messrs. Edward Fitzgerald, Henry Sewell and Frederick Aloysius Weld,
who were influential Members of the Housé of Representatives. But this arrangement —
did not work smoothly. Misunderstandings arose between the Executive Officers holding
their appointments from the Crown, and the popular Ministers, who resigned, and were
succeeded by Messrs. Thomas Spencer Forsaith, Edward Jerningham Wakefield, William
Thomas Locke Travers and James Macandrew.

The mixed Cabinet, however, did not work satisfactorily, as more than one Ministry
resigned office before the 16th of September, on which date the Assembly was _pro-
rogued. An address to the Governor expressed a willingness of the House to grant
supplies to a Government conducted by the old Executive Council until instructions
were received from England respecting Ministerial responsibility; and on this under-
standing several Bills became law, the most important of which gave the Provincial
Councils the management of the waste-lands of the several provinces. Next year the
Assembly commenced business on the 8th of August, when the officer administering the
Government informed the Assembly that Her Majesty’s Ministers had no objection to the
establishment of responsible Government, provided the Colonial Secretary, the Colonial
Treasurer and the Attorney-General were pensioned; and that no enactment was necessary
for the formation of responsible Government, as the practice rested on usage only.
Colonel Gore Browne, who was to succeed Sir George Grey as Governor, arrived in
Auckland on the 15th of September, and prorogued the Assembly. Colonel Wynyard’s
Administration, extending over some twenty months, was alike peaceful and prosperous,
no events of special moment marking his term. |

A new Parliament was chosen, after the sittings of two years, to enable the people
to elect Members from whom responsible Ministers could be chosen; it met at Auckland
in May, 1856. Colonel Browne visited, in the recess, the settlements of New Plymouth,
Nelson, Wellington, Canterbury and Otaga, and found the European population, which
numbered some forty-five thousand souls, busily and profitably occupied. The revenue
of the colony was one hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds, while when Captain
Fitzroy left New Zealand. it was only twenty-six thousand six hundred and forty-five
pounds. This was an unmistakable indication of prosperity. In the new House of
Representatives, Mr. Clifford, of Wellington, was again chosen Speaker, and three Minis-
tries, between the 7th of May and the 2nd of June, succeeded one another. The first

passed a Pension Bill, giving to the officers appointed by the Crown two-thirds of their

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1021

salaries as retiring allow-
ances, leaving the poli-
ticians a clear field for
their exercise of “ Minis-
terial responsibility.”
The third Ministry,
known as the ‘ Stafford,”
held office for more than
five years, and left a
permanent influence on
the future history of the

colony. The Assembly,

AUCKLAND HARBOUR FROM CEMETERY GULLY.

on its first meeting in
1854, soon made manifest the fact that the politicians were divided into two parties,

called the “ Centralists” and the “Provincialists ;’ or those who wished the General Assembly

1022 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

to have control over all affairs, while the ‘ Provincialists” desired that the general and
local functions of the colony should be relegated to the Provincial Councils, Mr.
Stafford, who formed the first permanent Ministry, was a ‘“Centralist,” but he held
no office himself for six months after its formation in June, 1856, until the November
following, when he became Colonial Secretary. Mr. Stafford and three practicing lawyers
divided the portfolios among them, the lawyers being Messrs. Whitaker, Richmond and
Sewell. For ten years the colonists had been clamouring for “responsible Government,”
being desirous of escaping from the control of the Colonial Office. It was now to be
seen what they would do with it. Thomson tells. us how, before leaving England,
Colonel Browne had an interview with Lord Elgin, the ex-Governor General of Canada,
who impressed upon him the easy life a Governor led who reigned over a colony and
left the ruling part of it to responsible advisers, and it appeared that Colonel Browne
intended to follow Lord Elgin’s advice. But the “responsible Ministry” of 1856 was
clogged with one restriction which threw the most troublesome portion of the Govern-
ment of the colony on the Governor. The purchase of land, and the laws, and all
things specially affecting the natives, were to be regarded as matters of Imperial concern,
and, as such, under the Governor's especial control. Ministerial responsibility did not
yet include responsibility in native affairs. Such were the circumstances under which

responsible Government was brought into operation.

Tue Native DIFFIcu.ty.

About the time when the General Assembly first met in Auckland, and the Govern-
ment of the colony was given into the hands of the colonists, there arose in the native
mind two desires. One was to provide a local form of Government for the race; the
other was to discountenance the sale of native lands. Both were regarded by the ruling
colonists as inimical to the welfare and progress of the colony. The native race wanted
leading rather than restraint, and Governor Browne was quite unable to direct the “king
movement” whither it should have been led. Early in his term of office it began to
expand, and though he arranged with his Ministers that he should remain responsible for
native affairs, he saw only with their eyes and followed their advice, because he had no
other knowledge or experience to guide him in cases of perplexity. The responsibility
remained with the Governor, but the control of events rested mainly with his Ministers,
who began to sap the power that was divided.

In May, 1857, a Maori meeting was held on the banks of the Waikato River,
when Te Wherowhero, who had written to the Queen on the death of Governor
Hobson, was elected King under the style of “Potatau, King of New Zealand,” and
the flag given to the natives by William the Fourth was hoisted as a symbol of his
sovereignty. The object of the movement, which was directed by a chief of great intel-
ligence named William Thompson, was to obtain law and order, and to replace the
power of the chiefs which the advent of the Europeans had almost destroyed. The
importance of this movement was at once recognized. “If the Government,” wrote
Governor Browne when reporting this meeting to the Secretary of State, “does not
take the lead and direction of the native movement into its own hands, the time will
pass when it will be possible to do so.” In the following year, 1858, he held a different

fHfISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1023

opinion; as when writing to the Colonial Office he said, “I trust that time and absolute
indifference, and neglect on the part of the Government, will teach the natives the folly
of proceedings undertaken only by the promptings of vanity and instigated by dis-
appointed advisers.” It was not long before his language took a more decided tone, and
it became the custom to speak of the Maori desire for a king as a treasonable combination.

Meanwhile, a number of acts on the part of the Europeans seemed to indicate
whither events were tending. The first Ordinance enacted by Governor Grey on_ his
arrival in New Zealand was to regulate the importation and sale of arms. This Ordinance
was repealed in 1857, and shops for the sale of warlike stores were opened by Europeans
in different settlements. The
natives purchased many thou-
sand stand of arms, and large
quantities of ammunition; ten
years of peaceful prosperity
having made them compara-
tively rich through supplying
the Europeans with produce.
Thompson, who was a careful
observer of what took place,
says “every vessel from Aus-
tralia brought cheap guns for
the Maori trade.”

The session of 1858 was
indicative of the latent native
policy of the Government. It
was so hostilely dealt with by
the Legislative Council that it
was passed only under the
threat of Ministerial resigna-
tion. Early in 1859 the Gov-
ernor visited the settlement
at New Plymouth, when he
declared to the natives that
it was his intention to adopt
a new policy in the purchase

of native lands, and to treat

with individual claimants, dis-

regarding tribal rights and the WILLIAM THOMPSON, THE MAORI KING-MAKER.
influence of the chiefs; in other

words, to impress the English land system of the nineteenth century on a race whose
customs regarding land resembled in a great measure those in vogue among the Irish
people under the Brehon traditions. When the new policy of land-purchasing was_intro-
duced by the Governor, upwards of thirty million acres had been obtained from the native

owners for purposes of colonization, of which not more than a quarter of a million were

1024 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

under cultivation. The people of Taranaki considered they were straitened for room to
expand, and wanted an extension of territory towards the mouth of the River Waitara,
and an individual native was put forward to sell a portion of the tribal estate to the
Government. A Maori named Teira offered the Governor a block of land at Waitara for
sale: it was some six hundred acres in extent, and endeared to the owners by historical
recollections, being the first landing-place of the tribe some twenty-five or thirty genera-
tions previously. Areas had consequently been allotted by. their ancestors or the heads
of different families, and subdivided into allotments for different persons. Each allotment
was marked out by natural or artificial boundaries, and each family knew what belonged
to itself and what to others. The chief of Waitara, William King, acting as the repre-
sentative of the tribe, opposed the sale, telling the Governor. personally that this land
should not be sold, but kept as an inheritance for the tribe. The Governor, however,
reported to the Secretary of State that while he did not fear that William King would
continue to maintain his assumed right, he had made every preparation to enforce obedience
should he presume to do so. William King did, however, maintain his right, and from
these events sprang the Taranaki War of 1860, which lingered until May, 1861, and
resulted in nothing except the temporary ruin of Taranaki.
On the 23rd of the month the Governor was informed that he would be superseded
by Sir George Grey, of whom the Secretary of State said, “he should be neglecting a
chance of averting a more general and disastrous war if he neglected to avail himself
of the remarkable authority which will attach to his name and character as Governor.
of New Zealand.” Sir George Grey landed at Auckland on the 26th of September, -
1861, and on the 3rd of October following Colonel Gore Browne left the colony. The
new Governor found the natives confident in their united strength of being able to cope
with the European settlers, as through the late conflict they had, -by skilfully devised
retreats, almost uniformly succeeded in evading defeat, while the damage their warlike
and predatory habits inflicted on the settlers was of a most distressing kind. War to a
Maori was little more than an occasional interlude in his ordinary life, while to the
West of England men by whom the New Plymouth settlement was largely peopled, it
was a disruption of all their social and business relations. Nor would the Colonial Office
regard with any satisfaction the cost of the conflict, which Sir George Grey found to
have.amounted to eighty-seven thousand pounds. The Duke of Newcastle became accus-
tomed to write of the conflict as the “Settlers’ War.” One good result of the change
of Governors made itself apparent. Colonel Browne had directed that preparation should
be made for commencing a war against the Waikato tribes, who had, from. their inter-
course with the settlers, acquired a general coating of civilization. They had_ schools
and school-masters, places of worship and religious teachers, fenced and tilled lands, and
agricultural implements and appliances diffused over a wide area. Sir George Grey, who
had been charged some fifteen years before with carrying the spirit of peace into
the councils of war, now considered it wiser to establish peace and order than to carry
slaughter into such districts.
The Stafford Ministry had fallen in July, 1861, and was succeeded by an Adminis-
tration formed by Mr. Fox, who had been an emfloyé of the New Zealand Company,

and an active agent in the agitation that was fostered among the colonists to promote
t

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1025
the establishment of what they called responsible Government. Mr. Fox had long been
a political opponent of the Governor. By the commencement of November, 1861, Sir
George Grey had formulated a scheme for the local Government of the race, under the
provisions of which he proposed to utilize the authority and capacity of the native chiefs,
in conjunction with European police magistrates, in making and maintaining laws affecting
the social welfare of the Maori. He believed that if a local form of Government of
the character indicated were introduced into native districts the causes of contention
between the Maori
people and the Legis-
lature would be con-
siderably lessened.
Early in his second
Government he deter-
mined that the divi-
sion of authority be-
tween the Governor
and Ministers should
be abolished, and that
upon native, as on
other affairs, the Gov-

MAORI CANOE OBSTACLE RACE.
ernor should rely on

the advice of his Ministry; and on the 3oth of May, 1862, Imperial control over
native affairs was abandoned. ,

Ever since his return to the colony, his Excellency had regarded with suspicion the
purchase of the Waitara block, over the possession of which so much blood and treasure
had been expended. Having caused the title to be carefully examined, he learned. to
his surprise that’ the land had never been obtained from its rightful, owners, and that
even the full amount of the purchase-money promised to the seller had not been paid.
Teira, from whom the Government claimed the right to occupy, subsequently avowed
that he had no right to sell, and the whole transaction on his part appears to have
been a device to obtain satisfaction for a slight put upon him by William King in a
private quarrel. The actual merits of this case had been laid bare in a decisive speech
by Mr. T. S. Forsaith in his place in the Assembly, in 1860—a speech which led to
the defeat of the Ministry of that day. The Governor now accepted the position, and the
claim’ of the colony to the land was renounced by .proclamation on the 11th of May,
1863. On the 4th of June following, hostilities were recommenced in the province of
Taranaki, and the wider area of the Waikato and portions of the east coast became
involved in an insurrection of the native tribes who were desirous of measuring their
strength against the Europeans. A narrative of these wars in a connected form will be
given later on. It may be here stated that while they resulted in the subjugation of
the natives, they had for a time a disastrous effect upon the colonization of the North ©
Island. The Domett Ministry, which succeeded to office in August, 1862, proposed in
the year following, when the insurrection was evidently spreading, to establish military
settlements on native lands owned by insurgent tribes. The confiscation of land was an

1026 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

idea familiar to the native mind, as a tribe worsted in conflict often suffered a loss of
tribal estate as a consequence of defeat. So well was this mode of punishment under-
stood by both races, that when the missionaries, who had much influence in the Bay
of Islands, proposed, in 1838, the confiscation of the lands of a Maori malefactor, they
found the other natives approving of the suggestion, and aiding its enforcement. In the
outbreak of Heke and Kawiti, in 1845, the Rev. H. Williams and Mr. G. Clarke both
advised the Governor to confiscate the lands of the insurgents. Insecurity of office,
however, prevented the Domett Administration from confiscating land. A Whitaker-Fox
Ministry came .into power at the end of October, 1863, and the “New Zealand Settle-
ment Act” was passed in the December following. Under its operation three million
eight hundred and eighty-four thousand four hundred and_ thirty-seven acres were confis-
cated in the provinces of Wellington, Taranaki and Auckland; and, though the Imperial
Government looked askance at the Enactment, it was affirmed.

In November, 1864, the seat of Government was removed from Auckland to
Wellington, Cook Strait, in consequence of an agitation for a more-central position from
which to direct the Administration of the colony, there being at that period very few
telegraphs, and indifferent and irregular communication by sea. In July, 1866, the
Governor announced the cessation of the war, and in the November following Sir G,
F, Bowen was appointed Sir George Grey’s successor. With Sir George Grey’s term of
office the personal authority of the Governors of New Zealand may be said to have
ended, and Ministerial responsibility to have been fully established. When Sir George
Bowen commenced his term of Governorship in February, 1868, the Ministry was presided
over by Mr. Stafford, who succeeded Mr. Weld, the latter having held office as Premier
for about eleven months. In June, 1868, an outbreak took place among the natives, led
by Titokowaru, on the west coast of the North Island, resulting in what was known as
the “West Coast Campaign.” During the month following some political prisoners confined
on the Chatham Islands, led by Te Kooti, effected their escape in a schooner named the
Rifleman, and, proceeding to the east coast, commenced a guerrilla warfare which continued
two years before it was brought to a conclusion. Among the terrors of this warfare was
the “Poverty Bay Massacre,” on the 9th of November, 1868, when twenty-nine Europeans
and thirty-two natives were murdered. On the 12th February, 1869, eight people were
massacred at the White Cliffs, in the province of Taranaki; the Rev. John Whitely, a

Wesleyan preacher, being among the number.

Tue Pustic Po.icy.

In June, 1869, Mr. William Fox became Premier, having Mr. Vogel associated with
him as Colonial Treasurer. The colony had felt the war acutely, and the North was
somewhat exhausted by the strain placed upon its capacities. Mr. Vogel, however, in
the session of 1870, initiated a new departure in the policy of the country, founded on
the belief that the natives could be more easily dealt with by constructing roads and
railroads, and by the increase of European population by immigration, than by the old —
recognized modes of procedure, while the whole colony would be beneficially affected, he
maintained, by the stimulus of the money borrowed for the purposes indicated. He

proposed to obtain six million sterling by way of loan for defence, immigration, public

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND, 1027

works and other purposes. His policy was almost unanimously adopted, and the colony
entered upon its career of public works and immigration. At the end of the year 1870,
New Zealand contained a European population of two hundred and forty-eight thousand,
having increased threefold in number since the commencement of the Taranaki War’ in
1860. The revenue at that date, which was four hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds,
had expanded in the next ten years to one million three hundred and eighty-four thou-
sand. Exports and imports had a corresponding increment, and land under cultivation,
sheep, and horned cattle, had increased
sevenfold. From the date of the ac-
ceptance by the Legislature of Mr.
Vogel’s proposals, in August, 1870, to
October, 1877, the Administration of
the country continued in the hands of
the same persons, though some seven
different combinations gave cause for
a corresponding change in the nomen-
clature of Ministries. The public debt,
which in 1870 amounted to seven
million eight hundred and forty thou-
sand pounds, or thirty-one pounds per’
European inhabitant, in 1877 had risen
to twenty million seven hundred thou-
sand pounds, or fifty pounds per
European inhabitant; but the borrowed

money had, among other things, enabled

the Government to construct over a

thousand miles of railway. Meanwhile,

SIR WILLIAM JERVOIS.

Sir James Fergusson and the Marquis ‘

of Normanby had respectively succeeded Sir George Bowen as Governors, and the
provinces, as institutions of the colony, had been abolished.

In 1875, Sir George Grey entered the arena of colonial politics, and in October,
1877, succeeded in ousting an Administration led by Major Atkinson, that had earned
for itself the name of ‘“ Continuous.” He formed a Ministry composed mainly of young
men of great ability, and succeeded in holding office for two years. As a _ noteworthy
ripple on the stream of public life, it may be mentioned that Sir George Grey had as
a colleague a Mr. John Sheehan, who was the first native of European parentage elected
as a representative of the people to the Parliament of New Zealand. His capacity and
aptitude for public business afforded evidence of the swiftness of the current of events,
the youth of the colony being now qualified not only to take part in its councils but
to assist in controlling the public business and policy of the country.

The Government having confiscated in 1864 more land than the settlers could utilize,
a portion of the alienated territory remained unoccupied, and in the province of Taranaki
fell into the possession of the original owners, who built houses, made cultivations, and

exercised other rights of ownership thereon. A promise had also been given to the Maori

1028 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

residents of Taranaki that the Government would give them a certain sum per acre as
a solatium for the confiscation of their -land, and as time passed and the occupiers
remained undisturbed, actual ownership and exclusive possession were at times some-
what offensively asserted. Religious fanaticism gave cohesion to the occupiers of the

confiscated lands in Taranaki, and caused them to gain adherents from many places,

until a large settlement became established in the Ngatiruanui country at a place called ©

Parihaka, under the leadership of a Maori called Te Whiti. - In 1881, on the anniversary
of Gunpowder Plot, the Colonial Forces, under the command of Colonel Roberts, invested
the Maori village, took prisoners the two leaders of the movement, Te Whiti and Tohu,
dispersed the residents, and destroyed their habitations. In the absence of Sir Arthur
Gordon at Fiji, the Ministry of the day carried out the dispersion by methods which
his Excellency disapproved of, as he considered them of an illegal character.

This was the last .occasion upon which the peace of the colony was in danger of
being broken by the Maori people, all the tribes having either become reconciled to the

dominion of the European race, or lacking the power and desire to organize a resistance.

In the census of March, 1886, there were forty-one thousand six hundred and twenty-

seven Maoris and half-castes living as members of Maori tribes; while in 1858, when
the first Maori census of the colony was taken, their numbers were declared to
have been fifty-six thousand and forty-nine. These figures are those officially furnished
by the Government,

The State has for many years been active in devising expedients to improve the
condition of its people. In the year 1869 an Act was passed enabling the Government
to grant life assurances and annuities on the security of the colonial revenue, and the
Government Insurance Department is now one of the most prominent institutions in the
State. In 1873, there was founded the Public Trust Office, by which it was sought to
ensure the faithful discharge of trusts, to relieve persons from the responsibilities of
trusteeship, and to substitute a permanent officer of the Civil Service in place of
guardians. The office grows yearly in favour with the public. The Government of the
colony always manifested a reluctance to divert any of its revenues from colonizing
works to costly schemes of coastal defence. New Zealand was more backward in this
respect than any of the Australian Colonies, and it is probably due to this fact that
the Imperial Government, in January, 1883, appointed Sir William Jervois Governor of
the colony. His Excellency, by lectures and personal influence, aroused public atten-
tion to the risk which New Zealand would run in the event of an European war, and
under his direction the chief ports have been strongly fortified and furnished with effec-
tive battery and torpedo defences. As a result of the native wars, there is at the
present time a large military element in the population, and New Zealand is now one
of the best equipped of the Australian colonies for putting down any insurrection that may

arise within its own borders, and also for repelling any attack of foreign foe.

Heke’s War.

The first serious outbreak on the part of the Maoris» after the proclamation of
British sovereignty, took place in the Bay of Islands District in March, 1845, and led

to an intermittent warfare of ten months’ duration. From the name of the insurgent

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1029

chief it has become known as “Heke’s War.” It was the immediate consequence of local
discontents arising out of the removal of the seat of Government from Kororareka,
coupled with an impatience of the~restraints incidental to the assertion of civilized
authority among a warlike and high-spirited people. Coincidentally with the rise of Auck-
land, trade began to decline rapidly at the older settlement. The imposition of customs
duties, by still further discouraging trade, intensified. the depression. But native sensi-
bilities were wounded more deeply by the interdiction of free traffic in land, and the
promulgation of the Crown’s right of pre-emption.
These enactments carried to their minds the first
direct intimation that they were in -a_ subservient
position, and that the paramount power of their own
chiefs had been superseded. To cap all, the foreign
demand for the staple products of timber, flax and
kauri-gum fell off very materially. Money became
scarce, tobacco, blankets and ammunition were hard
to procure, and the Government that forbade the
sale of Maori lands to private persons had not the
means of purchasing much itself. Finally, the passion
of tribal jealousy was stirred into activity in the breasts
of the malcontents. They perceived with chagrin
that the trade which was now so rapidly disappearing
from them had commenced to enrich their bitterest
enemies—the Waikato and Ngatiwhatua tribes—who
were settled in the neighbourhood of Auckland.

A crisis was fast approaching, and with the hour
came the man. Hone Heke, though not a chief of
the highest rank, had won a position for himself
among the martial and Ngapuhi tribe by his marriage
with the daughter of the celebrated Hongi—the
Napoleon of early New Zealand—and also by his

own masterful talents. Deeply imbued with patriotic

feeling, emulous of the fame of his great relation,
and of a pragmatical turn of mind, he gradually HONE HEKE.

acquired considerable influence with both Maoris and

Europeans. Baptized a Christian, and appointed a lay reader of the Church of England,
his intellectual ability and love of argument led him to contest after a time some of
the tenets he had embraced, and he soon came to be regarded as an apostate from
the faith, Superadded to his other qualifications, he was possessed of a faculty for
diplomacy and a spirit of indomitable courage that eminently fitted him to act as a
leader of his tribe. As early as 1841, he had gathered round him a party of followers,
chiefly young men, who yielded him implicit obedience. Backed up by these, he consti-
tuted himself a kind of champion for the redress, of Maori grievances; and, in some
instances, acted as arbitrator between Europeans in their private quarrels. It was but

natural, therefore, that such a man should take deeply to heart the declining prosperity

1030 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

of his tribes-men, and the encroachment of the alien race upon the hitherto irresponsible
authority and privileges of the aboriginal chiefs. His growing disaffection was fomented
by some of the white settlers, a few of whom, being of other nationalities, pointed to
the British flag which had been erected on the hill of Maiki, overlooking Kororareka,
as the symbol of the new order of things and the sign that the mana (authority) had
departed from the chiefs. To the superstitious minds of Heke and his followers it was
invested with the significance of all that was distasteful to them, and they became
convinced that if it were only removed the good old days that they now so much
lamented would magically return.

Early in July, 1844, a trivial circumstance precipitated the first overt act against
British authority. A Ngapuhi woman, married to a European resident at Kororareka
named Lord, cursed Heke and called him a pig. Heke forthwith collected a hundred
men, marched to the settlement, plundered Lord’s house and carried off the woman to
his own place at Kaikohe. Lord offered a cask of ‘tobacco for her return, and as tu,
or payment, for her conduct. Heke promptly sent her back, but Lord declined to fulfill
his share of the transaction. The enraged chief again repaired to Kororareka at the
head of an armed force, spent Saturday and Sunday in pillaging several stores and
menacing the settlers, and on Monday morning, the 8th of July, mounted the hill and
cut down the obnoxious flag-staff, carrying away the signal-balls with him to Kaikohe.
The news of this act of open defiance was received in Auckland with dismay. There
were only a hundred or so of troops in the entire colony, not a single defensible position,
and a scarcity of munitions of war, while the primitive respect of the natives for the
power and determination of the white man had been rudely shaken by the immunity
enjoyed by the perpetrators of the ‘“Wairau Massacre” in the preceding year.

Governor Fitzroy saw clearly, however, that to hesitate or temporize would be
suicidal, and therefore dispatched thirty men of the Ninety-sixth Regiment to Kororareka.
He also made application to Sir George Gipps (Governor of New South Wales) for
immediate re-inforcements. In prompt response to this urgent request, one hundred and
sixty men of the Ninety-ninth Regiment arrived from Sydney, and these, with a detach-
ment of fifty men of the Ninety-sixth Regiment from Auckland, and two light guns,
disembarked at Kororareka, the entire force being under the command of Lieutenant-
Colonel Hulme, of the Ninety-sixth, //7.4Z.S. Hazard followed with the Governor and

fifty seamen and Marines under Commander Robertson. While preparations were being

made for the operations against the rebel chief, the Governor held several meetings with
the natives, and finding out that the customs duties were a cause of very general
dissatisfaction, took upon himself the responsibility of closing the Custom House and
declaring Kororareka a free port. The troops had been moved to the mouth of the
Kerikeri River, and they were about to march inland to Kaikohe, when Mr. George
Clarke (Chief Protector of Aborigines) arrived from Waimate, bearing a message from
an assemblage of the principal Ngapuhi chiefs desiring that the troops should not be

landed at Kerikeri, acknowledging Heke’s culpability and undertaking to be answerable —

for his future good conduct. They also solicited the favour of a conference. The

Governor accepted the proffered compromise, and promptly met the friendly native chiefs at —

Waimate. They repeated their assurances, agreed that the flag-staff should be replaced;

{

ieee Mille) SMA

_
rr

AE Fa ala O Te ANN A ae om ny

nis

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1031

and, as compensation for Heke’s wrong-doing, offered to surrender some land or other
property. The Governor would accept only ten old muskets, and even these he returned,
while in compliance with the compact he ordered the withdrawal of the troops. In order
to still further allay discontent, the Legislative Council in October arrived at the deter-
mination to permit the natives to sell land direct to settlers. Meanwhile, Heke all this
time had been lying at Kaikohe a passive spectator of events. Resenting the engage-
ment of the chiefs to keep him in order, and emboldened by the concessions that his
demonstration of force
had wrung from the
Authorities, he made
up his mind to again
hew down the flag-
staff. Accordingly he
repaired with his
followers to Korora-
reka early in January,
cut down the flag-staff
by night, and after
sending word to the
magistrate that he
would return in two

months to destroy the

MANGONUI.

Gaol and the Custom
House, and to send away the officers of the Government, he retired again to Kaikohe.
A proclamation was at once issued offering a reward of one hundred pounds for the apprehen-
sion of Heke, and Heke retaliated by offering a similar sum for Governor Fitzroy’s head.
In February, /7.47.S. Hazard was dispatched to Kororareka with a musket-proof
block-house to be erected at the flag-staff, and fifty men of the Ninety-sixth Regiment
under two officers to garrison the small fortress. This time the new flag-staff was
sheathed with iron, a stockade was constructed, some light guns were mounted, and the
settlers were armed and drilled. Everything now presaged a stern conflict. A force of
twenty soldiers, under Ensign Campbell, guarded the British flag. Commander Robert-
son, with forty Marines, was in charge of a gun commanding Matauhi Bay; half-way
between the summit of the Hill and the beach stood the stockade, with two guns in
front, and Mr. Polack’s house on the beach was garrisoned with soldiers, Marines and_
settlers.. Nor was Heke idle. He had emissaries travelling through the country as far
north as Mangonui, and as far south as Whangarei, inciting the natives to rise. The
chief Kawiti joined him with a large body of armed men, and other accessions followed.
Early in March, Heke and Kawiti moved with their forces to the neighbourhood of
Kororareka, and some acts of horse-stealing on their part led to an exchange of shots
with the troops. Lieutenant Philpott of the Royal Navy was captured, but after being
detained some time, and having one of his pistols taken from him, he was released and
advised to be more careful of himself in future.
On the night of the 1oth of March, Heke marched his forces towards Kororareka,

1032 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

posted Kawiti, with some two hundred men, on the road leading into the settlement from
Matauhi Bay, so as to cope with Commander Robertson and his detachment of Marines ;
and then, climbing the Hill, he lay down in ambush with about twenty men, only one
hundred yards distant from the flag-staff. Before daylight on the 11th, Kawiti attacked
Commander Robertson's position, and the noise of the firing having drawn Ensign
Campbell and his men outside the block-house to ascertain what was going on, Heke
and his braves bounded into the stronghold, shot the only soldier who had remained
behind, and drove Campbell and the others in disorder down the Hill. Heke then
proceeded to cut down the flag-staff. In the meantime, Robertson had been defending
his position with great stubbornness, but when he saw the soldiers scampering down the
Hill, he spiked his gun and also fell back to Mr. Polack’s house on the beach, where
the whole defensive force was now collected. Re-inforced by a party of sailors from the
Hazard, which was keeping up an active cannonade, the settlers and troops defended
themselves for three hours from the rebels, while the Women and children were embarking
on the vessels in harbour. After they had got safely off, the powder-magazine on shore
exploded; and, the strength of the enemy, being evidently overestimated, it was then
decided to abandon the settlement. In astonishment at a contingency they had never
anticipated, the insurgent natives saw the whole of the troops and inhabitants betaking
themselves to Her Majesty’s ship Hazard, the United States corvette 7. Lows, the
whale-ship J/ate/da and the schooner Dolphin. They offered no molestation, but. when
the settlement was quite deserted they began to pillage. Some of the settlers ventured
on shore again to secure valuables, and the natives, instead of exhibiting any blood-
thirstiness, actually assisted them to remove articles to the beach. Children left behind
in the confusion of flight were sent uninjured to their parents; and, earlier in the fight,
the wife of the signal-man having been taken prisoner, she was forwarded by Heke under
a flag of truce to the nearest British post. In fact, this chief, throughout the troubles,
excited a sentiment of admiration by his chivalry and magnanimity. After the town had
been looted, the greater part of it was given to the flames; but, by the order of Heke,
the buildings at the southern end, comprising the English Church, the Roman Catholic
Bishop’s house and printing office, several warehouses (the property of Americans), and
the Roman Catholic Chapel to the north, were preserved. During the engagement,
Bishop Selwyn (Anglican), and Bishop Pompallier (Roman Catholic), succoured the

wounded, and while the looting and burning were going on several of the missionaries

visited the settlement with perfect freedom. One of them, the Rey. R. Burrowes, relates

that he met one Maori with a bottle of lollies, from which he was regaling himself with
great gusto, and that “the noble savage” offered him some of the sweetmeats.

In this affair at Kororareka, six seamen, four soldiers and one half-caste child were
slain; and twenty settlers, soldiers and seamen were wounded. Amongst the latter were
numbered Commander Robertson, whose thigh had been shattered by a bullet, and Lieu-
tenant Morgan, both of the //azard. It was computed that about thirty-four of the
natives fell, and that between fifty and sixty thousand pounds’ worth of property was
destroyed. On the 13th of March, the vessels sailed with the soldiers and inhabitants for
Auckland, where their arrival with the news of the evacuation of Kororareka created

quite a panic. Barracks were built, block-houses hastily constructed, the settlers called

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1033

out for militia -service, the windows of St. Paul’s Church barricaded, and an earth-work
was thrown up near the Roman Catholic Chapel, while an urgent appeal for troops was
made to New South Wales. Like precautions for self-defence were taken at Wellington
and Nelson. The effect of the fall of Kororareka upon the native mind was disastrous
to British prestige. Heke’s fame spread like wild-fire through both Islands, and respect
for the military prowess of the English correspondingly declined. All sorts of sensational
rumours kept the unfortunate settlers in a state of constant alarm. Heke was reported
to have declared his intention of marching, with
two thousand men, at the next full moon to
Auckland, for the purpose of sacking it. In
consequence of this alleged menace, Potatau Te
Wherowhero, the chief of the Waikatos, and
subsequently King, sent Heke the following warn-
ing message :—‘“ Remain at your own settlement.
This is my word: you must. fight me (the
Waikatos) if you come on to Auckland, for
these Europeans are under my protection.”

But Heke had other and equally strong
reasons for staying where he was. Tamati Waka
Nene, the most influential chief of the Ngapuhi, in
accordance with the compact made with the Gov-
ernor at Waimate, collected his followers at Hoki-
anga and marched across to the Bay of Islands
in order to take the field against his turbulent
compatriot. Some of the missionaries tried to
dissuade Waka from at once entering upon active
hostilities, and at their advice he dictated a
letter to the Governor intimating that he was
ready. While awaiting a reply, he encamped at
Okaihau, some four or five miles inland, and
summoned other chiefs to his assistance. On
the 1st of April, Heke, who had three hundred

armed men with him, was strengthened by TAMATI WAKA NENE.

the arrival of one hundred and fifty natives

from Whangaroa, and the same day he moved on to Mawhe, a settlement distant
about two miles from Okaihau, and began constructing a fahk there. Heke had
been manifesting some desire to effect a peace with the Authorities, but his hopes were
frustrated by the commencement of skirmishing between his own forces and those of
Waka on the 3rd of April, losses on both sides being the result. Further skirmishing
took place on the 8th and the r5th of April, and on the 16th of April the majority of the
Whangaroa natives left Heke and returned home. A sharp affray occurred on the roth,
and Waka, having learnt that troops had arrived from Sydney, wrote to the Governor
urging him to send them on at once. His Excellency immediately complied with the
request of his brave ally, and on the 28th of April, H.M.S. North Star and two trans-

1034 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

ports entered the Bay of Islands, with three hundred soldiers of the Fifty-eighth and
Ninety-sixth Regiments, and forty volunteers, under Colonel Hulme. On the 7th of
May, this force, together with one hundred Marines and sailors under Captain Sir
Everard Home, commenced their march towards Waka’s jak. Five days previously, Sir
Everard Home committed an act of reprisal which provoked much adverse comment.
He took prisoner Pomare, an ally of Heke, while a flag of truce was flying, and burnt
his Jak to the ground.

On the oth of May the campaign opened, the British officers being filled with
contempt, both for their four hundred native allies and for their enemy, but the senti-
ment was destined to undergo a speedy and effective revulsion. Heke, on his part,
quietly awaited attack, confident of his ability to cope successfully with troops whose
power he and his braves no longer feared. His fahk stood on a contracted plain,
bordered on one side, and at the back, by a dense forest, and on the other side by a
large lake. It was protected by two rows of wooden palisades, with a ditch behind
them, the outer row of palisading being covered with flax. Heke had with him about
two hundred and fifty men in the fak, and Kawiti, with one hundred and fifty men,
was posted in ambush on a small rise within the verge of the forest. The allied forces
advanced to within two hundred yards of the Aah, and some rockets were discharged
with no appreciable effect. The troops then began firing, while a friendly native named
Hobbs led Lieutenant McLeary, and a detachment of one hundred men of the Fifty-_
eighth and the Royal Marines, towards the spot where Kawiti lay in ambush. Kawiti’s
forces, armed only with tomahawks mounted with long poles, met the attack with the
greatest intrepidity. The soldiers then charged with the bayonet, and Kawiti retreated
with a loss of twenty men. A sortie from the pak, led by a chief named Haratau, next
engaged McLeary’s force, and after a hand-to-hand conflict the natives fell back. The
firing between the main body and the besieged was continued until sunset, when the
allied forces were withdrawn to Waka’s camp, the British having lost fourteen soldiers
slain and thirty-nine wounded. So terminated the engagement at Okaihau. Colonel
Hulme marched back to the Bay, re-embarked with all his forces for Auckland, and on
arriving there assured his friends “that the force under his command was indebted to a
merciful foe for its safe return.”

The Governor sent to Sydney for more troops, and Heke, withdrawing to Ohaeawai,
nineteen miles inland from Kororareka, proceeded to erect a strong fah there. Pending —
the arrival of these re-inforcements, Tamati Waka Nene kept the field, and frequent
skirmishes took place between his forces and those of the enemy. In New South Wales
Sir George Gipps and Sir Maurice O’Connell, K.C.B., the Commanding Officer, were
exerting themselves for the dispatch of effective assistance, and early in June Colonel
Despard arrived with two hundred men of the Ninety-ninth Regiment, while Major Wil-
mot brought some ordnance from Hobart. Colonel Despard was placed in command of an
expedition, and on the 16th of June landed at the Bay of Islands, with a force of six
hundred and thirty men and four guns: namely, two hundred and seventy men of the
Fifty-eighth under Major Bridge, one hundred and eighty men of the Ninety-ninth, seventy
men of the Ninety-sixth, eighty Auckland volunteers, thirty sailors from H.IZ.S. Hazard
under Captain Sir Everard Home, and four guns in charge of Major Wilmot. On the

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1035

12th, Waka had engaged the enemy at rather close quarters and had repulsed them,
Heke being wounded in the thigh while endeavouring to carry off his friend Kahakaha,
and several other chiefs being placed hors de combat. The expeditionary force reached
Ohaeawai on the 23rd. This stronghold stood in a clearing of the forest about five
hundred yards square, and was very skilfully fortified. A square flank projected on each -
side, it was surrounded with three rows of palisades, between the inner and middle
fences there was a ditch with traverses furnished with loop-holes, and inside the fah

there were huts with bomb-proof excavations. Heke’s forces numbered about two hundred

A MAORI CANOE RACE,

and fifty men, and were armed with single and double-barrelled guns, besides having
two ships’ guns. Active operations were commenced on the morning of the 24th with
a cannonade from Major Wilmot’s battery, but it seemed to make very little impression
upon the fah. The three following days were uneventful. Colonel Despard wished to
storm the Jah, but was dissuaded by the strong representations of Waka and_ others.
On Monday, the 30th, a thirty-two pound gun from //MZ.S.. North Star was placed in
position and fired with some effect. Next day an unexpected sortie was made from the
fah upon a breastwork held by Waka; a soldier in charge of the thirty-two pounder
was shot at his post; and a British flag having been captured, it was hoisted underneath
Heke’s flag within the fad. This appears to have decided Colonel Despard to storm
the jah the same afternoon, although Waka and other friendly chiefs urged that the
attempt would be foolish until the thirty-two pounder had made a sufficient breach.
Captain Marlow, senior engineer officer, was of the like opinion. At 3 p.m., one
hundred and sixty men under Majors Macpherson and Bridge, and forty seamen and
volunteers under Lieutenant Philpott, R.N. (a son of the Bishop of Exeter), paraded for
this forlorn hope. They rushed on the fah at eighty yards, and amidst a deadly and

continuous fire laboured with dauntless courage for fully ten minutes to make a breach

1036 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

through the palisading. The outer lines were passed, but the inner fence being still
intact, and two officers and half the men down, the bugle sounded the retreat. This
ill-considered assault cost the British thirty-four killed and ‘sixty-six wounded, among the
slain being Captain Grant, of the Fifty-eighth, and Lieutenant Philpott, while Lieutenant
Beattie, of the Ninety-ninth, was mortally wounded, and died within a few days after.

On the 3rd of July, the enemy hoisted a flag of truce and invited the British to
remove their dead. For three days hostilities were suspended, and peace reigned in both
camps. On the 7th, the besiegers resumed their cannonade, and kept it up for four
days, besides taking care to prevent any supplies reaching the fas. During the night
of the roth, the jak was deserted. Heke withdrew to Ikorangi, ten miles away, and
Kawiti proceeded to entrench himself at Ruapekapeka, sixteen miles inland. Colonel
Despard destroyed the palisades and retired to Waimate, whence his forces returned to
Auckland. The settlers felt that the military operations had again proved unsuccessful,
while the Maoris, who appraise the issue of a conflict, only by the relative numbers of
the slain on either side, and attach no importance whatever to the desertion of a ah,
marvelled at the prowess of Heke. His runners went all through the North saying,
“One wing of England is broken, and hangs dangling on the~ ground.”

Four months passed away, and Governor Fitzroy was about to resume the war
when he learned that he had been recalled. In November, 1845, Captain Grey, the new
Governor, arrived from Adelaide by the ship dphzustone, and at once repaired to the
Bay of Islands, where seven hundred troops were: ascemiien: He wrote to Heke and
Kawiti, offering them the same terms of peace that had been tendered by his pre-
decessor. The insurgent chiefs replied with a distinct refusal to submit to any terms N
which included the forfeiture of land. Fresh troops had now reached the Bay; and, on
the 22nd -of December, Colonel Despard set out for Ruapekapeka with a force of one
thousand one hundred and seventy-three Europeans, consisting of the Fifty-eighth Regi-
ment under Lieutenant-Colonel Wynyard, detachments of the Ninety-ninth, the Royal Artillery,
the Royal Marines, the East India Company's Artillery, and the Auckland Volunteers under
Captain Atkyns. In addition, there were thirty-three’ officers and two hundred and eighty
seamen from //.M.S. Castor, North Star and Racehorse, and H.E.1. Company's ship
Elphinstone, as well as four hundred and fifty natives under Tamati Waka Nene, Mohi
Tawhai, and other Ngapuhi chiefs. A native detachment under Macquarie, a friendly
chief, made a feigned attack upon Heke at Ikorangi, so as to keep him employed while
the main body of the allied forces concentrated its strength upon the ‘reduction of
Kawiti’s fortress at Ruapekapeka.

This Aah has been pronounced. a masterpiece of Maori fortification, and the plans
of it, now lying among the archives of the Auckland Museum, still compel the admira-
tion and surprise of military experts. The bombardment began on the 31st of December,
and on the 2nd of January the natives under Waka repulsed a sortie, and on the night
of the 1oth Heke arrived with seventy men. Finding the provisions exhausted and the
defences partly destroyed, he determined to abandon the place. He withdrew his forces
in security ,accordingly, but Kawiti remained. On the Sunday, he withdrew his men from
the fah, in order to’ conduct Divine Service. out of the range of the artillery. One of
the native allies, who was serving as a scout, gave the signal that the Jak was empty,

—_ ae mk, Nop e e

Mie

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1037

and the British rushed in. The Maoris made a desperate attempt to recapture the Aah,
but were driven back. The British lost thirteen killed and thirty wounded. After the
fall of Ruapekapeka the rebel forces, through lack of provisions, began to disperse, and
Heke therefore wrote to the Governor proposing peace. His Excellency, perceiving that
the time was now opportune for an honourable reconciliation with a fallen enemy,
responded with the proclamation of an unconditional pardon to all who should quietly
return to their homes; two hundred soldiers were left at the Bay of Islands and the
remainder recalled to Auckland.

Thus ended the first and only war between our people and the natives of the
district north of Auckland. Thanks to the chivalrous character of Heke, it was singularly
free from acts of barbarism. Still, there is the grave suspicion of one act of wanton
cruelty at Ohaeawai. On the night after the unsuccessful assault upon that fakh, it is
said that the chief Pene Taui lit a kauri-gum fire on the breast of a wounded soldier,
and that his cries of anguish were heard in the British camp. In Judge Manning’s
book, however (“History of the War in the North of New Zealand”), the Negapuhi
chief who supplied the narrative says: “ As the people were mending ‘the fence by torch-
light, there was a dead soldier lying near, and they put a torch of kauri-resin on the
body to light their work, which burnt the body very much, and caused the report to
be spread afterwards, when the body was found by the soldiers, that the man had been
tortured; but this was not true, for the man was dead before the fire was thrown on
the body.” On the same night a /ohunga, or priest, caused the dead body of Lieutenant
Philpott to be scalped, and a portion of the hip to be cut from Captain Grant’s corpse,
to be used in divination for the purpose of ascertaining how the war would end. These
acts appear to have been committed without the knowledge of Heke.

Shortly after the termination of the war, Heke met and_ breakfasted with the
Governor at the residence of one of the missionaries (the Rev. R. Burrowes), who had
arranged the meeting at his Excellency’s request. The chief was ailing at the time; he
fell into a slow decline, and some four or five years later he died of consumption.
Kawiti survived him by some years, and gave no further trouble to the Authorities.
Tamati Waka Nene received a pension of one hundred pounds per annum for life, and
lived at Kororareka, now Russell, until his death in 1871. The monument, raised by
the Government over his grave, bears an inscription setting forth that it was erected to
the memory of this chief of the Ngapuhi—‘sage in counsel, renowned in war’—by the
Government of New Zealand, which he was the first to acknowledge, and which, for
upwards of thirty years, he had faithfully served.

Tue Hutr DisTurBANnces.

Hardly had peace been re-established in the extreme North, than the smouldering
embers of disaffection in the far South of the same Island were fanned into flame. The
trouble there was agrarian. Colonel Wakefield alleged that he. had purchased the fertile
valley of the Hutt, nine miles from Wellington, on behalf of the New Zealand Company,
but some of the principal chiefs who had interests in it maintained that they had in
nowise been consulted in the transaction, and refused to waive their rights. Governor

Fitzroy paid over three hundred pounds to the chief Rauparaha for the purpose of

1038 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

extinguishing these native claims, but Rangihaeata—author of the “Wairau Massacre” —
contending that he had not received his fair share of this money, resorted to acts of
intimidation. Early in 1846, seventeen settlers of the Hutt were plundered, and Colonel
Hulme marched three hundred soldiers up the Valley in order to punish the delinquents.
They withdrew to an impregnable Aah in the adjacent hills, difficult of approach, and
two hundred soldiers were therefore left in the Valley for the protection of the settlers,

Meanwhile, Governor Grey collected all his available forces in Auckland, and took
them with him to Wellington in 1846; six hundred and eighty men, with two guns and
two howitzers, were now posted in the Hutt, and offers of assistance were received from
friendly native chiefs. The troops were directed to prevent the supply of provisions to
the enemy, and the latter found it necessary therefore to retire still farther into the
interior. About the middle of April they eluded the soldiers, made a successful foray
into the Hutt, murdered a boy and an old man named Gillespie, and declared that
every occupant of the disputed lands would be served in a similar way. As Rangi-
haeata was the reputed leader of the lawless party which committed this outrage, two
hundred. soldiers were sent to garrison a stockade at Porirua, seventeen miles from
Wellington, and in close propinquity to the chief's fastness. An hour before daylight on
the 16th of May fifty soldiers of the Fifty-eighth Regiment, stationed under Lieutenant
Page at Boulcott’s farm, in the valley of the Hutt, were surprised by seventy natives
under Mamaku, and six soldiers were slain and four wounded. Athwart the gloom of
this tragic occurrence the simple and yet lofty heroism of a bugler boy named Allen
sheds a light akin to that of poetic romance. Struck with a tomahawk on the right
arm while about to sound the alarm, with undaunted spirit he raised the bugle with his
uninjured left-hand and blew a blast that roused his comrades, but cost him his own
life, for the next moment he was felled to the earth with a deadly blow.

The impunity with which this incursion was made stimulated the hostile natives to
further attempts of a similar kind. On the 16th of June, just a month later, a recon-
noitring party of forty soldiers of the Ninety-ninth, under Captain Reed, was attacked
in the Hutt, with the result that two men were killed and an officer and five men
wounded. This affair was speedily followed by the murder of a settler named Rush.
Numbers of out-settlers fled to Wellington in terror, while those who had the hatdiheod:
to remain on their lands took up arms and entrenched themselves in stockades. Rangi-
haeata’s success was winning over neutral natives, and a feeling of despair began to
pervade the European settlements. .At this crisis Governor Grey struck a blow which
for a time quite paralyzed the native mind, and which many persons both then and
since held to be quite unwarranted. Rauparaha, though nominally an ally, was strongly
suspected of playing the Government false, and of secretly aiding the outlaws. It was
therefore decided to seize him in_ his pah. The Governor, without informing the cele-
brated warrior chief that his friendship. was doubted, sent away AH/.JZ.S. Driver, with one
hundred and thirty soldiers, seamen and police on board, to surprise him in his strong-
hold. They landed at Porirua before daylight, on the 23rd of July, 1846, surrounded
the pah, captured Rauparaha asleep in his bed, and carried him away to the war-vessel
in the offing, whence he was conveyed to Wellington. This event created a tremendous

sensation throughout the colony, and among the native laments which were freely

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1039

composed at the time, was one of great beauty by Rangihaeata himself. Likening the
captive to a gallant war-canoe dashed to pieces in the surf, he thus apostrophized him:

My brave canoe!

In lordly decoration lordliest far ;

My proud canoe!

Amid the fleet that fleetest flew,

How wert thou shattered by the surge of war?
"Tis but the fragments of the wreck

Of my renowned canoe

That lie, all crushed, on yonder war-ship’s deck.

In subsequent verses, equally poetic, Rauparaha’s tribes-men are taunted with desertion of
their chief ; he is blamed for trusting in the honour of the fakehas (foreigners); and
the lament ends with a declaration of Rangihaeata’s resolve to rescue him. But Rangi-
haeata had reckoned this time without his host. The Authorities, fully aware that
inaction would hasten some fearful deed of revenge, lost no time in carrying the war
into the enemy’s country. While preparations were made to assault the rebel stronghold
at Pahautanui, four miles from the British camp at Porirua, a party of friendly natives
was detailed to cut off the retreat. In alarm at these measures, Rangihaeata suddenly
forsook Pahautanui; and, on the 29th of July, the expedition under Major Last of the
Ninety-ninth entered into occupation of it. It was found that the enemy had withdrawn
to a strong position in a densely-wooded gorge, six miles up the Horokiwi, and thither
they were followed by the entire force of two hundred and fifty men. The attempt to
dislodge the rebels failed; and, as it was not deemed prudent to storm the jah while
the fire of small-arms and mortars appeared to be harmless, the expeditionary force fell
back, with the loss of three killed and eight wounded. Ensign Blackburn, of the Ninety-
ninth, was “among the slain. The enemy sustained no loss. Lieutenant Servantes, of
the Ninety-sixth, was left in front of the Aah with the friendly natives, and at last the
enemy, unable to procure supplies of food, and driven to subsist on tree-fern, dispersed
into the interior, whither the troops, police and friendly natives pursued them until a
number of rebels were arrested. They were tried by court-martial. One was adjudged
insane and exempted from punishment, seven were sentenced to transportation, and a
Wanganui chief, related to Rangihaeata, and named Wareitu (baptized Martin Luther),
was condemned to pay the last penalty of the law. He met his fate at the gallows
with a fortitude that° excited great admiration; and, as his offence consisted merely in
joining Rangihaeata for the vindication of a cause which he deemed just and _ patriotic,
the military tribunal which delivered him over to death incurred considerable obloquy
thereby. The sense of injustice which it caused was confirmed rather than alleviated
when the Secretary of State, announcing that doubts existed as to the legality of the
tribunal, pardoned the seven prisoners who had been transported to Tasmania. Ruaparaha,
after ten months’ detention on board /H/.d/.S. Calliope, was allowed to occupy Te
Wherowhero’s house in the Auckland Domain. In September, 1847, he was visited there
by two hundred Hauraki chiefs. The old warrior, however, pined for freedom, and at
last the Government, yielding to a request, had him conveyed to his home at Otaki in
January, 1848, by A.M.S. Inflexible. He died there on the 27th of November, 1849,
and a cortege of fifteen hundred persons followed his body to the grave, where a lay
European read the Burial Service over it. Rangihaeata, the nephew of Ruaparaha,

1040 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

retired to Pouratawao after the dispersal of his adherents, where he lived quietly until

his death in 1855, at the age of seventy years.

THe OUTBREAK: AT WANGANUI.

The peace which ensued upon the Horokiwi expedition was short and _ illusory.
Most of the disaffected natives had gone to Wanganui; and, reasoning from the more
lenient treatment of Heke and his followers in the North that desperate and bloody
conflicts commanded generous terms of peace, they quietly prepared to resume the field.
Towards the end of 1846 some settlers were threatened and plundered, and in December
a detachment of soldiers was sent into the district. Nothing of moment, however,
occurred till the 16th of April, 1847, when a midshipman of //.47.S. Calliope accidentally
shot a native chief through the cheek. The Maoris maintained that the wounded man’s
life had been deliberately attempted, and the /ex ¢alzonts was invoked. Two days later,
half-a-dozen natives attacked the house of a settler named Gilfillan, six miles from
Wanganui, and murdered his wife and four children. Next day, five of the murderers
were arrested by friendly natives and handed over to Captain Laye, of the Fifty-eighth.
They were tried by court-martial, found guilty, and four of them were executed, the fifth
being pardoned on account of his youth. War broke out at once. A _ soldier of the
Fifty-eighth Regiment, wandering too far afield, was murdered, and at noon on the igth
of May the hostile natives appeared before the settlement, six hundred strong. The
British force consisted of one hundred and seventy men, and was quartered in three
wooden stockades, from which, with a gun-boat in the River, a close fire of shot and
shell was kept up for five hours, The natives, under the chief Mamaku, replied to
the fire from the shelter of the deserted houses in the township, and advancing several
times to within pistol-range of the troops, they defiantly challenged them to open combat.
But the soldiers had grown wary, and remained within cover. During the night the
natives pillaged the town, stole and killed cattle, and then retired with a loss of two
chiefs killed and ten wounded. Their opponents sustained no loss. The enemy took up
a position three miles off, and for a fee of five pounds a settler was found to take a
letter with the news of the rising to Wellington.

Her Majesty’s ships, Cadope and J/nflexible, immediately sailed for Wanganui with

Governor Grey, Lieutenant-Colonel McCleverty, and detachments of the Fifty-eighth and ~

Sixty-fifth Regiments and of the Royal Artillery, as well as the friendly chiefs Te Whero-
whero, Tamati Waka Nene and Te Puni, The available British force now numbered
five hundred men. On the 4th of June, the enemy appeared before Wanganui, and
made a vain attempt to draw the troops into an ambuscade. A _ reconnoitring party of
the Sixty-fifth was attacked on the toth, and the enemy lost several killed and
wounded. They then withdrew higher up the River, but on the 5th, the roth and the 17th
of July they returned, and with the utmost daring advanced in small parties close to the
stockades. On the toth, a small party of marauding natives attacked the military
outside their stockades, and an action was the result, in which the losses on either
side were precisely the same: namely, three killed and ten wounded. Next morning the
natives sent a challenge to the troops to go out and fight on the open plain with

them, and as it was not accepted they proceeded to break up their encampment, and

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1041

left, saying, “We cannot remain any longer, but must go and plant our potatoes.”

So terminated this war, the natives explaining that as an equal number had_ been
killed on either side they were perfectly satisfied. They would not humiliate themselves,
however, by asking for peace, and the blockade up and down the River was therefore
continued. Cut off in this way from procuring such civilized comforts as pipes, tobacco,
blankets, tea and sugar, they found these deprivations too great a hardship, and at the
end of the year they wrote to the Governor intimating their desire for peace. On the
21st of February, 1848, the leading chiefs met the Governor and Major-General Pitt,

the Officer Commanding the Troops in New Zealand, whereupon peace was proclaimed

WANGANUI, TO-DAY.

and a general amnesty granted. In this campaign the stigma that attached to the
insurgents was the murder of the Gilfillans, and that would appear to have been the
unauthorized act of six youths, of whom the eldest was not eighteen, who were actuated
by a vendetta spirit, the chief wounded by the midshipman being their relative. The
boy of twelve, who was pardoned, actually entreated to be hanged along with his com-
panions. On the other hand, a colonist who was made prisoner during the trouble was
sent back to his friends uninjured; and, upon peace being restored, raided cattle were
returned, while the natives were paid a fair price for lands of which the ownership was

in dispute, which had formed one of the incitements to the taking up of arms.

Minor ALARMS AND OUTRAGES.

After the expenditure of nearly a million of money, and with a record of eighty-

five soldiers, seamen and militia-men slain, besides one hundred and sixty-seven wounded,

1042 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

from the sacking of Kororareka to the peace at Wanganui, the colony obtained compara-
tive repose. That is to say, the normal incidents of life in a new country inhabited by
two diverse races marked the time. Murders and alarms were but sporadic, and were
easily dealt with under the ordinary processes of the civil law. “ Grim-visaged war had
smooth’d his wrinkled front,” and for nearly thirteen years the country progressed and
prospered. Honours and rewards were distributed among the leading military officers and
friendly chiefs, Governor Grey was knighted—the chiefs Tamati Waka Nene and Te
Puni acting as his squires at the ceremony—pensioner settlements were formed in the
neighbourhood of Auckland, and the discharged soldiers who took up land in them were
formed into a corps called the “ New Zealand Fencibles,” so as to be ready to serve
their adopted country should the emergency ever again arise. A portion of the troops
finally left for England. The germs of future troubles had hardly begun to sprout, and
the time for garnering that deadly crop was yet far distant. Both trouble and danger
were incurred in the effort to bring the Maoris under the operation of the ordinary
British law, and to subordinate many of their traditional “usages to European methods
of dispensing justice. Early in’ 1849, a native named Maroro was sentenced to a term
of four months’ imprisonment in Wellington Gaol for robbery. This punishment carried
with it to the aboriginal mind indelible disgrace, and the prisoner meditated a terrible
revenge. Three days after his liberation he procured an axe, and repairing at night-fall
to the house of a settler named Pranks, near the Porirua Church, he murdered the
head of the household and two of his children, aged nine and two years respectively.
From the scene of the crime he returned to Wellington, and on being arrested at once
confessed his guilt. At his trial he explained that the bloody deed was committed solely
as utu, or retaliation, for his imprisonment, and upon being led out for execution he
met his fate with perfect indifference.. In some instances the Maoris took the law into
their own hands, and tried and executed, in rude imitation of the procedure of
European tribunals, natives who had committed capital offences in their own settlements.

In 1851, an accidental circumstance in the streets of Auckland led nearly to an
open rupture between the two races. A Maori was arrested for petty larceny, and in
the course of a scuffle over the affair an inoffensive chief was knocked down by a
Maori policeman and carried off to the guard-house, whence he was released an hour
later. Furious at this unwarrantable insult, the chief hurried to his tribe and passionately
told how he had been struck to the earth and disgraced by a mere slave. Three
hundred armed natives in thirty-five war-canoes accompanied the insulted chief back to
Auckland, and landing in Mechanics’ Bay, almost within a stone’s-throw of Government
House, demanded that the offending native policeman should be given up to them.
The Authorities felt that to exhibit a spirit of irresolution in face of such a menace
would but serve to bring the law into contempt and invite disaster. A stern and
determined attitude was accordingly shown. The natives were told that if they did not
leave the town within two hours the guns of 4.4/7.8. Fly and of Fort Britomart would
open fire upon them, and in the meantime the “ Fencibles” marched in from Onehunga.
Overawed by the determination thus manifested, the Maoris wisely recognized that
discretion was the better part of valour, and therefore withdrew, and two days after-

wards, in order to prove that their intentions were peaceable, a number of the

» of

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1043

chiefs laid at Governor Grey’s feet meres and spears as symbols of their submission.
Three years later, some discontent, which for a time threatened to culminate in a
rising, was caused by the alleged inadequate punishment of a man named Huntly, who
struck a Maori woman dead in the town of Auckland. The jury brought in a verdict
of manslaughter, but the

natives clamoured for the

execution of the criminal,
on the old principle of
blood for blood. How-
ever, the Authorities were
inflexible, and the Maori
feeling gradually sub-
sided. Next year a more
turbulent demonstration,
caused by a somewhat
similar crime, was only
allayed by the criminal
paying the extreme

penalty. In a fit of

Acc

MOUNT RUAPEHU.,

delirium tremens, a settler named
Marsden murdered a native
woman, and the prisoner was con-
victed on trial and duly sentenced ROTO AIRA.
to death. Unusual delay in carry-
ing out the sentence gave rise to a report that the life of a Maori was not
regarded as of equal value with that of a European; and the native mind becoming
inflamed by another murder of a Maori at the hands of a drunken settler, three
hundred men belonging to the tribe of the murdered woman came to Auckland, and
threatened to cut down the flag-staff which carried the British ensign. In February,
1856, Marsden was hanged, and the natives were satisfied.

Meanwhile, native land troubles, originating in official disregard of immemorial
custom among the Maoris, and destined to end in bloodshed and devastation, had

begun to attract attention at Taranaki, on the west coast of the North Island.

1o44 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

As early as 1843, disputes between the settlers of New Plymouth and the Maoris, as
to the ownership of certain lands, led to a decision by Governor Fitzroy that territory
acquired by a tribe through conquest did not altogether pass away from the conquered,
but that they still had some rights in it. As a consequence, the original fugitives
from Taranaki, dispersed in prehistoric times by Te Wherowhero’s incursion, began to
migrate back again. Among others came Wiremu Kingi te Rangitake (William King),
chief of Ngatiawa, with six hundred people from Otaki, and settled down on _ their
ancestral lands on the southern bank of the Waitara River, ten miles from New
Plymouth. These returned emigrants were characterized by a strong disinclination to
part with their patrimony to the Europeans, who were correspondingly eager to buy.
The native community of ownership formed another and very prominent ingredient of
the difficulties which arose.

The Taranaki tribes formed an Anti-land-selling League; and, in order to invest the
compact with due solemnity, buried a Bible in the earth, and raised a cairn of stones
over the spot. In 1854, a chief named Rawiri Waiaua, who held aloof from the
League, probably for the very practical reason that he drew a salary from the
Government as an assessor, offered to sell a portion of the Hua block which belonged
to him. As he was interested, in common with the principal Leaguers, in the remainder
of the block, the Government Commissioner urged him to sell out his entire rights,
remarking that the portion he offered was too small to be worth buying. Rawiri
pointed out that in the bulk of the block he had only a joint interest, and that his
co-owners were strongly averse to a sale. The Commissioner, however, was insistent,
and -Rawiri, yielding at last against his better judgment, announced his decision to sell.
Waitere Katotore and the other owners warned him that if he attempted to bring the
surveyors chain on the land he would have to come armed, as they were resolved to
resist him. Rawiri assembled his forces and took the chain to the land. Katatore, who
was present in command of sixty armed followers, requested him to desist, and, as
Rawiri declined, ordered his men to fire a volley. The order was obeyed, and Rawiri
and seven of his men were slain, while ten others were wounded. Both settlers and
friendly natives appealed to the Government, but the Authorities were slow to act.
Not so the natives. Arama Karaka, Rawiri’s successor, was already on the war-path,
and a conflict between his forces and those of Katatore resulted in twelve men_ being
slain and sixteen wounded. The disturbance spread far and wide, and a panic having
seized the settlers, the Government, in August, 1855, sent four hundred and fifty
soldiers of the Fifty-eighth and Sixty-fifth Regiments, under Major Nugent, to New
Plymouth. Governor Grey had left for England at the end of 1853, and Colonel
Wynyard, the officer administering the Government, followed the troops to New Ply-
mouth, accompanied by Tamati Waka Nene, Te Wherowhero and Te Puni. After
investigating the circumstances of the affair, he declined to avenge the murder of
Rawiri, holding that that chief was killed for offering to sell land which did not
belong to him. Two hundred and fifty soldiers of the Sixty-fifth were left at New
Plymouth to protect the settlers. The inter-tribal strife was resumed without inter-
ference from the Government, and, at last, Katatore and his half-brother were foully

murdered by a chief named Ihaia (Isaac), who was also allowed to escape free. This

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND, 1045

guerrilla warfare lasted for two years, and, after sixty. Maoris had been slain and one
hundred wounded, a truce was made between the parties in December, 1856.

The Government saw that it had erred in not interposing, and the head chiefs of
the North Island were invited to a .conference on native affairs with the Governor, at
Kohimarama, in the outskirts of Auckland. About fifty attended, but as the inaugural
address was in large part a special argument in support of the sale of land, the
chiefs regarded the whole
proceeding as a crafty attempt
to hoodwink them, and little
good was effected by the
meeting. The League was up-
held, and a few years later
the land question was fated
to be the cause of a bloody
war. In August, 1857, agra-
rian troubles broke out in the
province of Hawke’s Bay, on
the east coast of the North
Island. Two divisions of the
Ngatikahungunu tribe quar-
relled over the distribution of

money received from the

Government for the sale of
land; and, both sides taking up arms, a battle
was fought, in which eight men were killed
and sixteen wounded. Te Hapuku the leader
of one party, entrenched himself in a Aah on
land to which his title was doubtful, and
Moanui, leader of the rival party, besieged him
there. After the siege had continued for several
months, the Governor, Colonel Gore Browne,
fearing that the beleagured forces would be
massacred, sent two hundred and fifty men of
the Sixty-fifth, under Colonel Wyatt, to Napier,
in February, 1858. Moanui at once moderated

his demands, and through the good offices of

THE CONSTABULARY STATION, PUKEARUHE.

Mr. (afterwards Sir) Donald McLean, a fort-
night’s armistice was arranged, which resulted in Te Hapuku being allowed to march
out with the honours of war. Subsequently, peace was proclaimed, and the belligerents

exchanged presents in token of amity.

”

“THe Kinc MoveMENT

While these warlike distractions were keeping portions of the North Island in a

state of unrest, a great movement, fraught with the utmost importance, was silently

1046 AUSTRALASIA. ILLUSTRATED.

working and winning its way among the Maoris. The spirit of nationality and federal
unity was asserting itself. It was conceived in the purest intentions, and was shaped
by the loftiest motives. The chiefs saw that, concurrently with the decline of their
mana or authority, their people were imbibing. the worst vices of the Europeans.
Drunkenness and its concomitant evils were becoming alarmingly prevalent, tribal dis-
sensions were frequent, the land was rapidly slipping from their relaxed grasp, and
though .in the eye of the law they were said to be equal with their European fellow-
subjects of the Queen, they were, in reality, looked down upon as an inferior and
subjugated race, and treated by many of the settlers with contumely. The flowing tide
of immigration threatened to .engulf them, the privilege of the franchise was, to all
intents and purposes, withheld from them, and their petitions for the interdiction of the
liquor traffic in purely Maori districts produced no tangible result. True, an Ordinance
was at last passed making the sale of strong’ drink to natives a misdemeanour, but it
was so openly and flagrantly evaded that, from the’ very outset, it proved inoperative.
The neutrality observed by the Government during the internecine warfare on the west
coast, brought about by the unwise action of one of its own officers, was not by any
means a solitary evidence that, in the face of contrary professions, there -was one law
for the Pakeha and another for the Maori. The natives were apt and shrewd enough
to mark these things, and to make logical deductions from them. Their best men
pondered the matter, and gradually came to a conclusion to set up some form of
Government of their own that should exist side by side with the authority of the Queen,
bind the two races together in brotherly love, and allow them to advance pari passu.
As long back as 1853 the movement was beginning to take form. In that year a
chief named Matene Te Whiwhi fused its hitherto inchoate elements; and, setting out
from Otaki with several other leading chiefs, he visited Taupo and Rotorua to obtain the
consent of the more powerful tribes to the appointment of a king, and the constitution
of some kind of recognized Government in the central parts of the North Island,
where the white man had not yet penetrated. Jealousy of his own assumed pretensions
to the kingly dignity defeated the success of the Otaki chief's project. Te Heu Heu,
the great Taupo chief, whose authority had never been brought into collision with that
of the distant European, and who was determined to brook no rival in his own domain,
declined to associate himself with the movement. At Maketu and Rotorua it failed to
evoke enthusiasm. The time was hardly ripe for it, and the ramanga, or conference, of
chiefs, met to consider the proposal, issued the following letter to the tribes :—‘ Listen
all men: The house of New Zealand is one; the rafters on one side are the Pakeha;
those on the other, the Maori; the ridge-pole on which both rest is God. Let there-
fore the house be one. This is all!” Still, the necessity of some mode of Government
in the districts inhabited almost exclusively by themselves, if they were not to be
abandoned to complete anarchy, pressed itself more and more upon the minds of the
leading Maoris. Even the European settlers could not deny the force of the contention.
So entirely was the extensive and populous Waikato District neglected, that the
Rev. Mr. Ashwell, a missionary stationed at Taupiri, stated before a Committee of the
New Zealand House of Representatives, that during nineteen years prior to the “king

movement” he could not remember more than three or four visits to the Waikato by

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1047

officials. Other districts had not received even that scant measure of attention. In a
memorandum, dated the 25th of May, 1861, Governor Gore Browne placed on_ record
the statement that “some of the most populous districts, such as Hokianga and Kaipara,
have no magistrates resident amongst them; and many, such as Taupo, the Ngatiruanui,
Taraniki, and the country about the East Cape, have never been visited by an_ officer
of the Government. The residents in these districts have never felt that they are the
subjects of the Queen of England, and have little reason to think that the Government
of the colony cares at all about their welfare.” Sir George Grey bears similar testimony.
Writing to the Secre-
tary of State on the
6th of December, 1861,
he says :—‘ Ten years
since, the urgent neces-
sity of introducing
simple municipal insti-
tutions among them
(the Maoris) was
pointed out, and the
first step taken to in-

duce them to refer

their disputes to our
THE MISSION STATION,
WAIKATO RIVER.

Courts. But, though
various proposals have
been made for facilitating a further advance
towards these objects, the matter has been practi-
cally left nearly where it then was.” In other
words, the obligations undertaken in the Treaty
of Waitangi had been quietly ignored. ‘

The Measure, spoken of by Sir George Grey as the first step taken to induce the
Maoris to refer their disputes to European Courts, was an Ordinance for appointing
resident magistrates to exercise jurisdiction in civil cases between Europeans and Maoris,
where the amount sued for did not exceed twenty pounds. But, then, no means were
provided for enforcing the magisterial decisions in cases where the Maori was the losing
party. For dealing with cases between the Maoris themselves, a number of chiefs were
appointed assessors, each party to the suit being at liberty to select one assessor to sit
in judgment conjointly with the magistrate. But unless the assessors concurred in their
opinion after the hearing, nothing could be done. Such a Measure was stamped from
the outset with the impress of failure. It says much for the Maoris’ desire for some
kind of tribunal to settle their disputes, and it attests their inherent love even of the
semblance of justice, that the Measure did work after a fashion, though some of the
native methods of carrying out judicial functions were very ludicrous to the civilized
mind. Mr. (now Sir) J. E. Gorst relates several cases in point. For instance, Ti
Oriori, of Maungatautari, whose legal acumen would do credit to Lincoln’s Inn, was

accustomed to assign an hour to the hearing of each case; when time was up he

1048 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

promptly cut short the pleadings or the evidence, and gave his decision. In one case,
where his judgment was palpably wrong, the losing party expostulated after the sitting
of the Court, and explained the rest of his cause. Ti Oriori said he was very sorry
for him, but he never allowed a case to be re-heard. This chief apparently was not
troubled with what the French call a mauvatse honte, for he was quite willing to act
as his own bailiff, and made himself very useful to Europeans by enforcing their claims
against natives in his own Court, recompensing himself for his trouble by charging a
commission on the amount recovered.

Heteraka Nera, who held a court at Raglan, appears to have acted in much the same
way. Apart from this short-lived and rather comical juridical system, the Government
hardly made even a pretence of governing the natives. The Colonial Authorities shrank
from the cost of the undertaking—all the revenues were required for the settlers’
purposes; and, on the other hand, the Imperial Government, thinking the cost of the
military establishment a sufficient contribution to the ‘expense of managing the country,
urged that it had no funds to spare. Therefore the policy pursued was one of absten-
tion from purely native affairs. At the same time, by liberal distribution of blankets,
sugar, flour, and other European commodities, as well as by pensions, it endeavoured to
win over and attach the affections of the leading chiefs. This has passed into history as
“The Flour and Sugar Policy,” and it is still disputed whether it worked more harm or
good. After a time it became matter of common reproach that turbulent and notoriously
hostile chiefs received more indulgences than those whose friendliness had never been doubted.

All these things were conspiring to give form to the aspiration after unity and self-
government. Tribal wars had become so common that a thoughtful chief described them
as “a river of blood” flowing through the land. Drunkenness was increasing, despite
the strenuous efforts of the chiefs to check it. Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipipi (William
Thompson), head chief of the Ngatihaua, saved his tribe from demoralization only by
causing every European settled in his territory to sign a bond to pay one pound for
every Maori found drunk on his premises.

Notwithstanding Matene te Whiwhi’s failure to secure the definite acceptance of his
proposals in 1853, the movement rapidly progressed, and in May, 1854, another grand
runanga Was convened to discuss it at Manawapou, in the country of the WNgatiruanui.
A council-hall was erected, one hundred and twenty feet long and thirty feet wide, with
two entrances, and it was called “ Taiporohenui,” or the finishing of the matter. There a
league for the preservation of native lands, similar to that at Taranaki, was formed, and
a tomahawk was passed round to signify that all would agree to put to death the
individual who should depart from its purpose. In 1856, Te Heu Heu summoned another
vunanga, the French ‘flag was hoisted, and several schemes for the maintenance of Maori
autonomy were discussed without any conclusive decision being arrived at, although it
was distinctly proposed thereat that Potatau te Wherowhero, the great chief of the
Waikato tribe, should be king. At the beginning of 1857, an incident happened that
quickly led up to a settlement of the course to be pursued. Wiremu Tamihana Tara-
pipipi, to whom reference has just been made, visited Auckland in order to see the
Governor, represent to him the lawless state of the country, urge the necessity of some

remedy, and obtain a promise that a European magistiate should be stationed at his

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1049

own village. He was coldly received, and rudely refused access to the Governor's
presence by some subordinate official, while his application for a loan to erect a flour-
mill was not entertained by the Native Secretary. Hitherto he had not identified himself
with the “king movement,” though he was known to be favourable to it, but on his
return to the Waikato he issued the following circular :—“ February 12th, 1857. To all
Waikato, This is the agreement of Ngatihaua for Potatau to be king of New Zealand.
Friends—Our desire is great that Potatau should be set up in this very year. Do not
delay. Hasten the assembling of the runangas. Hasten the establishment of the scheme,
and when it is done the documents will be collected, and the day will be fixed for
instituting him. Be speedy. You will writé to
the remote tribes that they may hear. From
Wiremu (Tamihana) Tarapipipi and all Ngatihaua
to Waikato, to Kereihi, Pukewau, Harapata, Toma,
Ruihana, Waata Tengatete. Be speedy.”

The choice of Te Wherowhero as sovereign
was politic. He did not aspire to be proclaimed
king, but offered to act as arbitrator in land dis-
putes. Tamihana was resolved to overcome the
old chief's scruples, and the Waikato tribes were
therefore summoned to meet at Rangiriri in April,
1857, to install their King. Recognizing the
political importance of this gathering, Governor

Brown made up his mind _ to attend it, and

accordingly set out for the Waikato, accompanied
by Mr. McLean, the Native Secretary, and Mr. TE WHEROWHERO.
Richmond, a Member of the Cabinet. He arrived
at Rangiriri simultaneously with Te Wherowhero. In the latter's presence the leading chiefs
made speeches to the Governor. They asked for ranangas, a European magistrate, and
laws. In reply the Governor promised to send a magistrate to reside in the Waikato for
the purpose of periodically visiting the various settlements, and, with the assistance of the
native assessors, of administering justice. He also promised to cause a code of laws, ap-
plicable to native requirements, to be framed. The people waved their hats and_ cried
“Hurrah.” Te Wherowhero announced that he would be guided by the advice of the
Governor. His Excellency returned to Auckland convinced that he had settled the “king
movement,” and Mr. F, D. Fenton, a well-known solicitor, was appointed Resident Magistrate
of Waikato and Waipa, in fulfillment of his promise. But the mind of the Governor and
that of the chiefs had been travelling on different lines. He regarded his offers in the
light of a substitute for the “king project.” They, on the other hand, accepted them
evidently as a complement to it, for they saw nothing incompatible between the procla-
mation of their own nationality under a Maori king, and the continuance of the Queen's
supremacy over the colony. Many of the Europeans holding responsible positions in the
colony were of a like opinion; while others regarded the ‘king movement” as abso-
lutely inconsistent with the Queen's sovereignty.

After the Governor's return to Auckland, the meeting at Rangiriri proceeded. The

1050 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

guests arrived in fifty canoes, and the conference was inaugurated by the men of the
Ngatihaua tribe, forming four deep, and planting in the centre of a large open space,
the chosen Maori emblem of sovereignty—a white flag, bordered with red, bearing as
device two red crosses, symbolical of Christianity, and also the inscription, ‘ Potatau,
King of New Zealand.” About two hundred natives were present. The Union Jack
was hoisted side by side with the new flag, and the speakers emphasized the assurance
that the movement was in no sense a demonstration of hostility towards the Queen.
One chief, Rangiawahia, declared that if aught were done unfriendly to the Queen he
would himself hew down the King’s flag. After several days’ talk the entire party
adjourned to Ihumata, a native village on the Manukau, about eight miles from Auckland,
where another meeting was held, at which Bishop Selwyn and other clergymen were
present. It ended in the acceptance of Potatau as King, and at the end of the year
the new potentate, abandoning his settlement of Mangare, just across the Manukau
River from Onehunga, went to live in the Waikato,.among his most zealous subjects.
In July, 1854, Mr. Fenton entered upon his magisterial duties, but the absence of
power to enforce his authority, together with the dual, sometimes conflicting, control of
native affairs exercised by the Governor through his native office and the Colonial
Ministry, defeated his usefulness, and, after making two circuits, he was relieved of his
duties. The attempt to govern the Maoris was then relinquished, and the field left clear
for the Maori King. It was thought by the Governor that the surest way to discredit
the movement would be to treat it with absolute contempt and indifference, but Mr.
Fenton’s withdrawal from the Waikato disheartened the friendly natives, and threw most
of them into the arms of the King. In April, 1858, at Ngaruawahia, the native capital,
Te Wherowhero was formally proclaimed King in the presence of about two thousand
people, and saluted as Potatau the First. Singularly enough, his pension ‘continued to
be paid up till the 31st of March, 1860, or within a few months of his death, which
took place on the 25th of June, 1860. Even then the Government contributed towards his
funeral expenses. In May, 1860, a great meeting was held at Ngaruawahia for the
complete establishment of the monarchy, a system of native police, and the nucleus of
a standing military force were formed, a parliament, or rananga, of chiefs was called,
village vanangas for the administration of justice were instituted, and funds collected for
the foundation of a Maori newspaper. After the death of Potatau the First, his son,
Matutaera, was proclaimed King by Tamihana, under the title of Potatau the Second.
In later times he changed his name to Tawhiao, by which he is now generally known.
For the next twenty years the “king movement” was destined to form a_ leading

factor in native affairs.

Tue First Taranaki War.

While the agitation for Maori self-government engrossed the attention in the central
districts of the North Island, serious trouble was brewing on the West Coast. The
settlers were annoyed at the steady refusal of the aboriginal owners of the soil to sell
any more land, the influence of the Anti-land-selling League, presided over by Wiremu
Kingi, being actively exercised to discourage all sales. In 1858, the Taranaki settlers
fruitlessly memorialized the General Assembly to set aside the tribal right to land, and

‘
a
}
}

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1051

permit such natives as were willing to dispose of their individual rights in common land
to do so, Early in 1859, Wiremu Kingi notified the Governor that no more land was
to be sold in the district extending from New Plymouth to Mokau, and asking him,
therefore, to pay no heed to any offer of land within those limits. Immediately after-
wards the Governor visited New Plymouth, and at a meeting with the natives he stated
that he never would con-
sent to buy land without
an undisputed title, but
that he would not permit
any one to interfere in
the sale of the land who
did not own part of it.
The natives misappre-
hended his meaning, and
understood that his inten-
tion was to start a new
policy by treating with
individual claimants, dis-
regarding the mana of
the chiefs, and setting
aside the tribal right.
Accordingly, a native
named Teira (Taylor)
got up and offered the
Governor his land at
Waitara for sale, and on
the offer being pressed,
Mr. McLean, the Native
Secretary, on behalf of
the Governor, replied that
he would buy provided a
good title could be made
out. Wiremu Kingi, head

chief of the Waitara, or

Ngatiawa tribe, and rep-
resenting some sixty claim- THE NIKAU PALM.
ants to the land, then
rose and said: “Listen, Governor! Notwithstanding Teira’s offer, I will not permit the sale
of Waitara to the Pakeha. Waitara is in my hands. I will not give it up—Never, never,
never! I have spoken.” Whereupon he and his followers abruptly withdrew. After
nearly a year spent in investigating Teira’s title, Mr. Parris, the District Land Purchaser,
reported that the same was good, and the sale was completed in due course.

On the 20th of February, 1860, surveyors were sent to mark the boundaries, and

by way of protest the natives directed some of their women to pull up the pegs and

1052 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. *

cut the chain. No violence was offered. Ten days later martial law was proclaimed,
and a body of troops under Lieutenant-Colonel Murray marched to the Waitara block,
ten miles from New Plymouth, for the protection of the surveyors. During the night
Kingi’s party built a pak commanding the road, and stopped an escort. The Governor
replied with the following manifesto :—“ To the chief who obstructs the Queen’s road.
You have presumed to block up the Queen's road, to build on the Queen’s land, and
to stop the free passage of persons going or coming. This is levying war against the
Queen. Destroy the places you have built; ask my forgiveness, and you shall receive
it. If you refuse, the blood of your people be on your own head. I shall fire upon
you in twenty minutes from this time if you have not obeyed my order.—T. Gore

Browne.” The natives evacuated the Zak, and the troops destroyed it. A few days

WAITARA. ~

afterwards a party of some seventy natives returned and built a stockade on the land.
H1.M.S. Niger had just arrived with a re-inforcement of the Sixty-fifth Regiment, and
on the 17th of March, Colonel Gold marched out with a detachment of artillery and
three guns, two hundred and ten men of the Sixty-fifth, a party from the Vzger with
a rocket-tube, twenty mounted volunteers and a company of the Royal Engineers.
The natives were summoned to surrender, but refused, and the troops opened fire
with shot and shell. |

On the night of the 17th, the stockade was found to be abandoned, but the
Maoris were entrenching themselves in stronger positions, and the restriction on the sale
of arms having been foolishly removed in 1857, they were well supplied with munitions
of war. The settlers abandoned their homesteads and sought refuge in the township of
- New Plymouth, whither the troops followed them, and the natives, on their part, ravaged
the whole country-side. Kingi had hitherto held aloof from the “king movement,” but he
now gave in his adhesion to it, and about the same time the Ngatiruanui tribe joined
in the rising, On the 3oth of March, a fak on Waireka Hill was assailed by sixty
sailors of the Mzger, eighty-four men of the Sixty-sixth, and one hundred and sixty
volunteers. The volunteers were the first to arrive, but were obliged to seek cover

after a hot engagement, while the military were in danger of being cut off and

]

é HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1053

surrounded. Meanwhile, Captain Cracroft and his sixty blue jackets stormed the pah,
and crying “ Make a back,” one after another vaulted on each other's backs until they
were level with the top of the fence, and thus found entrance to the stronghold. They

were unsupported, however, and had to retire, the entire force returning to New Ply-

“THE SIEGE OF PUKERANGIORA.

1054 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

mouth the same night. The British loss was light, while that of the natives was said
to be rather heavy. After this engagement the troops burnt the houses, mills and goods
of the enemy wherever they found them, and the. enemy made such effective reprisals
that, excepting New Plymouth, the settlement was practically destroyed. In the township
the crowding of troops and settlers produced much sickness, and eventually nearly all
the women and. children had to be deported to Nelson. Kingi had written to the
“Kingites” for assistance, but a meeting held at Ngaruawahia in May, 1860, showed that
the Waikatos were not disposed to, take up arms. Still, parties of the more turbulent
natives quietly went off to Taranaki on their own account, and swelled the ranks of
Kingi’s forces until he had about one thousand seven hundred men. Troops, too, were
ordered from Australia and England, and before the end of the year there were two
‘ thousand three hundred of them in the field. This number included volunteers,

After some inconclusive operations, two hundred and forty-five men of the Fortieth
Regiment, under Major Nelson, together with parties of the Royal Artillery, Royal
Engineers and Royal Marines, early in June, attacked the Puketakauére, or “L” fat,
so called from its shape, situated one thousand four hundred yards from the Waitara
Redoubt, and sustained a severe defeat. A breach having been effected with a couple of
howitzers, the Grenadier and light companies of the Fortieth rushed forward with the
bayonet, but were driven back by a desolating fire. Then a party of natives crept out
of the bush and fell upon-one of the ‘divisions in the rear of the Jah, and almost cut
it to pieces. The main body was retiring towards the camp when the natives next
charged the guns, but were received with a deadly discharge of canister. However, the
troops were forced to retreat, leaving their dead and wounded on the field. The British
loss was thirty-four killed and thirty wounded out of a total of three hundred and forty-
eight rank and file, and the enemy’s loss was. about six killed and eight wounded.
Although his Zak was subsequently evacuated and burnt, as well as several others which
were found empty by the troops, New Plymouth was in the condition of a town
invested by the enemy. A dense forest was adjacent to it, and yet fuel had to be
procured from Australia. Major-General Pratt now arrived from Melbourne and _ super-
seded Colonel Gold in the command of the troops. He brought with him the remainder

of the Fortieth. On the 3rd of September, a night march was made to Burton’s farm

for the purpose of surprising a body of the enemy, but on arrival there the Maoris were
found to have decamped. On the 12th of September, the light company of the Fortieth,
under Colonel Leslie, came unexpectedly upon a handful of natives in ambush behind a
ditch within a peach-grove, and a volley from the Maoris produced such a panic among
the troops that they retreated in headlong flight, with a loss of one killed and four
wounded. During September and October, Jaks were destroyed at Oakura and Kaikihi,
but the enemy evacuated them in each case in safety. A more decisive engagement
took place at Mahoetahi, between Waitara and the Bell Rock. One morning it was
found to be occupied by one hundred and fifty natives just arrived from the Waikato,
under Wetini Taiporotu, a chief of Ngatihaua. General Pratt sent out a force against
it on the 6th of November, and after some firing a company of the Sixty-fifth and the
Taranaki Volunteers carried the position at the point of the bayonet. The Maoris lost
thirty-four killed and fifty wounded, and the British four killed and sixteen wounded,

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1055

The war closed a little later with the siege of Pukerangiora, This was a_ strong-
hold on the proper right bank of the Waitara River, protected at the rear by a
precipice. Having resolved to reduce it by means of a sap, General Pratt sat down
before it in February, 1861, with a considerable force of artillery and infantry; but
after some brisk work, and before he had
time to complete the capture, Wiremu Tamihana
made his appearance from the Waikato on a
mission of peace, and through his mediation
peace was proclaimed, the dispute which origi-
nated the war being left for the law to decide.
The terms were that the title to the Waitara
should be further investigated, the survey com-
pleted, all plunder restored, and that the in-
surgents should submit to the law. Waitara was
eventually surrendered to the natives. It was
computed that the Europeans had lost sixty-
seven killed and one hundred and forty-three
wounded, but many of the latter died of their

wounds while over-crowding in New Plymouth,

and exposure carried off upwards of a hundred
settlers. About one hundred and fifty of the

GENERAL CAMERON.

enemy were killed. The war cost the Imperial Government something like five hun-
_dred thousand pounds, the colony incurred an expense of two hundred thousand pounds
through it, and the direct losses of the settlers were estimated to amount to about

one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

Tue Waikato War.

Governor Browne was succeeded by Sir George Grey, in September, 1861; and
Major-General Sir Duncan Cameron, who had been in command of the troops in
Scotland, relieved Major-General Pratt. The new Governor promulgated a plan of
Government for the Waikato, and as the tribes there had not joined in the friendly
demonstration on his arrival, he paid a visit to their district in December, but without
producing any good result. During 1862 the relations between the two races were
becoming strained, and the feeling of dissatisfaction more general.

The opening of 1863 was signalized by quite a coup de théétre on the Governor's
part. Journeying rapidly and unexpectedly from Auckland, he landed at Ngaruawahia
unrecognized, and early next morning was found by the astonished natives standing
reflectively by the tomb of Potatau, his old friend. He was cordially received, but his
announcement that a steamer was coming to trade on the Waikato intensified the
feeling of mistrust that had long set in. The still unsettled Waitara dispute was
another very potent source of trouble, and the “ Kingites” themselves were divided with
respect to it. One party, led by Tamihana, and countenanced by the King, was desirous
of a peaceful settlement, and therefore did its best to obtain the assent of the tribes
to the investigation of the title in the manner proposed by the Government, namely, by

1056 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

a mixed tribunal of Europeans and Maoris. Wiremu Kingi, however, insisted upon the
retrocession of the Waitara block, and Rewi, head chief of the warlike Ngatimaniapoto
tribe, with whom Kingi was living, warmly espoused his cause and counselled war. All
this time the Ngatiruanui tribe had been in armed occupation of a block of Government
land at Tataraimaka, fifteen miles. south of New Plymouth, and they ‘were resolved to
hold it until Waitara had been returned,

Finding parleying to be of no avail, the Governor resolved upon decisive action,
and accordingly, in the beginning of March, 1863, he left for Taranaki with General
Cameron and a strong military force, with the intention of retaking Tataraimaka, and
of settling the title to Waitara) The Waikatos accepted this step as the prelude to
war, and Rewi and his party at once made reprisals. They seized the Police Barracks
and a newspaper office, and dismissed the Resident Magistrate. Meanwhile, at Taranaki,
the Governor had investigated the title to the Waitara, and finding it defective had
determined to give up the block. Unfortunately he proceeded to retake Tataraimaka
before proclaiming his decision with respect to Waitara. On Saturday, the 4th of April,
the troops took possession of Tataraimaka, and began to build a redoubt. From the
turbulent division of the Waikatos the Taranaki natives received the laconic message,
‘Begin your shooting,” and the shooting immediately began. On Monday, the 4th of
May, an escort of the Fifty-seventh Regiment, on its way from Tataraimaka, was
surprised by a Ngatiruanui ambuscade at Oakura, and Lieutenant Tragett, Dr. Hope
and six men were shot down; one man escaped. On the ‘rith, the Governor issued a
proclamation renouncing his claim to Waitara, the troops were withdrawn from it, and
the war which had been pending so long commenced. ;

On Sunday, the 12th of July, General Cameron crossed the Maungatawhiri with
three hundred and eighty men of the Twelfth and the Fourteenth Regiments, whom ‘he
placed in a redoubt on the Koheroa Heights, overlooking the Waikato River, only five
hundred yards distant. On the previous day the Waikatos had set out from Ngaruawahia
in two columns. One, composed of the Ngatimaniapoto, and led by Rewi, betook itself
to the Hunta Forest, where a harassing guerrilla warfare was kept up with the colonial
levies, to the advantage of the Maoris and the loss of the settlers. The other column,
composed of the Ngatihaua, and led by Tamihana, adopted European tactics. It advanced
straight down the Waikato River with the view of resisting the invasion. On the 17th
of July, Rewi’s force, having worked its way to the rear of the troops, attacked an
escort of the Eighteenth (Royal Irish) Regiment which was marching under Captain
Ring from the Queen’s Redoubt to Drury, fifteen miles from Auckland. ‘After a smart
engagement, the escort, overpowered by numbers, retired to a settler’s house with a loss
of four killed and ten wounded. On the morning of the same day, the force stationed
at Koheroa inflicted a defeat upon a section of Tamihana’s party. Observing a body
of natives in the ranges in front, Colonel Austin marched out from the redoubt with
five hundred men of the Twelfth, the Fourteenth and the Seventieth Regiments. The
enemy retired upon several lines of rifle-pits, which were defended so stoutly that the
Fourteenth was ordered to advance with the bayonet. The troops were met with a
galling fire, and they wavered. The General, who had just arrived, immediately placed
himself at their head, and, urging them on, carried the position with a rush, The

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND, 1057

British loss was one killed and eleven wounded. Convinced that he had no. timorous
enemy to cope with, the General determined to make more formidable preparations
before advancing further, and a delay of fifteen weeks therefore ensued, during which
the Maoris entrenched themselves at Mere-

mere, which commanded the River.

Meanwhile, in September, 1863, a party
of the enemy, about two hundred strong, was
encountered by Captain Lusk and his Forest
Rifle Volunteers, in the dense bush which
environed Mauku, a settlement about thirty-
four miles from the Manukau, and after a
fight from tree to tree the
enemy retreated with a
loss of six killed. Another
affair of slight importance
took place at the Puke-
‘kohe Church, some eight
miles distant, on the 15th.
The series of skirmishes
‘culminated on the 23rd
of October, in a desperate
action which has _ been
termed the “Battle of
Bald Hills.” Three hun-
dred of the Ngatimania-
poto, under two of Rewi’s
relatives, together with
fifty of the Ngatiporou,
eluding the vigilance of
the British forces which
confronted the enemy at THE BATTLE-FIELD OF MAUKU.

Meremere, passed safely

down the Waikato River, and landing below Tuakau, avowed their determination
to kill all the settlers between that place and Auckland. Fortunately, the Mauku
Stockade was garrisoned by Captain Lusk and his company of Forest Rifle Volun-
teers, besides twenty men of the First Waikato Regiment, under Lieutenant Per-
cival, while at the Church farther up the valley were thirty men of the same _regi-
ment under Lieutenant Norman. Captain Lusk, in reconnoitring, came upon a party of
the enemy evidently intent upon shooting cattle. He sent for assistance, and meanwhile
entrenched himself in the Church Redoubt. After waiting about six hours without any
sign of activity on the side of the enemy, Lieutenant Percival determined to make a
bold push and compel the Maoris to show their hand. He therefore brought on an
engagement, and Captain Lusk moved out to his support. The enemy retired to the
edge of the forest, where it subsequently transpired the rest of their force lay concealed.

1058 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

However, the ruse was suspected, and the volunteers were ordered to change front.
The entire body of natives immediately broke from their cover and charged, while their
opponents, in unbroken order and maintaining a well-directed fire, fell slowly back upon
the shelter of the bush. After a very smart engagement, in which part of the enemy
assailed their foe hand-to-hand, the Maoris retired with a loss of thirty-two killed,
besides many wounded, The volunteers lost eight killed, the first to fall on the side
of the assailants being Lieutenant Percival.
By the 3oth of October, General Cameron had been provided with two bullet-proof
steamers, one of which, the Aangerzr?, was built in Sydney for the New Zealand
Government, and he therefore prepared to besiege Meremere. The natives, however,
evacuated it, and retired upon Rangiriri, about twelve miles distant, on the right bank
of the Waikato. It was flanked on the other side by the Waikare Lake and Swamp,
and had been strongly fortified. On the 20th of November it was attacked by two
divisions. One of them, numbering seven hundred and seventy men, with two Armstrong
guns, proceeded by land; the other, consisting of five hundred men of the Fortieth,
embarked in one of the iron-plated steamers, which was accompanied by five small gun-
boats. The enemy was between four and five hundred strong. The main force was to
operate from the front, and the River detachment from the rear, A delay of an hour
and a half was caused by the steamer running on the sand-bank. Meanwhile shot and
shell were being poured into the entrenchments at a range of six hundred yards. Then
followed four separate assaults, each of which was repulsed. The first was led by the
Sixty-fifth, and it drove the enemy into a central redoubt. Captain Mercer and _ thirty-
six of the Royal Artillery next assaulted the redoubt, and the gallant officer received
his death-wound in the attempt. One hundred volunteers of various regiments also
stormed the citadel, but their scaling-ladders were found to be too short. Finally,
Commander “Mayne, of //.4/.S. Lelepse, advanced at the head of ninety men of the
Naval Brigade, but was also driven back. By this time the Fortieth had landed in the
rear, and rushing the rifle-pits on that side drove their occupants into the Swamp, where
they were shot down. Darkness did not interrupt the operations. A sap was opened
and hand-grenades were poured into the devoted citadel, with the unfortunate result
that a hut containing wounded was set on fire, and several poor wretches were burned
alive. The enemy replied with a desultory fire. In the morning, seeing that they were
completely surrounded, they hoisted a piece of calico on a spear and capitulated. The
King and the chief Tamihana had effected their escape, but one hundred and eighty-
three men and two women, and one hundred: and ‘seventy-five stand of arms, fell into the
hands of the British, ‘These prisoners were sent on to Auckland. The casualties on the
English side were two officers and thirty-five men killed, and thirteen officers and eighty- :
five men Wounded, while the Maori losses have been variously estimated at from fifty’ to
one hundred and fifty. Colonel Austin, of the Fourteenth, Captain Phelps and Ensign
Ducrow, as well as Captain Mercer, died of their wounds, |
The Governor declared that he would dictate terms of peace at Ngaruawahia, and, —
as if to pave the way for that intention, the. enemy fell back from their capital,
allowing General Cameron to march in and occupy it without a struggle. But the
expected terms of peace were not proclaimed, and the war continued, Tamihana had

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND, 1059

been beaten. Rewi, however, was still unsubdued. From the 8th of December till the
27th of January, 1864, General Cameron lay at Ngaruawahia awaiting supplies. He then
established himself at Te Rore, and threw out an advanced post within fourteen hundred
yards of Paterangi, forty miles up the Waipa, where the Maoris had strongly entrenched
themselves. A sharp skirmish at Waiarei was marked by the gallant rescue of a wounded
soldier by Major Heaphy, who won the Victoria Cross thereby. As Paterangi was too
strong to be stormed without heavy loss, General Cameron marched out of Te Rore on
the night of the 20th of February with a force of one thousand men, and, guided by
a settler named Edwards, appeared
before daylight at Te Awamutu, where
the Maoris were surprised in their
beds. From Te Awamutu he pushed
on to Rangiaohia, where he similarly
took the natives by surprise. A run-
ning fight, however, was maintained
among the huts of the village, where
Colonel Nixon and other officers of
the Colonial Defence Corps were mor-
tally wounded. The natives were dis-
lodged. General Cameron withdrew
his forces for the night to Te Awa-
mutu, but early next morning it was
found that the enemy, to the number
of about four hundred, had evacuated
Paterangi, and were entrenching them-
selves at Rangiaohia. A. detachment
of the Fiftieth Regiment was imme-
diately sent forward, and, charging

with the bayonet, routed the enemy

from the cover of an old bank fence,
whither the Mounted Defence Force

drove them into the swamp and bush. The main forces of the military were next

REWI MANI POTO,

concentrated at Pukerimu for the reduction of the hill stronghold of Maungatautari, on
the Horotiu, about fifteen miles north-east of Te Awamutu. Here the enemy had
assembled in force, the position being considered almost impregnable. It was also
regarded as their only remaining fortification in the Waikato proper.

Rewi, however, had abandoned the Hunua Forest, and was fortifying himself at
Orakau, about three miles from Kihikihi, where he made a stand that has _ shed
imperishable lustre upon his race, and which will always be memorable as the scene of
one of the most notable instances of Maori heroism. On the 30th of March, Brigadier-
General Carey, the Eighteenth Royal Irish, reconnoitred the position and determined to
attack it. Collecting a force of about one thousand men, with three guns, he made a
night march and appeared before the jah at day-break, when he so disposed his men
as to completely surround the enemy. He thus placed the Maoris at a serious dis-

1060 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

advantage, of which he hastened to avail himself to the utmost by completing his measures
to cut off all chance of escape. The fak was constructed with the usual ditches and
parapets, with an outer circumvallation of posts and rails, protected by outlying rifle-pits.
It was defended by about three hundred men, women and_ children, ‘but was badly
provisioned for a siege. General Carey unwisely resolved to commence operations by
storming the fak. After two assaults by the Eighteenth Royal Irish and Forest Rangers
respectively, led by Captain Ring .of the Eighteenth, and Captain Fisher of the Fortieth
—in which the former
officer fell mortally, and
the latter severely,
wounded—and after a
third assault, led by
Captain Baker, of the
Eighteenth, these tac-
tics were relinquished,
and the construction of
a flying sap was begun,
while a continuous fire
of shot and shell was

kept up, as well as a

es aeers F: perfect hail of mus-
ketry, no less than forty
thousand rounds of cartridges being served out to the troops. During the afternoon a
relief force of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred natives appeared in sight, but
could get no nearer than the edge of a bush some nine hundred yards to the rear of
the British outposts. General Cameron arrived with re-inforcements, which brought the
strength of the investing force to upwards of two thousand men. |
By the 2nd of April, the flying sap which had been commenced had broken into
the enemy's outworks, and while canister was fired from two Armstrong guns into the
pah at a distance of a few yards, the fire of the doomed garrison was silenced by
hand-grenades: thrown into the entrenchments. Impressed by their indomitable courage,
and desirous of saving the women and children, General Carey now sent forward an
interpreter, Mr. Mainwaring, to the head of the sap, with the message: “ Friends, hear
. the word of the General—Cease your fighting; you will be taken care of, and your
lives spared. We have seen your courage; let the fighting stop.” Instantly an old
tattooed chief mounted the breastwork, and, in a clear ringing voice, shouted the intrepid
reply: “Friends, this is the reply of the Maori—We shall fight on, ake, ake, ake, (for
ever, for ever, for ever).” ‘If you are determined to die,” replied the General, “give

up your women and children, and we will take care of them.” The defiant answer was,

“Who is it that is to die? Wait a little; our women also fight.” “Let your word
be repeated,” persisted the General. ‘ Enough,” was the chief's response, ‘this, ake, ake,
ake, is our last word; we shall fight on for ever!” Can the bloody annals of war

furnish an episode to excel this for its patriotism and dauntless spirit? The soldier felt

that in the half-civilized savage he had a foeman worthy of his steel. But the full

i : iA

obi fe ay

AISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND,

yim

? \

1061

THE CHARGE OF THE NEW ZEALAND CAVALRY AT THE BATTLE OF ORAKAU.

1062 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

horror of the enemy’s situation was not known till afterwards. When they thus elected
to die rather than surrender, they had been three days without a drop of water, and
had nothing to eat but a scanty supply of dried ¢awa berries and raw maize! Imme-
diately after the firing was resumed, a soldier of the Eighteenth, throwing his cap over
a partial breach, rushed after it, and was followed by Captain Hertford and twenty men
of the Colonial Defence Force. The enemy, packed into a corner, received them with
a withering volley, before which the officer and ten men fell. Shortly afterwards the
Sixty-fifth and the militia made an assault on the opposite side of the works, and were
also repulsed. The enemy, having now exhausted their ammunition, left the jaz on the
side which was invested by a double line of the Fortieth, under Colonel Leslie, and
jumping over the trench concealing the first line, were actually through the second line
before they were discovered. The column of natives—with the women, the children and
the leading chiefs in the centre—marched as steadily towards their place of refuge as if
no danger threatened them; but, as soon as the yells of the troops proclaimed that
the retreat had been discovered, they quickened their pace and made with all speed
towards a neighbouring swamp. A body of colonial cavalry and mounted artillery,
together with the Colonial Forest Rangers, under Captains Jackson and Von Tempsky,
however, headed them as they emerged from the swamp, and under a deadly fire the
little band was almost decimated. The Maoris lost about two hundred. Upwards of
one hundred bodies were picked up on the field, and twenty were said to have been
buried in the entrenchments. Twenty-six wounded and seven unwounded were taken
prisoners, and of the wounded twelve were women and children. Rewi, with a
small party of seven or eight, escaped. The British loss amounted to sixteen killed
and fifty-two wounded.

General Cameron returned to Pukerimu to resume operations against Maungatautari,
but, on the morning of the 5th of April, he found that it had been evacuated. This
practically ended the Waikato War, in which an able general, at the head of twenty
thousand men, had been fighting an enemy whose numerical strength did not exceed one
thousand men; a war, too, which involved the colony in a debt of three million pounds,
besides Imperial claims incurred on account of military expenditure. To this may also
be added the devastation of prosperous settlements, and general hardship consequent upon
all the able-bodied men in Auckland being kept under arms and forced to perform
military service, to the unavoidable detriment of their customary avocations. To the
Ngatihaua tribe the war brought ruin, for almost all their lands were included in the
general confiscation scheme, while the Ngatimaniapoto tribe, which had practically
provoked hostilities, lost very little territory. The new frontier line was drawn from
Raglan, on the west coast, through the rich plains of Upper Waikato to Tauranga,
and the lands confiscated by the Government were settled with military and volunteer

settlers. Tamihana died of consumption in December, 1866.

Tue East Coast CAMPAIGN.

But though peace once more reigned in the Waikato, the insurrection had not been
quelled. Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty, is only forty miles distant in a straight line
from Pukerimu; it is virtually the port of the Waikato; and large bodies of its natives

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1063

were known to have assisted in the war. In the middle of January, 1864, General
Cameron had written to the Governor urging him to send an expedition thither. The
result was that Lieutenant-Colonel Greer, of the Sixty-eighth Regiment, was posted with
five hundred men at Te Papa Mission Station. The east coast tribes were reported to
be preparing a large invading force, but for a time they were held in check by the
friendly Arawa tribe. After the fall of Orakau, those of the Tauranga natives who had
been engaged in the war, began to return, accompanied by parties of Waikatos, and to
entrench themselves in
a strong position about
three miles from Te
Papa. It was situated
on a narrow neck of
land flanked by swamps,
and received the name
of the “Gate ah.”
It contained a redoubt,
was well palisaded,
and was also defended
by rifle-pits, But its
garrison, numbering
not more than three
hundred—according to
their own account only
one hundred and fifty
—had no artillery and

no water. Colonel

Greer having asked for

»”»

THE GATE “ PAH AFTER THE CONFLICT.

re-inforcements, Gen-
eral Cameron moved his head-quarters to Tauranga, and, on the night of the 27th of
April, the fas was surrounded by a force of one thousand seven hundred rank and
file, while artillery was planted in four batteries at distances ranging from eight hun-
dred to one hundred yards from the works.

On the morning of the 28th, the garrison discovered the skirmishers of their
opponents, and fired a volley at them. The four batteries then opened fire, and kept it
up with unslackened vigour until late in the afternoon, one who was present declaring
subsequently that the rain of shot and shell was “enough to have smothered Sebastopol.”
By four p.m. one corner of the jak had been breached, and one hundred and _ fifty
seamen and Marines, with an equal number of the Forty-third Regiment, were told off
.to make the assault. One hundred and seventy men of the Seventieth were extended
as a covering party, and three hundred seamen, Marines and men of the Forty-third,
followed as a reserve. As the storming party, headed by Commander Hay, of //4Z.S.
Harrier, and Colonel Booth, of the Forty-third, entered the breach with a cheer, the
Maoris attempted to escape by the rear, but finding the Sixty-eighth closing in there
they turned back and faced their assailants. The cry arose that the natives had been

1064 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

re-inforced, and, seized with a panic, the men rushed headlong out of the breach, crying
out, “There’s thousands of them!” Captain Hamilton, of A/.J17.S, sk, rushed up with
the reserve of the Naval Brigade in order to rally the fugitives, but he was shot
through the head as he mounted the breach. The enemy poured in their fire on the
flying column with terrible effect. Most of the officers were shot down, and both leaders
of the storming party were mortally wounded. Of the various acts of individual heroism
which relieve the gloom of this unfortunate affair, the most notable was that performed
by Samuel Mitchell, captain of the foretop of AALS. Harrzr. Seeing Commander
Hay struck down by a rifle shot, the gallant fellow did not hesitate a moment amid
the pitiless hail of lead to encumber himself with the body of the wounded officer, and
at his own extreme peril to bear it back to the British lines. But Commander Hay
was past all human succour. The enemy’s bullet had lodged in the abdomen, and he
expired a few hours later. Mitchell's intrepidity was duly recognized, and he was
recommended to the Admiralty for the: Victoria Cross.

A line of entrenchments was now thrown up, by order of General Cameron, within
one hundred yards of the works. About midnight the Sixty-eighth were heard firing at
the rear of the jah, and on examination the stronghold was found to have been
abandoned. Some of the British wounded were in it, alive, and with no complaint to
make against the enemy. The British loss amounted to twenty-seven killed and sixty-six
wounded, of whom several died of their wounds. Only ten Maoris were found dead
in the jah, but it was stated that some others had been carried off. The natives now
entrenched themselves at Te Ranga, about three miles inland from the Gate Pah, and here
they were followed on the 21st of June by Lieutenant-Colonel Greer with a detachment of
the Forty-third, Sixty-eighth and the First Waikato Regiment, besides a corps of cavalry
and some artillery. The enemy had not completed their works, and were therefore in a
state of unreadiness. An artillery fire was opened upon them, and then the troops
advanced with the bayonet, the Forty-third leading. A hand-to-hand fight ensued in the
trenches, while those of the enemy who tried to escape were sabred by the cavalry.
The assault proved a complete success, and the Maoris were almost annihilated. They
lost one hundred and nine in killed, and nineteen in wounded, of whom twelve died of
their wounds. Only eleven unwounded prisoners were taken. The New Zealand troops
lost eight killed and thirty-nine wounded. The remnant of the Ngaiterangi submitted,
and though the rest of the enemy retreated to the hills bordering the Waikato, and

made no overtures for peace, the campaign was ended.

Tue “ Hauuau” FAnNATICISM.

Before proceeding further we must now return to the events of the second Taranaki
War, which followed the massacre of the escort at Oakuru. That unfortunate occurrence
took place in May, 1863, and, on the 3rd of June, General Cameron marched out from_
New Plymouth, with detachments of the Fifty-seventh and the Seventieth, besides artillery,
and successfully stormed a native redoubt on the Katikara River, with a loss of one |
killed and five wounded, while twenty-four of the enemy were slain. After this the
troops were recalled to Auckland for the invasion of the Waikato, but a portion of the

Fifty-seventh was left behind under Colonel Warre to garrison New Plymouth, The

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1065

latter half of 1863 passed away quietly on the west coast, a few trifling brushes ’ with
the enemy serving but to keep the garrison on the gw vive. In March, 1864, an
“attempt, under Major Butler, to take a fah at Kaitake, was repulsed with a loss of one
killed and six wounded. In April, a more serious reverse was sustained, Captain Lloyd,
with fifty-three men
of the Fifty-seventh,
and forty-one Mel-
bourne volunteers
under Captain Page,
was out foraging
and destroying the
enemy's crops at a
native village called
Ahuahu, when he was
surprised, and after
some firing his men
retreated in disorder,
leaving their dead and
wounded behind. The
casualties amounted
to seven killed and ten
wounded. When the
bodies of the slain
'were recovered they
were stripped nearly
naked and decapitated
—a_barbarity hitherto
unheard of. Strangely
enough, this savage
mutilation of the dead
proved to be one of
the rites of a new re-

ligion that had just

arisen, and which was

destined to achieve AN INCIDENT AT THE GATE “PAH.”

considerable notoriety

under its name of Hazhauzsm,: although its votaries at first called it “Paz Marre.”
This religion was evolved from the inner consciousness of a native of weak intellect

named Te Ua, who either believed, or pretended, that he had received a revelation from

the Angel Gabriel. After pondering over the various religious beliefs with which he

was acquainted, he compounded a curious jumble of the leading forms of Christianity,

Judaism and Paganism, gave it a name, and promulgated among its distinctive tenets

free love, ‘disregard of the Sabbath and the Scriptures, hostility to Europeans, angelic

guidance for its believers, and invulnerability in battle by the utterance of the magical

1066 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

word “Hau,” accompanied by mesmeric passes of the hand. Finally, its priests and
prophets were endowed with superhuman powers. Part of its ritual consisted in dancing
round a lofty pole called a “Vu,” chanting gibberish, interspersed with the names of
Jehovah, the Virgin Mary, Gabriel and Joshua, whose spirit led them in battle. Their
enemies were decapitated in order that their heads might be hung upon the “ Vzz.”
Captain Lloyd’s head was embalmed and carried about as an oracle or medium of
communication with Jehovah. On Saturday, the 3oth of April, 1864, the Hawhaus tested
their boasted invulnerability by attacking the Sentry Hill Redoubt, six miles north of
New Plymouth. They advanced in a close column, four deep, throwing their arms
about, and yelling the word “au,” with an effect which resembled the barking of
dogs. The garrison—seventy-five men of the Fifty-seventh, under Captain Short—
received them with a destructive volley, backed up by a discharge of grape. For some
time the enemy stood this deadly fire, but at last they turned and fled, leaving thirty-
four killed and wounded. ‘

Despite this check, the singular frenzy spread. Fortunately for the settlers of
Wanganui, the friendly Maoris in that district resisted the progress of the Hlawhaus
down the River, and invited them to a pitched battle on the island of Moutua. The
Flauhaus, to the number of three hundred, accepted the challenge, and the fanatics were
cut to pieces, losing, among others, the prophet Matene. The Provincial Government of
Wellington raised a monument to the memory of its allies who had fallen in this
encounter. For the rest of the year the colony enjoyed repose, which was not even
interrupted by the escape of two hundred and fourteen Rangiriri and other prisoners
from the island of Kawau, near Auckland, in September. With the opening of 1865,
operations were resumed on the west coast, the disaffected natives having opposed the
construction of a road between Wanganui and New Plymouth, and closed the Waitotara
block. In January, General Cameron set out with a force of two thousand men from
Wanganui, and marched along the coast-line to the Waingongoro, to the derision of ©
the enemy, who attacked him boldly at Nukumaru, on the south bank of the Waito-
tara, where he would have been defeated with loss but for the timely arrival of a
reserve of friendly natives. He declined to penetrate inland, owing to the refusal of the
Governor to apply for re-inforcements of two thousand men, without which the General
maintained it was impossible to open up communication, or to reduce a strong native
pah at Wereroa. In consequence of his strained relations with the Governor, which were
marked by a very acrimonious correspondence, the General went into winter quarters in
April. Thus thrown upon his own resources, Sir George Grey collected a force of
three hundred and nine friendly natives under Major McDonnell, and one hundred and
sixty-four Forest Rangers and Wanganui Cavalry under Major Rookes, and accompanied
them to the dreaded Wereroa Pah, which fell into their hands on the 21st of July without
a struggle, fifty Mawhaus being taken prisoners. After this, Major Brassey was relieved
at Pipiriki, where he had been beleagured. The line of coast from Wanganui to New
Plymouth had also been opened from end to end after Cameron's departure from
Auckland, and, as early as February, the Wanganui friendlies, under Hoani Wiremu
Hipango, had defeated the Hauhaus severely at Okotahi, but the brave chief himself fell.

On the ist of August, General Cameron resigned command of the troops, and was

MAIL STEAMER LEAVING AUCKLAND,

_—

———————————

i is

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1067

succeeded by Major-General Trevor Chute. On the 2nd of September, peace was pro-
claimed to all west coast rebels, excepting the murderers. While the troops remained at
Wanganui there was work of a crucial character on the east coast for the Colonial
Forces to undertake. Thither had proceeded the Hauhau fanatics from Taranaki, and
on the 2nd of March, 1865, a party of them signalized their arrival at Opotiki by
hanging the Rev. C. S. Volkner, a Lutheran missionary, who had joined the Church of
England. They then drank his blood, while their leader, Kereopa, intensified the horror
of the atrocity by gouging

out and swallowing his

victim’s eyes. Four . 17

months later, another
party of Hauhaus at
Whakatane, on the same
coast, murdered the cap-
tain and crew of a small
schooner, and a half-caste
Government interpreter
named Falloon. So
shocked were the great
body of the Maoris by
these excesses that Tami- =
hana wrote to Colonel
Greer, tendering submis-
sion on behalf of himself
and the King. Two
expeditions were sent to
the disturbed district—

one of one hundred

THE SOLDIERS’ GRAVES AT TAURANGA.
From a Sketch by E. Gouldsmith

Europeans, which arrived

at Waiapu in August, to
co-operate with the four hundred or five hundred natives who
had already begun the campaign under the chiefs Mokena and
Ropata Wahawaha, the other of five hundred and eighty men
from the Colonial Forces and Native Contingent, which went
from Wanganui to Opotiki in September.

This latter expedition, under Majors Brassey and McDonnell, effected a speedy
conquest of the Opotiki District, and, in November, was recalled to Wanganui. The
Waiapu Expedition, under the joint command of Majors Fraser and Biggs, and power-
fully supported by Ropata’s strong body of Maoris, achieved still more signal results.
Late in September the Hauhau stronghold of Hungahungatoroa surrendered, and two
hundred Ngatiporou, with three hundred women and children, were made prisoners. In
November, a force of one hundred and ten Europeans, and two hundred and fifty Maoris,
besieged the fortified fak of Waerenga-a-hika, and, after an engagement in which the

enemy lost seventy or eighty men, carried the position, and made three hundred prisoners.

1068 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

The worst characters were transported to the Chatham Islands, amongst them being the
subsequently notorious Te Kooti, who, although professedly on the British side, was
suspected of being a spy, and punished accordingly without any form of trial. About
the same time the Arawa tribe, under Major Mair, inflicted a crushing defeat upon the
Hauhaus at Te Teko, near Matata, in the Bay of Plenty, and took upwards of eighty
prisoners, including the prophet Te Ua, and twenty-eight natives alleged to have been
concerned in Falloon’s murder. Meanwhile, trouble had arisen in the Wanganui District.
The disaffected Ngatiruanui, in October, murdered the envoys of peace that were sent
to them, and at the end of December, General Chute marched against them from
Wanganui with a small force of the Fourteenth and of the Royal Artillery, strengthened
by two hundred of the Native Contingent under Major McDonnell. He took his way
through the enemy’s country, and, re-inforced by detachments of the Eighteenth and
Fiftieth, penetrated through the bush to New Plymouth, where he received quite an
ovation. He then marched by the coast to Patea, where the campaign ended on the
7th of February, 1866. This was the last occasion on which Imperial troops were
actively engaged in New Zealand. The strength and spirit of the enemy had by this
time been broken by their repeated reverses, although a kind of desultory warfare was

kept up with Colonel McDonnell until the end of October.

TiITOKOWARU’S OUTBREAK.

During 1867, the colony again tasted the blessings of peace; but by the middle of
1868 the North Island was once more convulsed in the throes of war. Titokowaru, a
leading chief on the west coast, and an acknowledged Hauhau, rose in rebellion, and,
after some pillaging and murdering in the Patea District, a section of his forces attacked
the Turuturumokai Redoubt, where twenty-five men were stationed under Captain Ross.
They surprised the garrison on Sunday morning, on the tr2th of July, and cut it to
pieces, Captain Ross and nine. of his men being killed. The rest escaped, five of them
being wounded. Major Von Tempsky and his Forest Rangers held the field until the
arrival of Colonel McDonnell with re-inforcements. On the 21st of August, the latter
officer attaked the stronghold of Te Negutu-o-te-manu (‘The Beak of the Bird”), and
captured it with a loss of four killed and ten wounded. Early in September a disastrous
repulse was sustained at Ruaruru, Titokowaru’s own fastness. It was assailed by Colonel
McDonnell with a force of two hundred and fifty Europeans and one hundred Wanganui
natives. The enemy, protected by the dense scrub, and with their marksmen posted
amid the branches of a clump of vata trees within the palisading, did such terrible
execution that the assailants were compelled to beat a retreat, leaving behind them
nineteen killed and twenty-five. wounded. Among the slain were the gallant Von
Tempsky and Captains Buck and Palmer, and Lieutenants Hastings and Hunter. Shortly
after this action, Colonel McDonnell gave up the command, and was succeeded by
Colonel (now Sir George) Whitmore. Under this officer another repulse was met with
at Okutuku, or Moturoa,-on the 7th of November. He engaged the enemy with a
mixed force of two hundred and _ sixty-six Europeans and eighty Maoris, and, after a
hard fight of five and a half hours, was obliged to retire, the casualties being Major

Hunter and six men killed, twenty wounded, and twelve missing. Titokowaru now

AISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1069

approached Wanganui, burning settlers’ houses and creating general consternation, which
was intensified by the news of the massacre by Te Kooti at Poverty Bay. At this
juncture, Colonel Whitmore was ordered with all his available forces to Poverty Bay, and
Titokowaru was thus left in possession of the field. One hundred of the Armed Con-
stabulary, with two hundred and ninety militia and volunteers, were entrusted with the
protection of Wanganui and the preservation of the Kai-iwi frontier line. In January,
1869, Colonel Whitmore returned and resumed his operations against Titokowaru, who
retired to the forests beyond Moturoa, where his last victory had been won. He planted

ambuscades, and one

of these succeeded in
surprising ten of the
volunteers who were
gathering peaches in a
grove, and shot down
seven of them.
‘Meanwhile, the
undaunted Kepa te
Rangihiwinui and_ his
brave Wanganuis were
scouring the country
near Putahi, and ren-
dering the colony yeo-
man service. On the
13th of February, 18609,

a war-party of the

Ngatimaniapoto from
Rb cicsiepounticade tale VOLKNER’S CHURCH.

the British redoubt at Pukearuhe, or the White Cliffs, thirty-six miles from New Ply-
mouth, and massacred Lieutenant Gascoigne, his wife and three children, as well as two
other Europeans. Just after the tragic deed had been perpetrated, the Rev. John Whiteley,
a Wesleyan missionary, was seen approaching on horseback. The Maoris shouted for
him to go back. He held on his way, however, and was then shot down. This was
never avenged. Colonel Whitmore and Major Kepa pursued Titokowaru to the Upper

Wanganui, where he rémained safe from further molestation.

Tr Koott AND THE Poverty Bay Massacre.

Incidental reference has been made to Te Kooti and the frightful massacre with
which his name will for ever be associated. It is at this stage of our narrative that
the salient episodes in which he figured must be introduced. Expatriated to the
Chathams merely on suspicion, he seems to have given very little trouble to his guards,
while over his fellow-prisoners he gradually established an ascendancy by professing to
be inspired. The promise had been held out to the exiles that, if they conducted them-
selves well, they would be allowed to return home in two years. But when this period

had elapsed the hope of release seemed as remote as ever. It was then that Te

1070 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Kooti mooted the subject of escape. The plan was feasible, for the garrison had
been reduced to fifteen men. On the 3rd of July, 1868, the arrival of the schooner
Rifleman with stores presented the desired opportunity. The captain was on shore the
following day, and a party of the prisoners was assisting to discharge cargo, when at a
preconcerted signal from Te Kooti, they rose, clove in the skull of the only guard who
offered resistance, overpowered and bound the rest, boarded the vessel, seized the crew,
and ordered the mate on pain of death to navigate them to New Zealand. He
consented to do so, and no further violence was exhibited. The women and children on
the Island were not interfered with. Te Kooti possessed himself of the contents of the
treasury, which amounted to within a few shillings of four hundred pounds, secured
about forty stand of arms and ammunition, shipped the one hundred and _sixty-three
prisoners with their sixty-four women and seventy-one children, and, in order to prevent
pursuit, cut the cable of the ketch Florence, the only other vessel in port, and sent her
crew ashore. Sail was made from the Island the same evening, and on the toth of
July, the Azfeman arrived at Whareongaonga, six miles south of Gisborne, then known
by its native name of Turanganui. Here, the fugitives landed with their plunder, and
the mate and crew were sent off to resume their voyage. With strange indifference to
the security of the settlers, they sailed away for Wellington, two hundred and fifty miles
distant, instead of promptly giving the alarm at the nearest settlement. At this time Poverty
Bay was occupied by about four hundred and fifty natives and two hundred Europeans.

On the 11th of July, Major Biggs, the Resident Magistrate, was apprised of the
presence of armed natives in the district, and on the 12th, he set out in pursuit with
a force of eighty Maoris and forty Europeans. He came up with the escaped prisoners
at Whareongaonga, and summoned them to surrender. Te Kooti scornfully declined to
submit, but intimated that he would not molest anyone unless his freedom were
threatened. Major Biggs retired, and, while collecting re-inforcements, dispatched his avail-
able forces under Captain Westrupp to watch Te Kooti, who was now at Paparatu.
This officer engaged the enemy, and was forced to retreat with a loss of two killed
and ten wounded, leaving all his horses, saddles, baggage, swords and accoutrements, to
a value of one thousand two hundred pounds, in his adversary’s hands. Although
encumbered by his women and children, as well as goods, Te Kooti cut his way through
the forest, and repulsed a small force under Captain Richardson, besides fighting an inde-
cisive engagement with Colonel Whitmore at Puketapu, forty-five miles inland, after which
the leader of the Colonial Forces fell back with loss. The enemy then remained
encamped where they were until the 28th of Ottober, receiving continued accessions of
disaffected natives. Colonel Whitmore returned to Waitotara with his forces, and Poverty
Bay was left virtually defenceless. The settlers appealed to the Government for protec-
tion, but the Authorities seemed determined to court disaster, for they ordered the
discontinuance of a strong redoubt which the loyal natives had began to erect at Mata-
whero. This proved to be an act of suicidal folly. On the night of the gth ‘of
November, Te Kooti marched from his /retreat, surprised the village of Matawhero, and
with cold-blooded ferocity, butchered the settlers in detail, the work of blood being
continued during two days throughout the whole district. The particulars are revolting.
Suffice it to say that twenty-nine Europeans and thirty-two loyal natives were massacred,

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1071

not even the decrepitude of age, the distress of women, ‘or the innocence of childhood
moving the murderers to compassion. Captain Wilson and Major Biggs were among the
first victims. A lad named Charles James escaped to relate the dreadful news. The
settlers fled in all directions, the women and children in Gisborne were shipped off to
Auckland, and the deserted homesteads of Poverty Bay were given by Te Kooti to
the flames. Laden with booty he retired once more to his forest retreat, and the
traces of his bloody deeds marked his progress.

At length Ropata discovered his hiding-place,
perched on the loftiest point of the forest-clad
peak of Ngatapa, where he had constructed the
most impregnable Aah ever seen in New Zea-
land. Without waiting for re-inforcements the
heroic Ropata assaulted him there and inflicted
a loss of sixty-five men. Lack of ammunition
and weakness of support ultimately compelled
him to fall back. Then Colonel Whitmore arrived,
and the combined forces invested the Aah. Ro-
pata stormed it with fifty men, and possessed
himself of the first line of defence. While a
sap was being pushed forward to the second

line, Te Kooti, under cover of darkness, drew

off his forces and escaped. Ropata pursued him,
and captured about one hundred and twenty MAJOR-GENERAL TREVOR CHUTE.
prisoners, all of whom were summarily shot.

Three years of guerrilla warfare followed. The name of the fugitive chief became
a synonym for rapine and terror. Ever pursued and ever on the move, he emerged
from the forests at intervals, swooping down on _ isolated settlements, plundering and
cutting off small parties of Europeans and friendly natives, and in his turn sustain-
ing loss at the -hands of his pursuers. Through the highlands of the savage Uri-
wera, over Hawke's Bay, and by way of Taupo, he was dogged to the Waikato,
where the King would have nothing to do with him. In despair, he sent word to the
Europeans of his desire for peace, but the Government replied by setting a price of
five thousand pounds on his head. In 1870, the chase was left almost exclusively to
the Maoris under Ropata, Topia, Henare Tomoana, and Kepa te Rangihiwinui. Te
Kooti fled back through the Bay of Plenty to the almost impenetrable forests south
of Opotiki, where his Aah of Maraetahi was besieged in March, 1870, by four hundred
friendlies under Kepa, Topia and Wi Kingi. After a desperate action, in which the
arch-marauder barely escaped with his life, the assailants carried the pak, recovered two
hundred and eighteen captives, and took prisoners thirty-five men and seventy-six women
and children. Eighteen of the enemy were killed. Te Kooti now crept from lair to
lair in the forest solitudes, tirelessly pursued, and with his followers diminished to a
score. Emaciated with hunger, feverish with thirst, unable to rest through fear of
capture by the indefatigable Ropata, he regained at last the King country, and there

found sanctuary in 1872. Years later he was pardoned, and since then has led a quiet

1072 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

life. He has often wished to revisit Poverty Bay, but the stern hostility of the settlers
has wisely caused the Government to restrain him. In 1871, the Ngatiporou seized

Kereopa, Volkner’s murderer, and he was duly tried and executed.

Te Wutiris Lanp AGITATION.

The name of Te Whiti, prophet, orator and leader in a remarkable land agitation,
figures prominently in the history of New Zealand during the past twelve years. Had
he been of bellicose instincts, he wielded the power to have provoked a war of races
which would have drenched the country in blood. But, happily, he was a man of peace,
and of rare force of character. In 1865, he restrained his people from embroiling them-*
selves in war, and in 1868, he prevented them giving countenance to Titokowaru. From
his village of Parihaka, between Mount Egmont and the sea, he exercised a_ beneficent
influence, exhorting his people to peaceful pursuits, prohibiting any traffic in drink within
his settlements, inculcating temperance, and preaching love between the races. He
assumed the functions and pretensions of an inspired prophet, and at monthly meetings
harangued the tribes with great eloquence upon passing events.

In 1877, the first signs of agrarian trouble were manifested. For twelve years the
Authorities had allowed the confiscation scheme of 1865, so far as it related to Taranaki,
to remain in abeyance, and the Maoris had long-ago concluded that it had been
abandoned. This opinion was strengthened by
the fact that, between 1872 and 1875, no less
than one hundred and eighty-five*thousand acres
of land within the bounds of the Waitotara
and Waingongoro Rivers had been purchased
from them, no question being raised as to the
validity of their title. Neither had any step
been taken to proclaim the reserves which were
to accompany confiscation. In 1877, the dream
of security was rudely disturbed. The Govern-
ment made preparations to survey the confis-
cated Waimate Plains, now dotted over with
native settlements and cultivations. Despite the
protests of the aboriginal settlers, the survey

was commenced in August, 1878. The pegs

mysteriously disappeared after they were put
down, and finally, in March, 1879, the surveyors - MAJOR ROPATA.

having taken a road line through a large en-

closure belonging to Titokowaru, were courteously conducted off the Plains, with an inti-
mation that the survey could not go on. The Government advertised sixteen thousand
acres for sale, and in May unarmed bodies of Maoris began ploughing lands which the
Government had given to military settlers. Armed settlers removed one party of the
dusky plough-men, but they quietly returned and resumed operations. On the 3oth of June,
seventeen plough-men were arrested by the Armed Constabulary, while the settlers made

violent threats of shooting all Maoris who again attempted to plough. During July the

HISTORICAL REVIEW OF NEW ZEALAND. 1073

Maoris in small bands continued to plough, and the Constabulary to make arrests which
were never resisted, until at the end of the month one hundred and eighty men were
in custody. Forty were sentenced to two months’ imprisonment for malicious injury to
property, but the rest were never brought to trial. Notwithstanding the declaration in
Parliament of the Hon. J. Sheehan, then Native Minister, that “from the White Cliffs
down to Waitotara the whole country is strewn with unfulfilled promises,” and that “grants

have been kept back until the people have come to the conclusion that the whole thing

TE WHITI'S VILLAGE OF PARIHAKA,

is a sham and a delusion, the promised reserves had not been proclaimed. Te Whiti
went on preaching passive resistance, counselling his followers to abstain under all provo-
cation from anything in the shape of violent reprisals. Parliament on the other hand
continued to pass Measures authorizing the Government to detain without trial the
arrested plough-men. In July, 1880, the untried prisoners were still detained in custody.

Meanwhile, the Armed Constabulary had been carrying a road through the Parihaka
District. In May it was taken without warning through a fenced field held under culti-
vation by some of the natives. The fence was repaired by the Maoris, and for three
weeks thereafter fences were being continually taken down by the Constabulary, and
with singular imperturbability were being re-erected by the natives. At the end of July
the fencers began to be arrested; but as soon as each party was drafted off another
party was found with cheerful alacrity to take up the work. The patience and _ self-
restraint of the Maoris compelled even the admiration, while it excited| the annoyance,
of the Authorities. By the end of August two hundred and _ sixteen arrests had been

made in the two months, and fifty-nine Maoris were sentenced, under the Maori Prisoners’

1074 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Detention Act, to two years’ imprisonment. In November, the Maori fencers began to
substitute slip-rails for fences, and these the . Government allowed to remain. In_ the
March preceding, a Royal Commission, which had been investigating the native grievances,
reported “that the Plains will never be occupied in peace until proper reserves are
made and marked out upon the ground. . . . To do this is an imperative necessity.”
This Royal Commission, which consisted of Sir W. Fox and Sir F. D. Bell, persevered
in its task; and in a final report recommended that, of the one hundred and twenty
thousand acres enclosed between the Rivers Oeo and Waingongoro, twenty-five thousand
acres should be reserved for the Maoris, and that of the one hundred and twenty-five
thousand acres embraced by the Parihaka District, from twenty to twenty-five thousand
acres should be similarly reserved. The reserves were accordingly laid off; and, to the
dissatisfaction of the Maoris, the Crown retained the seaward side of Parihaka. Te
Whiti maintained~ his inflexible attitude, which was from the first entirely one of almost
passive resistance, while the patience of the Government was being rapidly exhausted.

A serious contributing cause to this was the resignation of the Native Minister, now
the Hon. John Bryce, owing to reluctance on the part of his colleagues to sanction the
arrest of the leading agitators. Matters were approaching a climax, when the Governor,
Sir A. Gordon, left on a visit to Fiji. In his absence, the Acting-Governor, Chief
Justice Prendergast, recalled Mr. Bryce to office, and issued a proclamation calling upon
Te Whiti and his adherents to signify within fourteen days whether or not they would
accept the proffered reserves, and intimating that in the event of non-assent they would
be withdrawn, and their settlement broken up. In the interim Mr. Bryce assembled an
.armed force of some two thousand five hundred volunteers and Constabulary under Colonel
Roberts, and held himself ready to march on Parihaka. The fortnight’s grace expired
without any sign from Te Whiti, and on the 5th of November Mr. Bryce marched
with his forces to Parihaka, where, in the marae, or meeting-place, Te Whiti and his
henchman, Tohu, were found seated in the midst of two thousand men, women and
children, counselling peace and self-control. The leaders quietly allowed themselves to be
arrested, and Te Whiti, as he was led away, emphasized his extraordinary forbearance
by saying to his people: “Be of good heart and patient. This day's work is not my
doing. It comes from the heart of the /akeha. On my fall the VPakeha builds his
work; but be you steadfast in all that is peaceful.” Fifteen hundred men, women and
children were taken into custody; the settlement was broken up, the wares (huts)
were dismantled, and the native population for sixty miles round were deprived of their
fire-arms. The charge against Te Whiti and Tohu was that of making use of seditious
language, but at the Supreme Court, to the expressed surprise of Mr. Justice Gillies,
the Crown Prosecutor entered a nolle proseguz, and Parliament passed a Bill authorizing
the detention of the prisoners without trial. Te Whiti and Tohu were consequently
retained until March, 1883, when they were deported back to Parihaka, and placed on
their reserves. In the meantime, the Crown lands had been sold and settled, and since
then, under the restraining influence of Te Whiti, the natives have given no trouble.

Little remains to add to this narrative. The situation is at present one of profound
and settled repose; the Queen’s Writ runs uninterruptedly through the length and

breadth of the colony, and there is every assurance for the hope that native wars in

VD.

EALA

OF NE

EVIE W

‘ORIC

HIS

FALLS,

TE HUKA

THE

AND

SPRINGS

HOT

THE WAIRAKEI

1076 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

New Zealand are at an end. In 1870, Rewi, the hero of Orakau, visited Auckland for
the first time in twenty years, and was lionized by the citizens. Early in 1882, Tawhiao,
the King, also visited Auckland, where all sorts of honours were lavished upon him. He
subsequently visited England, and is now living quietly at his home on the Waikato.
At the beginning of 1888, he held a meeting at Maungakawa, at the invitation of the
Ngatihaua tribe, when the following lines of policy were affirmed :—“ That the Maoris
and Pakehas shall be as one people; obey the laws of the Queen, and respect them in
every way as loyal subjects; and that every native acting contrary to the Queen’s laws
shall undergo the same punishment as the /akeha; that all natives avoid intoxication
and other abuses; that no objection be offered to the Native Lands Court selling or
otherwise so long as it is done legally.” With this declaration the long dispute between
the two races, which had lasted from the very beginning of colonization, at last ceased.

When the term of office of Sir William Jervois came to an end he was succeeded
by Lord Onslow. The British Government has been trying the experiment of. substituting
for professional governors young noblemen of promise, who are sent to the colonies to |
dispense vice-regal hospitalities, and at the same time to learn the art of governing.
Lord Carrington was the first with whom the experiment was tried, and Lord Kintore,
Lord Onslow and Lord Jersey have followed in his wake.

Towards the close of the year 1890, the hold of the Premier, Sir Harry Atkinson,
on the country had visibly weakened. His health had failed, and he was not equal to
the fatigue of leading the House. A general election left him in a small minority, and —
he resigned. Sir Harry Atkinson was able, before he relinquished the political leadership, to
publish a financial statement showing that he had succeeded in establishing an equilibrium
in the finances, and had left behind him a clear surplus. The achievement of this task
was really the great work of his Administration, and it was made possible only by
severe taxation, and. still more severe retrenchment. He has been succeeded in the
Premiership by Mr. Ballance, the leader of the Opposition, who has indicated a disposition
to adopt a radical programme in politics, especially as regards the incidence of taxation.

As indicating the degree of development to which New Zealand has already attained,
it may be mentioned that at the end of 1889 its population was six hundred and
twenty thousand seven hundred and eighty souls; that its shipping inwards and outwards
was one million one hundred and ninety-five thousand eight hundred and eighty-six tons;
that its total trade inwards and outwards was fifteen million six hundred and thirty-
six thousand three hundred and sixty-two pounds; that its export of domestic produce
was valued at nine million and forty-two thousand and eight pounds; that it depastured-
fifteen million five hundred and three thousand two hundred and sixty-three sheep, eight
hundred and ninety-five thousand four hundred and sixty-one head of cattle, and one
hundred and eighty-seven thousand three hundred and eighty-two horses; that it had one
million three hundred and eighty-six thousand two hundred and eighty-seven acres under
crop ; that its revenue was three million nine hundred and ninety-one thousand nine
hundred and nineteen pounds; that the deposits in its banks were thirteen million seven
hundred and eighty-six thousand and fifty-five pounds ; and that it possessed four thousand
eight hundred and seventy-four miles of telegraph, and one thousand nine hundred and

twelve miles of railway.

A FLEET OF WHALERS IN THE BAY OF ISLANDS,

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND.
ee AUCKLAND.

\ JEW ZEALAND, from its insular position and long, narrow and irregular outline,

possesses, in proportion to its area, a far more extensive coast-line than any other

part of Australasia, measuring, as it does, upwards of three thousand miles. For similar
reasons, coupled with the fact that the trend of the Islands is from south-east round to
north-east, it embraces a_ considerable diversity of climatic conditions, products and
resources, as indeed would be indicated by the mere statement that it runs for nearly
one thousand miles through more than thirteen degrees of latitude. Its oceanic environ-
ment imparts a singular mildness and equability to the. climate, tempering the subtropical
warmth of the far North, and qualifying the winter cola of the extreme South. Within
its area of one hundred and four thousand four hundred and three square miles nearly
every variety of climate is to be found represented, the temperature being variable
enough and sudden in its changes. Droughts are rare, and are never excessive; floods
are seldom very serious. The colony comprises the North, South and Stewart Islands,
the two former being separated by Cook Strait, and the latter by Foveaux Strait. It
is bountifully endowed by Nature with most of those gifts which require only an
adequate population to ensure national prosperity. Gold had been heard of in New
Zealand from the time the territory was first made known to Europeans, although the
discovery for practical purposes dates only from 1861. Copper also has been. found, as
well as certain quantities of silver, tin, iron, coal, oil, sulphur, marble, graphite and
antimony, besides some small diamonds. In vegetable products New Zealand is exceed-
ingly rich, and its soil will grow anything produced in Great Britain. There are, about
one hundred and twenty varieties of indigenous forest trees, and about one hundred and
thirty species of ferns. Of the flora of the Islands it is said that two-thirds of the
species are peculiar to the group, while twenty-six of the genera are not to be met

1078 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

with in any other place. The most valuable vegetable product is the kauri pine,
furnishing timber and gum, which constitute the staple of a lucrative foreign trade.
Possessing such advantages, and magnificently situated in the midst of the greatest
expanse of ocean in the world, in the direct water-way between America and Australia,
its future is assured, and it is not surprising that its people should be inspired with
patriotic expectations, or that its public men should give rein to the imagination as they
attempt to cast the horoscope of their country.

On entering the port of Auckland, the traveller recognizes at once that the pano-
rama and the conditions under which it is presented are singularly prepossessing. The
approach to Auckland Harbour is one of the noblest in the world, for the city lies on
the south-western shore of the great Hauraki Gulf. The ship’s course must necessarily be
from the direction of the north, because the Gulf is flanked on the east by a long
peninsula which forms its shore on that side. The Great and Little Barrier Islands lie
just off the entrance to the north, and form there a» partial breakwater, though they do
not enclose the Harbour. The Gulf proper begins in the thirtieth parallel of latitude,
between Cape Colville and Kawau Island, where it is about twenty-five miles wide.
The course to Auckland lies south till vessels pick up on the right hand the Tiritiri
Light-house, which stands on a small grassy islet, separated by a deep and safe channel
from the Whangaparaoa Peninsula—a long jutting promontory, which runs -out eastward
from the land, and forms a north-westerly breakwater for the rest of the passage. The
Great Barrier Island lies thirty-five miles in the rear, and its hazy outlines are just
discernible over the ship’s stern. Onwards from Tiritiri the navigation is in smooth
water, the course is straight and broadly defined, there are no impediments or dangers
to necessitate cautious navigation, and the vessel is steered steadily on towards the
spacious Rangitoto Channel, which leads right into port. This channel lies between the
Rangitoto Island and the main-land, which is in this part a low-lying peninsula stretching
obliquely across the bow, and permitting the eye to see over it and catch glimpses of
the distant city rising gradually from the water's edge, and disappearing over a ridge
behind which isolated hills of volcanic action rear themselves at intervals.

Entering the Channel, Lake Takapuna, with its broad, shelly beach, its villas,
orchards and gardens, lies to the right rear; and the hinder portion of the transmarine
suburb of Devonport, with its curving shore, numerous trim white cottages and _ stores,
its neat race-course and its picturesque Mount Victoria, belted with pine-trees and
crowned by a signal-station, is on the right, front. Away to the left, the Channel is
flanked by the magnificent volcanic island of Rangitoto, with a substantial beacon of
stone off the reef at its foot. Rising with an extensive sweep, it culminates at the
centre in a triple-peaked volcanic mount, nine hundred and twenty feet high, symmetrical
in its proportions, sharply clear in its contour, and sombre in its colouring. It is destitute
of forest, but densely clad to its immediate base with undergrowth and native shrubs,
of which about four hundred varieties are to be found on the Island. The scaling of
the Mount is a far more formidable undertaking than its height would lead one to
imagine, for the place is thickly overlaid with loosely piled blocks of scorie, Behind
Rangitoto lies the grassy park-like island of Motutapu, stocked with sheep, cattle,
winged game and herds of deer, and owning the undisputed sway of Messrs. Reid

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1079

Brothers. Its tempting little coves and retired bays are the favourite resort in sum-
mer-time of yachting parties which repair thither on Saturday afternoons to camp
out over the Sunday.

Beyond Rangitoto and Motutapu, and
trending right across the entrance to the
Waitemata Harbour, lies an archipelago of
islands which completely fills in the picture
on that side—among them Motuihi, with
its beautiful sandy beach and its quarantine
building; and Waiheke, with its numerous
indentations and diversified conformation of
vale, hill and woodland; behind them all,
the lofty summits of the Thames and Coro-
mandel Ranges, faintly traceable in the lighter
azure of the sky. With ample sea-room
about us, we are yet encompassed by the
land, for the southern shore sweeps behind

the islands far remote from the vision,

and inland the well-timbered Hunua Ranges
close the prospect in that direction. The
northern shore advances and ends in a
rounded hill styled the North Head, under
whose lee the vessel passes into port. The
sides and summit of this headland are mined,
trenched, counterscarped and embattled for
defensive operations, and there are quarters
for a permanent force of artillery-men. There
is another Fort at Point Resolution, on the
eastern flank of the city, while submarine
mines are also laid down in the Harbour,
and a torpedo-boat forms a part of the
warlike equipment. Far out from the North
Head lies the small Brown’s Island (Motu-
korea) couched like a weasel, and straight
in front is the Bean Rock Light-house,
right in the fair-way of the Harbour, and
commanding an uninterrupted view of the
port and city. Auckland, from its unrivalled
maritime position on the narrow isthmus over-
looking both coasts, has been well-named the
“Corinth of the South,” and from its surpas-
sing beauty the “ Naples of New Zealand.”
The view bursts suddenly upon the sight.

With an almost imperceptible curve, the

THE QUEEN STREET WHARF, AUCKLAND.

1080 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

bosom of the Waitemata—‘‘ The Shining Water”—extends its generous width away to

the point where the Titirangi and Waitakerei Ranges, westward of the city, bound the

horizon. It opens out there into an expansive sheet, and then, sweeping round Kauri
Point on the northern shore, it runs fifteen miles further to Riverhead. The southern
shore, from the mouth of the Tamaki River to the foot of the ranges beyond the city,
lies low, and advances and recedes in regular alternation, forming a close succession of
pretty bays, around whose margin and gentle slopes, villas, embosomed amid trees, are
springing up in great number. Just off Bean Rock lies St. Helier’s Bay, with its broad
expanse of beach, its hotel and temperance accommodation house, its long jetty and
extensive avenue of trees. Directly opposite is Kohimarama Bay and its Training School
for neglected and destitute boys. A solitary sandstone cone, known as the Bastion Rock,
stands off its nearest point. A little higher up the Harbour, the land retreats into
Orakei Bay, which is sacred to the remnant of the Maori tribes that once densely
peopled the isthmus, and the traces of whose /ahs axe still to be found in its volcanic
hills. At Orakei resides the chief Paora (Paul) Tuhaere and his tribesmen, well-to-do,
indolent, and thoroughly Anglicised in manners and in dress. Over the ridge from the Bay,
distant only a short walk from the eastward, is an interesting relic of bygone times,
when Auckland was in its swaddling clothes—the small stone Maori church of the Tamaki.
On the opposite shore of the Harbour lies the charming little borough of Devonport,
with its couple of wharves, between which and the city a fleet of well-appointed ferry-
steamers—constructed after the fashion of American river-boats—ply at _half-hourly
intervals from either side. Higher up is the Calliope Graving Dock, with men-o'-war
anchored out in the stream not far from it, and vessels of every rig and from every
clime lying motionless at their moorings in mid-channel, or berthed at the various
wharves. Right in front sits the city, her feet in’ the sparkling water, her right arm
formed by the curvature of Mechanics’ Bay, half reclaimed from the sea, and her left
- arm bent round Freeman’s Bay to the breezy plateau of Ponsonby on the west. Across
the mouth of Freeman’s Bay stretches a breastwork, and the inner area, like that of the
other Bay, is in process of reclamation. Opposite the city on the northern side, the
shore recedes for miles into the deep concavity of Shoal Bay. On its eastern side is
the low peninsula across which is visible the first glimpse of Auckland from the sea.
The further arm of the Bay ends in Stokes’ Point, within whose shelter lies the North-
cote Wharf, affording access to the suburb of the same name, rusticating amid. its
strawberry gardens and dairies. Hardly a mile beyond, the eye lights upon the borough
of Birkenhead and its wharf, and more remote still is Chelsea, with the brick buildings
and tall chimneys of the,New Zealand Sugar Company’s refinery, and its wharves in the
foreground, and at their back the double line of trim cottages which climb in close
order the slope of the hill. These are the comfortable homes of the Company's employés.
Auckland already ranks as one of the five or six leading cities of Australasia, and

from present indications the chances are in favour of her soon disputing Adelaide’s

title to precedence. For capacity, combined with the utmost facility of entrance by —

night or day, the Port is without rival in these seas. Vessels of the largest size may
fearlessly enter at any state of the tide. Off Tiritiri Light-house an anchorage is afforded
of from twelve to sixteen fathoms, and thence to Rangitoto the depth is from eight to

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1084

nine fathoms. The _ en-
trance between the North
Head and Rangitoto is
fully two miles wide, and
the depth from eight to
ten fathoms, with safe
anchorage in six to seven

fathoms in any kind of

weather, while opposite to
the city the anchorage is
from seven to nine fathoms
for a breadth of a mile
and a half, and six miles THE AUCKLAND FREE LIBRARY AND ART GALLERY.
further up the depth is
four fathoms. The least depth of the Harbour is thirty-six feet at dead low-water
springs, to which may be added from ten to sixteen feet for rise and fall. The working
ship-channel, with its average depth of thirty-six feet, varies in breadth from a maxcmum
of two miles to a mznimum of not less than a mile between the limits of the North
Head at the immediate entrance and Kauri Point, where the Waitemata sweeps away
to Riverhead. Of the quays the principal are the Queen Street Wharf and the Railway
Wharf. The former, which lies to the side of the city, is the longest in the colony.
For a considerable distance outward from the fore-shore there is an extension of
solid stone breakwater, with an outer projection and lateral tees powerfully built of wood.
This wharf runs out sixteen hundred and eighty feet into the stream, the Railway
Wharf being one thousand and fifty feet long. Beyond the Queen Street and Hobson
Street Wharves lies a commodious graving-dock, which was solidly constructed of stone

in 1878, measuring three hundred feet in length, forty-four feet across at the entrance,

4082 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

and having a depth of thirteen feet at average spring-tides. But this is now devoted
merely to the use of coasting vessels, for on February, 1888, his Excellency the
Governor, assisted by Rear-Admiral Fairfax, opened on the northern side of the Harbour
the Calliope Dock, which ranks as the largest in the colonies. Its dimensions are five
hundred feet long, eighty feet wide at entrance, and thirty-three feet depth of water
on the sill at high-water. It is provided with a temporary head, so that in
case of necessity the Dock may be lengthened, Its capacity and solidity have
been sufficiently tested by the fact that, on the day of: opening, //.17.S. Dzamond and
Calliope were both received into it, and remained for several days. The next largest
docks in Australasia are the Fitzroy Dock at Sydney, the Alfred Dock at Melbourne,
and the dock at Lyttelton, which are four hundred and fifty feet long, and have much
less depth of water on the sill. The Calliope Dock cost the Auckland Harbour Board
one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds for construction, and the machinery required
for it will involve an outlay of twenty-six thousand pounds additional.

It is a fortunate thing for Auckland that its Harbour Board is the wealthiest
corporation of the kind in New Zealand. With an endowment of fifteen miles of fore-
shore it has made extensive reclamations on the city-front, and derives a considerable
revenue from leasehold rents, while its resources will develope. with the growth of the
place. Its handsome offices, three storeys high, and crowned with numerous small turrets,
stand on reclaimed ground between the Queen Street Wharf and the smaller dock.
Hard by is the Sailors’ Home, erected in 1887 out of moneys bequeathed for the
purpose by an old and wealthy resident of Auckland, named Mr. Edward Costley. This
man, with his frugal habits and simple mode of life, amassed great wealth, which at his
death he left to be divided among seven public institutions of his adopted home, viz.,
the Free Library, the Museum, the Sailors’ Home, the Old People’s Refuge, the Training
School for Neglected Children, the Parnell Orphan Home and the Hospital. His estate,
when. realized, brought in a sum of twelve thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds for
each of.these schemes, and the bulk of the money has been invested for their benefit.

The Queen Street Wharf is the seaward extension of the main thoroughfare of the
city. Although the conformation of the ground has undergone considerable alteration for
the purposes of traffic, it is still evident from the slope of the lateral streets that —
Queen Street was originally the hollow between two hills. It has a straight run back
from the water of upwards of half a mile, and then taking a slight bend to the west-
ward, and increasing its gradient, it reaches the top of the ridge along which the
Karangahape Road extends itself. It is a handsome street of shops, stores and hotels
of varying height, of many architectural designs, and of durable material, brick with
stucco being most used. In fact, Auckland may be said to have completed its transi-
tion from the wooden age, and to be well advanced in the age of brick. Within the
building area of the city proper—and its limits have been enlarged—the City Council
will not now permit the erection of wooden structures. The most striking and imposing
edifices in Queen Street are the Palmerston Buildings, a four-storey pile at the entrance —
to the Wharf; the new offices of the Mutual Life Association of Australasia, built of
yellowish stone and four storeys high;—the New Zealand Insurance Company’s buildings,
surmounted by a tower containing the town clock with large dials on three of its sides ;

_ a

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF

MA a i

Hil il!
HK

NEW

ZEALAND,

HILL.

TOWARDS WIND-MILL

LOOKING

AUCKLAND,

QUEEN STREET,

1084 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

and the Victoria Arcade, which extends along the entire front between Fort and Shortland
Streets, and comprises four storeys furnished with a patent lift. It is built of red brick,
picked out artistically with white stone, and the style of architecture is a modernized
Gothic. At the opposite corner of Shortland Street stands the head office of the South
British Insurance Company, crowned by the erect
figure of “ Britannia.” On the other side of Queen
Street, from the South British, is reared the
head office of the Bank of New Zealand, solid,
square and massive, as becomes a_ substantial
monetary institution. A little beyond, on the
opposite side of the street, stands the new office
of the Mutual Life Assurance Society of Victoria,
surmounted by its emblematic group of statuary.
Three of the four corners which Victoria Street
makes in intersecting Queen Street are occupied
respectively by the Union Bank of Australia,
whose office is built in the Grecian style with a

row of columns in front; the City Hall; a three-

THE OLD WIND-MILL, storey building with shops abutting on the street
frontage; and the extensive offices of the Aus-
tralian Mutual Provident Society. Between this and the intersection of

: Queen Street and Wellesley Street one passes the Working Men’s Club,
the Auckland Savings’ Bank, solidly built and with pilasters of polished granite; and Mc-
Arthur and Co,’s extensive warehouse; while in Wellesley Street West stands the Opera
House, with sitting accommodation for some two thousand two hundred and fifty persons. It
extends to the corner of the next street, up the slope from Queen Street. Still higher up
this slope the spacious four-storey brick and stucco edifice of the Young Men’s Christian
Association occupies a commanding corner site. It comprises a library, reading-rooms, lecture
and social halls, a gymnasium, and quarters for the Young Women’s Christian Association.
About fifty yards up Wellesley Street East, and with the Albert Park immediately

at its back, stands the Free Library and Public Art Gallery, and Auckland enjoys the
proud distinction of being the only large city of the colony which possesses such institu-
tions. They form a handsome pile of buildings, crowned by a cupola carrying a
flag-staff. The space is so ample that, pending the erection of the proposed Town
Hall, the Corporation finds room here for its various departments and for the fortnightly
meetings of the City Council, to which each of the six wards of the city return three ~
members. Throughout the week—Sunday included—the Free Library is kept open for
the benefit of all who may desire to consult its stores. Of especial value and abounding
interest to the reading public is the very fine library, comprising many rare and
curious books, which Sir George Grey has presented to the city. To him also it owes
many objects of extrinsic interest, collected by him in his long career as a traveller
and as a colonial official To the Art Gallery—opened by Governor Jervois in 1888—
he presented his own valuable collection of pictures, comprising some good works by the

old masters. The Gallery is open to the public every week-day.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1085

Other striking buildings out of Queen Street are Sargood, Ewen and Co.’s fine
four-storey warehouse in Victoria Street, the General Post Office and Telegraph Office
and Telephone Exchange in Shortland Street, with heads of royal and vice-regal per-
sonages and Maori chiefs sculptured out of freestone; and, higher up the same street,
the offices of the Auckland Star and the New Zealand Farmer. In Prince’s Street, on the

top of the ridge just to the eastward of Queen Street, stand the Museum, the Masonic

THE ALBERT PARK, AUCKLAND.

Hall, the Northern Club and the Jewish Synagogue. The Museum is well furnished with
natural curiosities, inclusive of a complete skeleton of the gigantic moa and a_ superb
Maori canoe and a carved house, and round the sides on the ground-floor are ranged the
various plaster-cast fac-similes of the most celebrated figures and groups of ancient
sculpture. The Supreme Court is a capacious building with rather squat towers, and is
situated in Waterloo Quadrant, about five minutes’ walk farther to the eastward. Within
a glass case above the judge’s bench are the battle-torn colours of the Fifty-eighth
Regiment, the first unfurled in the colony. They were presented by Major Bridge to

the city of Auckland. Just across the road stands the substantial Presbyterian Church

1086 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

of. St. Andrew's, and about twenty yards nearer Queen Street is the Government House,
a mansion of wood surrounded by park-like grounds where flourish the English oak, the
American maple, the Australian blue-gum, the semi-tropical palm, and some of the most
attractive trees of New Zealand. Behind it lies the Metropolitan Ground, wherein
volunteer displays and foot-ball matches are not infrequently held. Alongside this reserve,
and fronting Symonds Street, stands the Choral Hall, with its broad flight of stone
steps and its colonnade.

Customs Street cuts Queen Street at right angles near the Wharf. Here are the
head-quarters of the New, Zealand Timber Company and the Auckland Timber Company,
corporations which own saw-mills all over the province, and find constant employment
for hundreds of men. There are other companies of the same kind in -the place, but
these are the largest, and one has but to make a cursory inspection of their establish-
ments in order to comprehend how large a share the timber industry plays in the
social and commercial economy of the city. In travelling through the province to the
north of Auckland, and in the Coromandel Peninsula to the east of it, one is frequently
brought face to face with the seats of this kauri pine industry. At Tairua, Whitianga,
Whangaroa, Mangonui, Hokianga, and at various points on the Northern Wairoa, may
be seen all the processes of felling the stately timber, deporting it thence by tram-way to
the River, and then rafting the logs down to the mill, In Auckland an_ interesting
hour or two may be spent in seeing how the timber is worked up into the different
forms required for the market. A few yards farther on are the Public Salt-water and
Fresh-water Baths. The water for the latter comes cool and refreshing from the
practically inexhaustible Western Springs, which are situated some three miles farther
afield. From this convenient source the Corporation supplies not only its own burgesses
but also such of the neighbouring boroughs as may choose to pay for the water.

The means of locomotion are quite commensurate with the importance of the place.
From the Wharf a tram-way line runs up Queen Street as far as Wellesley Street, where
it diverges to the east and west, one link striking off to Newmarket and thence to the
foot-ball arena at Epsom, within two or three miles of Onehunga, and the other passing
through Newton to the farthest limit of Ponsonby. At present Epsom and Onehunga
are connected by the Tram-way Company’s services of omnibusses, but the extension of
the tram-line to the latter township is in contemplation.

The street nomenclature is suggestive of a loyal and patriotic population. Running
parallel with Queen Street on one side is Albert Street, and on the other side is
Prince's ~Street, while Victoria Street is the chief intersecting thoroughfare. Vice-regal
magnates are commemorated by Grey Street, Shortland Street, Hobson Street, Wynyard
Street, Bowen Street and Jervois Road; while British historical characters give their
names to Drake Street, Wyndham Street, Wellesley Street, Nelson Street, Wellington
' Street, Howe Street, Havelock Street, Curran Street, Grattan Street, Franklin Road,
Pitt Street, Sheridan Street, Grafton Road and Napier Street.

Anthony Trollope remarks that Auckland is redolent of New Zealand. He is right ~
in saying that it is the most representative city of the colony, The Maori with his
picturesque raiment of garish colours may still be seen peddling his fruit in its streets,

although the intrusive Pakeha has almost entirely deprived him of the market which he

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1087

once had at his command. In Mechanics’ Bay the hostelry still exists which a conciliatory
Government provided for his accommodation when he chose to sojourn in the city.
Even now, as of yore, the digging of kauri-gum—that peculiar product of North New
Zealand—forms a never-failing means of making a good livelihood when other employ-
ment fails, and its value to the province may be gauged when it is stated that in 1887
no less than three hundred and eighty-five thousand pounds’ worth was exported abroad.
A day’s journey
by rail or by
water will still
carry one into the

forest primeval or

into the haunts
of the quondam
owners of the
soil; or will take
him into that mar-
vellous region of
hot springs and
geysers which one
writer has not
hesitated to pro-
nounce as fit to
be styled the
first wonder of
the world. There
is one noticeable

feature of a sub-

tropical character

A COALING-STATION IN THE
BAY OF ISLANDS. beneveriooked—

the prevalence of verandahs in connection with

than cannot well

the shops and places of business. One may
traverse almost the entire length of the busier
side of Queen Street without leaving the ‘grateful shade of the
verandahs except when crossing the intersecting streets. These
shade projections cover the whole width of the footpaths.
Auckland does not lack public parks and other reserves for recreative purposes.
First there is the Domain, covering one hundred and ninety acres of gently undulating
land, and lying between the city proper on the east and the suburban borough of
Parnell. One goodly division, enclosed with a separate fence, constitutes the Acclimati-
zation Gardens. Another division is laid off, and has been prepared at great expense,
for the purposes of cricket. It offers one of the best wickets to be obtained in the
colony, and the slope of the ground on all sides of it, planted as it is with umbrageous

trees, forms a natural amphitheatre from which thousands of spectators may watch the

1088 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

progress of the game. The Albert Park is an elevated plateau of land, eleven acres in
extent, in the very heart of the city; it occupies the site of the whilom Albert Barracks,
and affords the most easily accessible view of harbour and city, the broad waters of the
Waitemata gleaming in front of it, and on the other sides the net-work of streets, with
a picturesque old wind-mill in the foreground. Sometimes, however, the band gives its
performance in the Western Park, a pleasant tract of thirteen acres of ground planted
with trees, chiefly conzfere, and situated on a sunny slope within the south-eastern
confines of the Ponsonby Ward. In addition there are some half-dozen triangular
miniature reserves, which are railed in and planted with trees.

At Ellerslie, about five miles out of the city, lies the property of the Auckland
Racing Club, with its two grand-stands, its two totalisators, its saddling paddock and other
appurtenances. The circuit of the racing track is one mile and a distance. The main
grand-stand is a handsome edifice of two flats, built to accommodate five thousand
persons, but with a sufficient capacity for eight thousand, and provided with flights of
steps to a beautiful lawn equipped with comfortable lounges and rows of pot-plants.
One thousand people can be accommodated in the second or Derby stand. The Club
holds four meetings per annum, the chief events being the Auckland Cup and Derby
during the Christmas and New Year holidays, and the Great Northern Steeple-chase
which is run in midwinter. Here, likewise, the Pakuranga Hunt Club holds its annual
race meeting in the spring of the year.

With churches and schools the district is amply supplied. Perhaps the most preten-
tious structure of all is St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, which is built of brick
and the omnipresent stucco. It occupies a commanding site near the fore-shore, and its
shapely steeple, crowned with a brazen cross, is a conspicuous object from the Harbour.
So too is the fashionable Anglican Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which overlooks the
port from the elevated ground from which the city gently slopes to the water’s edge.
In Upper Queen Street stands a massive pile, known as the Baptist Tabernacle, whose
pulpit was once regularly occupied by the Rev. Thomas Spurgeon. The head-quarters of
the Anglican Church are situated in Parnell, where the Bishop resides. There also it
carries on its own Grammar School and Orphanage. Its college for theological students is
passed on the way to St. Helier’s Bay. On the western flank of the city the Church
of Rome owns a large estate upon which she finds accommodation for the Bishop,
besides convent schools and an orphanage that afford scope for the talents and energies
of the Sisters of Mercy. Other convent schools exist at Parnell and Onehunga, and
the Marist Brothers provide instruction for the boys. The State on her part has made
ample provision for the equipment of her youth. In the province of Auckland no less
than two hundred and forty-eight schools have been established, and of these the city
and suburbs of Auckland possess seventeen, the largest being the one known as the
Wellesley Street School, which contains the names of one thousand pupils on its roll.

The District Hospital is a handsome pile of stone, built on a commanding site
within a large reserve adjoining the Domain. The Lunatic Asylum and its auxiliary
occupy a site, well planted with trees, some three miles westward of the city. They are
under the direct control of the general Government, which keeps a resident medical man

in charge. The Mount Eden Gaol is likewise a Government institution. It is a collec-

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1089

tion of rather unstable wooden buildings, surrounded by a massive stone wall, and_ is
situated in the Grafton Ward. The convicts who are confined here are chiefly employed
in breaking stone, extensive quarries of which, at the base of Mount Eden, lie all around
the Gaol and its precincts.

The industries of Auckland comprehend numerous timber-mills, several foundries,
boot factories, kauri-gum establishments, glass works, fibre works, potteries, frozen meat
and butter works, soap, candle and oil works, a tobacco and cigar manufactory, coach and

carriage ‘factories,

wine and cordial
manufactories, bis-
cuit factories, flour-
mills, breweries, bar
and pig iron works,
a sugar refinery, a

cartridge factory

and a woollen fac-
tory, the two latter
industries being

carried on at One-

as a hunga. In addition
there is a flourish-
ing ostrich farm in the Tamaki District. The
field of journalism is occupied by one morning
and one evening paper, in addition to which
there are five weeklies, and a number of other periodicals,

In dealing with the city, incidental reference has been more than once made to the
suburbs and their institutions. Parnell, which is virtually the eastern part of the city,
although it has its own borough council, is the oldest of all the suburbs, and for many
years was the recognized abode of the fashionable part of the population. In this
it has somewhat fallen from its high estate, and now presents rather the appearance of
decayed gentility. Beyond Parnell lies the Borough of Newmarket, with its three
breweries. From its Railway Station the Northern and Southern Lines diverge. Farther
east still, we penetrate to the pretentious suburb of Remuera, with Mount Hobson on
its southern flank, and the broad bosom of the Waitemata glittering at the extremity of
a long slope beneath it. Between Newmarket and the south-western limits of the city,
the pretty suburb of Mount Eden, so-called from its volcanic hill, extends itself amid

’

trees and gardens. Mount Eden is one of the recognized “lions” of the place, and no
visitor thinks of missing the opportunity to feast his eyes on the lovely prospect which
it offers. More distant from the city than Mount Eden, stand in close company three
rather squat volcanic hills styled the “Three Kings.” They derive interest from the fact
that they were the sites of prehistoric Maori faks, and that the caves with which they
abound were places of Maori sepulture. In fact, skulls are not infrequently found in
them still. They are well worth a visit. The Waitakerei Ranges, lying to the westward

of the city, are a popular holiday resort, for their forest recesses contain not only

1090 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

a noble kauri forest, and a chain of small lakes, but also the beautiful Waitakerei
and Nihotopu Water-falls.

Onehunga, six miles from Auckland, commands the western side of the isthmus,
which in time will be cinctured by a canal linking together the Waitemata and the
Manukau. It is a straggling little town, much frequented for its bracing westerly breezes
and its salubrity. It possesses gas-works, two iron-works, in addition to a factory for
the manufacture of bar-iron and wire from the Manukau iron-sand, a saw and _ planing
mill, three tanneries, and the North New Zealand Woollen Factory. Auckland’s trade
with the west coast is carried on from this port, and steamers also ply to Waiuku. A
substantial bridge spans the Manukau and connects Onehunga with the farming district of

Mangere, where Te Wherowhero, the first Maori king, resided before he assumed the purple.

Tue Far Norra.

The country north of Auckland may be most conveniently reached by taking passage
in one of the Northern Steamship Company’s fine vessels, which, leaving Auckland in
the late afternoon, reaches early the following morning the expansive estuary of the
Bay of Islands lying between Capes Wiwiki and Brett, eleven miles apart. So spacious
is the entrance, and so deep is the water-—so free from hidden dangers—that one may
enter at will at any time and anchor close up to the lovely shores without risk of
stranding. It is, in truth, one of the finest harbours in the world. For facility of
entrance it equals Auckland; with its manifold natural charms it even transcends that
beautiful haven; while for depth of water and perfect security even Port Nicholson
must yield the palm.

The town of Russell, so called after Lord John of that ilk, has its places of worship,
hotels and Custom House, its Lloyd’s Agency, a United States Consulate—for American
whalers still frequent its anchorage—its Post and Telegraph Offices and other Govern-
ment establishments, its Town Hall, and a steam-service with Auckland. The signal-station
immediately’ at its back is that on which Heke cut down the flag-staff with its symbol
of British sovereignty. Kororareka—signifying ‘‘Sweet Penguin”—was a considerable place
in those days. At times as many as one hundred and twenty whalers have lain together
off its beach, and money was freely spent and little regarded there.

Laving the side of Russell is the Kawakawa River, and four miles from its mouth on
the opposite bank is springing up the embryo town of Opua, where vessels of the
largest tonnage proceed for coal. There is a regular ferry-service between Opua and
Russell, and a line of railway extends from Opua to Kawakawa, eight miles farther up
the River. The town of Kawakawa has been built at the coal-mines; its streets are
regularly laid out, and its coal is in general request throughout the province. Man-
ganese mining is carried on opposite Opua, and the district likewise exports timber,
kauri-gum, flax, oil, oysters, fish, etc. Still farther north is the harbour of Whangaroa,
where Nature seems to have ‘run riot in her effort to pile up rocky scenery in
the most grotesque and fanciful forms. Passing through the contracted entrance, a
splendid haven is soon entered. The township reclines immediately in front of us,
and from its ship-building yards have been launched many of the fastest clippers
among “the mosquito fleet” of Auckland and the South Pacific. Mangonui is the most

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 109!
northerly township on the east coast, and it is reached by a few hours’ steaming from
Whangaroa. The land in the immediate vicinity of the settlement is generally of poor
quality for pastoral or agricultural purposes, but its barrenness is compensated for by

prolific deposits of kauri-gum—the crystallized exudation of the kauri pine—which

THE

WAIRUA FALLS,

denotes that at one
time the district was
the site of a dense
forest. In fact, timber
still abounds, and the
presence of a saw-mill
with good wharfage
accommodation shows
that it is duly utilized.
But the land is not all
of inferior quality. <A
glimpse at Oruru and the fertile Victoria Valley, with their smiling homesteads, will
suffice to dispel any illusion of the kind. Mangonui—like Russell farther south, and

Hokianga on the opposite coast—had its palmy days when whaling was almost the sole

1092 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

pursuit of the white man in New Zealand waters. In that halycon day, as many as
thirty-seven whaling vessels have been counted in Mangonui Harbour at the one time,
while a dozen more were cruising about in Doubtless Bay.

Fifty miles south of Russell, and within the deep recess of an ample estuary, lies
Whangarei, the largest and one of the pleasantest towns north of Auckland. A line of
railway carries passengers and their luggage right away from the wharf, two miles
distant, to the township which is seated in the midst of a level tract of land dotted
with orchards and gay with flowers, while the meandering Hoteo tempts the angler with
its stores of fish. The district is rich in agricultural resources, rich too in its flocks
and herds and its luscious fruit, but richer still in its mineral wealth. The Wairua
Water-fall, in this neighbourhood, tumbles in a broad and smooth sheet, thirty-eight feet
across, down a rocky face-work, a height of eighty-five feet, into a secluded and well-
wooded valley. The famous limestone caves are situated about eight miles south of
Mangapai. In the immediate vicinity of Whangarei is'also the Puhipuhi Forest, covering
some thirty thousand acres. It is reckoned to be the largest and most valuable forest
of native timber in the province, abounding as it does with splendid specimens of the
kauri. Unfortunately an extensive fire, which broke out early in 1888, laid in ruins about
one-third of its entire extent, the loss sustained thereby being almost incalculable. No
one thinks of visiting Whangarei without seeing its coal-mines at Whau-whau and
Kamo, the latter place being also the site of a progressive township. Both of them are
tapped by the railway. The valley of the Waipu, over twenty miles in circumference,
and almost completely encircled by hills clothed with an abundant forest, lies between
Marsden Point and the Waipu River, and is the abode of a vigorous and well-to-do
body of Nova Scotian settlers, who arrived there in 1854, under the leadership of their
minister, the Rev. Norman McLeod. In so far as the liquor traffic is concerned they
are resolute prohibitionists, having successfully resisted every attempt to establish an
hotel in their district, and their example is cited far and wide throughout the colony by
the apostles of total abstinence. The tourists who visit Waipu generally explore its caves.
A narrow defile leads into a natural amphitheatre clad in emerald green and encirgled
by lofty ranges of limestone formation, while the white boulders projecting through the
sward suggest a resemblance to some vast immemorial cemetery. The principal cave is
about three hundred yards in length, and the impressive drapery, the roof fretted with
coruscating stalactites, and the marble-like pillars form a prospect the remembrance of
which is not easily effaced. Myriads of glow-worms diffuse a pale lambent light which is
quite in keeping with the strange surroundings. One chamber is one hundred and fifty
feet in height, and the remotest cavity, from its echoing properties, has received the name
of the “Concert Hall.” A ride through the beautiful country extending by way of Maun-
gaturoto and Wellsford to Warkworth in the Mahurangi District will afford the visitor
a very favourable idea of the attractions of the North. From Warkworth he may take
the steamer down the tranquil and picturesque River, past its hydraulic lime and cement
works, to the sanatorium of Waiwera, which he will find crowded with people who have
repaired thither from all parts of the colony and from Australia to bathe in its hot
medicinal springs. A large and well-appointed hotel has been recently erected for their
comfort. This place is only thirty-six miles from Auckland, which may be reached

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1093

without fatigue by steamer in two hours, or by coach by way of the Bohemian settle-
ment of Puhoi and the lovely Orewa beach to Devonport.

The Northern Line of Railway from Auckland strikes across the. Waitakerei Ranges,
past disused gum-fields and through forests scarred with fire, to the town of Helensville,
thirty-eight miles from Auckland. It is the déét for the Kaipara and Northern Wairoa
trade, and will increase in importance as the line is extended northward. The town of

Dargaville on the North

Wairoa is one of the

seats of the timber trade.

Tue ReEcIon oF GOLD.

A four hours’ trip
southwards by steamer
down the island-studded
Hauraki Gulf brings one
to Grahamstown, the
mining centre of the
Thames gold-fields. It
is built of wood on a
narrow expanse of allu-
vial flat at the base of
the ranges, on whose
sides and within whose
defiles the operations of
quartz-reefing have been
continuously carried on
since the first “rush” in
August, 1867. Like all
mining townships, it is
grimy with smoke. The
distant roar of machin-
ery is the predominant
sound, and the appear-
ance of drives, shafts,
flumes, tram-ways and

mining apparatus on

every hand proclaims

THE WAIORONGOMAI TRAM-WAY, TE AROHA.

the calling of the
bulk of the people. It is only a few minutes’ walk to the sites of the celebrated
mines, which brought in handsome dividends to the fortunate owners, and_ spread
far and wide over the other colonies the fame of the Thames El] Dorado, Within

’

the compass of a limited extent of ground lie the “Shotover;” the ‘Caledonian,” which,
in its first year yielded the astounding product of ten tons of ore, valued at five

hundred and seventy-two thousand pounds; the “Golden Crown,” which paid its lucky

1094 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

share-holders two hundred thousand pounds in dividends in the course of a twelvemonth;
the “Kurunui,” which gave a yield of twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth of gold from
the first week’s crushing; the “Long Drive,” “Queen of Beauty,” “ Moanataiara” and many
others: the average yield all round from the Thames being an ounce and a quarter
per ton. At present the “Cambria” is the most productive mine. In as many months it
has paid twenty dividends of sixpence each. Although the Lower Thames gold-field is
actually confined within an area of four miles long by two or three in breadth, the
entire peninsula—eighty miles long by from twenty to thirty miles broad—is heavily
charged with gold, silver and other minerals.) The Thames touched the zenith of its
prosperity in 1871, when the output of gold was three hundred and thirty thousand three
hundred and twenty-six ounces, valued at one million one hundred and eighty-six thou-
sand seven hundred and eight pounds. Since then the declension has kept pace with the
gradual working out of the upper levels, but there will be a renewed and more perma-
nent era of prosperity for the field when- systematic operations are started upon the
lower levels, which so far are practically intact. The Thames possesses the second largest
pumping-engine in the colonies, its cylinder being eighty-two inches in diameter, length
of stroke ten feet, and its lifting capacity ten tons per minute.

Coromandel is situated higher up the Thames Peninsula, and was the first gold-field
discovered in the colony, but native troubles prevented it for many years from being
properly opened up. The gold is finely disseminated through the stone, and is often
found in combination with silver and other minerals. This, too, is the general charac-
teristic of the highly mineralized ore obtained in the Upper Thames or Te Aroha
District. There are three distinct routes for journeying thither. We may take the steamer
or coach at Grahamstown, and voyage up the lovely Waihou River, or jolt over the
undulating country of the Thames Valley. Or, if the train offer greater temptation, we
may take it at Auckland, and without a-single break hurry through the Waikato Valley
to the alluvial expanse from which Te Aroha (“The Love”) springs abruptly aloft for
three thousand two hundred feet into the clear canopy of heaven. In any case, the
journey will be of about the same duration, namely, six hours.

The township of Te Aroha is prettily situated in the contracted space between the
Waihou and the base of the mountain. It is a sanatorium of considerable importance,
for its domain contains no less than eighteen medicinal and therapeutic springs, the great
majority of which are thermal. Their waters are all feebly alkaline, and strongly charged
with carbonic acid gas, which is constantly escaping from them in large quantities. It
was only in 1880 that the district was opened up to settlement and to mining enterprise,
and the gold-mining operations are now centred at the township of Waiorongomai, three
miles from Te Aroha. Here has been erected, at a cost of twenty thousand pounds,
one qf the largest crushing plants in the colony It comprises forty stampers and
twelve berdans. From this battery, a tram-way leads to the mines at the mouth of the
creek, about one thousand five hundred feet above the sea-level, the principal one being
the “New Find.” The district is possessed of enormous mineral resources, but as the
gold is of very fine quality, and the quartz containing it is likewise heavily charged with
silver, galena, and other minerals, the process of extraction is costly, in default of some

cheap and effective means—of the kind rapidly coming into use of late years—of

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1095

dealing with refractory ores. The processes tried so far have allowed too large a_pro-

, portion of the gold to escape.
After leaving Te Aroha, the train bowls along a vast and fertile valley for three-
quarters of an hour to Morrinsville, a few years ago the centre of the Piako Swamp,
across which the traveller could find his sluggish way only by boat. Thanks to the

energy of the Waikato Land Association, which spent upwards of one hundred thou-

GRAHAMSTOWN,

sand pounds in reclaiming
its ninety thousand acres, it
is now a rich plain dotted
with cattle, homesteads, and
plantations of trees. If the
Association has not derived
a sufficiently large return for
its great outlay, the country
at any rate has reaped the benefit. The route to the Hot Lakes District diverges here
from the Main Line, but for the present we hold on the way to Hamilton, a rising
town of some pretensions, built upon both banks of the Waikato River, which is there
spanned by two substantial bridges. A few miles beyond Hamilton, a branch line runs
to Cambridge, its competitor for distinction as the premier township of the Waikato.
It stands in the midst of a thriving agricultural country, and offers both river and lake
scenery of much attractiveness. Returning to the trunk-line we continue our journey on

through the Waikato Valley, past the well-watered and timbered district of Ohaupo,

1096 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

rich in its beeves and flocks, to the splendid agricultural country of which the township

of Te Awamutu is the centre.

THE WoNDERLAND OF New ZEALAND.

The Wonderland of New Zealand is to be reached from Oxford. As the train flies
over the broad acres of the Matamata Estate, there may be seen in the near distance
the lofty extension of the range of Te Aroha, with a magnificent cascade in full view
coursing down its escarped face, while in the immediate foreground the eye rests upon a
long stretch of cultivation. The railway covers the one hundred and thirty-four miles that
lie between Auckland and Oxford, where it is the custom to rest for the night.
Starting from Oxford at seven o'clock, the coach-drive of thirty-four miles to Rotorua
is compassed by noon, and on alighting we find ourselves in the very centre of those
subterranean, hydro-thermal forces, whose sleepless activity, within a zone seventeen miles
in breadth and one hundred miles in length, from the\ base of Tongariro to the sea-coast,
has invested this unique district with everything that can amaze, bewilder, and impress
the beholder. The balcony of ‘“ Lake House” commands an extensive view over the blue
waters of Lake Rotorua, which is twenty-seven miles in circumference; and the native
village of Ohinemutu at the base of a jutting peninsula is in the immediate foreground,
half a mile from it is Sulphur Point, with its sanatorium, comprising hospital and baths,
erected by the Government at a cost of twenty thousand pounds, and in the middle
distance of the Lake is the island of Mokoia, to which, according to the poetic Maori
legend, the beautiful maiden Hinemoa was wont to swim in order to keep tryst with
her lover Tutanekai. First impressions are slightly alarming. A powerful smell of sulphur
pervades the atmosphere, the surface of the ground feels too suggestively warm to the
touch, and the eye is dismayed by the appearance of ebullient springs of clear water
or of filthy mud on every hand. The feature of the village is its whare-punz, or carved
meeting-house—an oblong span-roof shed, with its ridge-pole supported by one of those
grotesque Maori images which are endlessly repeated in all the carved specimens of
their pantheon—a disproportionately large and _ stolid head with lolling tongue and
nacreous eyes, the body long and narrow, the arms bent with the elbows projecting at
a sharp angle, the three-fingered hands folded on the stomach with an unmistakable ~
suggestion of gastronomical satiety and delight, the thighs knobby and the feet mis-
shapen. The arabesque scroll-work, which adorns the two massive slabs of wood that
form the uprights on which rest the beams sloping from the ridge-pole, is far more
sightly to look upon and to admire.

Although the therapeutic qualities of the thermal springs still retain their potency
unimpaired, and the marvels of this weird region have been heightened and multiplied —
rather than diminished by the terrible eruption of the 1oth of July, 1886, the Parian-
like terraces with their cascades of limpid water, backed by a cascade of the most
delicate and lovely lace-work, have disappeared for ever, and the waters of Lake Roto-
mahana, on the margin of which they were happily set, have given place to seething —
mounds of mud and roaring crater. The counterfeit presentment of what they were is
preserved in the portfolios and views of local artists, and is stereotyped on the pages
of countless books of travel, whose authors exhausted their powers of description in the

))

THE WHITE

\ i
nh HT
ir

TERRACE

mpete yt

=< i

1 a Ny, |

A STATE OF ERUPTION.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NE Ww ZEALAND. 1097

effort to convey an impression of their strange and singular beauty. One writer says:
“The dull, uninteresting aspect of the lake, and its scrubby vegetation, served rather to
enhance than to detract from the magnificence of those splendid natural stair-cases. The
White Terrace surpassed its sister in size and loveliness. At a distance it looked white
as alabaster, but on nearer approach was seen not to be white, but* tinged with a faint
salmon or cream colour. Sometimes, when illuminated by the sunshine, it glittered with
the varied colours of .an opal, an effect, however, not attributable to the substance of
the terrace itself, which was opaque, and so nearly white that a close inspection was

required to detect the delicate flush over its surface, but arising from~ the action of

THE WHITE TERRACE.

light upon the water rippling downwards to the lake. In the crater, and the baths
upon the lips of the terrace, this water was a lovely blue, and the crystals deposited
in its passage formed themselves into regular groups, covering the whole surface with a
fine lace-work. There was not an inch of it that had not’ in this way been chiselled,
as it were, into graceful lines and curves which the natives, apt to seize upon resem-
blances, had appropriately compared to tattoo, from which the name of Te Tarata
was derived. The terrace was fan-shaped, with the crater at the apex, and the full
extension on the lake level; the stairs or buttresses were also of unequal height, varying
from a few inches to twelve feet. The Pink Terrace has been formed like the White,
but it was of smaller area, the surface smooth as enamel, and of a pronounced pink
hue. The water in the crater was usually calm, just simmering and flowing gently over

the rim. One might stand on the margin and look far down into its azure depths, a

1098 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

spectacle matched only by the coral forest viewed in the shimmering of a placid sea.
The baths on the terrace were shallow, but sensuously luxurious, imparting a peculiar
smoothness to the skin, as though a fairy Madame Rachel had covered it with an
exquisite varnish.” The height of the White Terrace was one hundred feet; its frontage
to the Lake measured about eight hundred feet; and the distance from the Lake to the
centre of the crowning basin, or crater, also eight hundred feet, giving a superficies of
silicated terracing of about seven and a half acres.

Reference to the lost glories of Rotomahana naturally carries the mind back to the
incidents of the eruption. Rain set in on Tuesday night, on the 8th of June, 1886,
and fell heavily throughout the Wednesday, when the weather cleared. Soon after one.
o'clock on the morning of Thursday, the roth, the inhabitants were startled from _ their
slumbers by shocks of earthquake occurring at frequent intervals and accompanied by a
prolonged rumbling noise. The startled sleepers were aroused. They arose in alarm,
dressed hurriedly, and left their dwellings in order to ascertain the cause of the strange
disturbance. Before two o'clock their attention was concentrated upon a black and
lowering cloud in a highly electrical condition, which seemed to be settling down over
the truncated cone of the triple-peaked Mount Tarawera, immediately at the back of
Lake Rotomahana. A few minutes later; flames—subsequently attributed to the glare of
the incandescent rocks reflected upon the rising columns of steam—were seen above the
Mountain, and within a quarter of an hour a terrific explosion rent its broad top open
from end to end, with a convulsive tremor that was felt along the east coast from Tauranga
to Gisborne. For the next hour the awe-struck and trembling watchers were witnesses
of phenomena the fierce vigour and dread solemnity of which were enough to appall
the heart of the stoutest. Forked lightning played continuously about the peaks of the
Mountain and its inky canopy, from which also fiery balls darted hither and thither,
flashing into broad ribbons of flame, or dropping in showers of huge sparks. Blood-red
tongues, issuing from the darkness, lapped the face of the sky and vanished. Incandescent
bombs rolled down the precipitous sides of Tarawera, the internal fires maintained their
lurid glare, and to add to the striking horrors of the scene, earthquake shocks at .ten-
minute intervals formed the prelude to the fearful roaring of the voleano, which united with
the crackling of the electric discharges to produce a vast, mixed, and indescribable noise.

At Auckland, distant one hundred and twenty miles in a direct line, and at the
Bay of Islands, one hundred miles farther north, the people were aroused from their
sleep by reports as of a war-vessel in distress, and they were heard also as far south
as Nelson and Christchurch in the sister Island. More than that, the flashes of light
were seen at Gisborne and Auckland, and the pungent gases which charged the atmos-
phere, and almost suffocated the denizens of the Lake District, were distinctly perceptible
at Tauranga and Gisborne “during the fall there of the volcanic dust. Meantime, how
fared the hapless residents? While a bitterly cold wind was raging with the force of
a tornado through the devoted district, uprooting great trees in the Tikitapu Bush, the
native inhabitants were being overwhelmed in swift destruction. A.- tremendous eruption
of scorze, hot stones and liquid mud poured down upon the Maori settlements around
the margin of Lake Rotomahana, and entombed both them and their inhabitants— Moura

with its forty people and Te Ariki with its forty-five, while Te Wairoa suffered less

¥ xt

5
:.
.
bo
4

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1099
severely, only some ten or a dozen Maoris losing their lives. The two European

hotels were wrecked, but all their terror-stricken inmates, save a young English tourist
named Edwin Bainbridge, were fortunate enough to make good their escape. On the
morning after the eruption the sun rose upon a scene of mournful desolation. The
eighteen miles of country between Rotorua and Rotomahana (the prefix Roto signifying
“Jake”) were covered with a bluish-gray mantle of thick adhesive volcanic mud, of an
average depth of four inches, but deepening as one approached nearer and nearer to
Tarawera. The sombre surface of this deposit was dotted over with the bodies of rats

and mice, while homeless birds wheeled overhead in affrighted bewilderment; the pretty

(calc: saa’ 4- Mle

tone

THE PINK TERRACE.

little oasis of Tikitapu Bush lay stretched in devastation, the Blue Lake at its foot had
been transformed into a sheet of dirty brown water, the Green Lake, “ Rotokakahi,” had
sunk its beauties in repulsive turbidity; the ware roofs of Wairoa, peering above the
solitude of débrzs, told their own mute tale of dire calamity; Moura and Te Ariki, with
their scores of dead, were for ever swallowed up from human ken; the Terraces would no
longer ravish the eye of the beholder, and the Rotomahana had suddenly become a mis-
nomer—from a lake it had developed into a seething, steaming and raging chauldron of
mud and slime. Tarawera, the silent and impassive, on whose broad head long genera-

tions of Maoris had with reverential awe deposited their dead, was enveloped in heavy

masses of vapour, and when they gradually attenuated it was seen that an enormous

1100 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

chasm, six hundred feet wide, and extending almost from base to summit, had been
blown out of the end of the Mountain.

The indolent villagers of Ohinemutu escaped the severity of the eruption; a
light deposit of volcanic mud, the outbreak of several new thermal springs, and an
increase in volume and temperature of the old ones, being the only perceptible evidences
of the dread visitation. If Rotomahana and its far-famed Terraces have disappeared
there is still plenty to command wonder in the terrace formation at Whakarewarewa,
with its chauldrons, fumaroles, sulphur pools and active weysers ; in the marvels of the
Paeroa Range, and Kakaramea with its hot river; in the terraces, caves and springs
of Orakeikorako, the great geyser of the ‘‘Crow’s Nest,” the natural prodigies of Wairakei,
and the numerous hot springs and falls of Taupo. Allusion to Whakarewarewa reminds

of the district.

the tourist of its pretentions to rank as one of the ‘lions’
It is an easy three-mile walk from Ohinemutu, and occupies the side of a hill
which forms the right bank of the Puaranga Creek, presenting very much the appear-
ance of an abandoned quarry, with muddy water filling up its various hollows, On the
farther side of the narrow foot-bridge which affords access to the settlement, a native
youth collects the toll levied by his chief, and this payment confers the freedom of the
place. Threading the sulphur baths to the eminence on which stands the native village,
there suddenly comes into view a boiling spring of clear blue water of great depth,
which forms the village oven, and also the village lavatory, as the dusky and tattooed
visages gleaming above its’ steaming surface sufficiently attest. If the shy and _inter-
mittent geyser of Waikiti is in full action, we may watch with delight the play of the
lofty column of ebullient water, accompanied with a dull rumbling sound, betokening the
activity of the forces which furnish the display. It is the centre of a series of mounds
of sulphur and silica incrustations, and hard by it lie siliceous deposits in process of
terrace formation, mud cones, sulphur wells, boiling springs and fumaroles. In fact the
soil is seamed and thickly punctured by igneous action, and the odour of sulphur
heavily impregnates the air.
The sanatorium at Sulphur Point will naturally form the head-quarters of the invalid,
and possesses the greatest importance for him. According to Dr. Macgregor, Colonial
Inspector of Hospitals, ‘ the marvellous resources of this place, if only they were
properly advertised, and access by rail provided, would cause sufferers to" congregate
from all parts of the world in such numbers as would astonish the most sanguine
believers in its future. I believe there is nothing in the world to compare with this as_
a city of refuge for persons who suffer from rheumatism, which has not gone to the
length of organic changes in the joints; from neuralgias; from chronic congestions of
such viscera as the uterus, liver and kidneys; from functional paralyses generally, and
from skin diseases of all kinds.” The most famous baths are “ The Priest’s Bath,” with
its acidic and aluminous waters; ‘‘Madame Rachel’s Bath,” with its exquisitely soft
saline waters, the silicates in which impart a lovely gloss to the skin; “The Blue Bath,”
a large reservoir provided with hot and cold water douches and showers; “The
Laughing-gas Bath,” with its fumes of sulphuretted hydrogen; and “The Pain-killer
Bath,” this last being one of the most valuable sulphurous springs which are to be

found within the reserve.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1101

In addition to the lakes which already have been referred to, there is quite a chain
of others that are well worth. visiting. Rotorua is separated only by a slender neck of
low-lying land from its companion Rotoiti, and not far beyond it we may make acquain-
tance With Rotoehu, which has been compared to “a sapphire set in emeralds:” and the

deep blue Lake Rotoma, shaped like a Maltese cross and bordered with densely-wooded

MAORI GIRLS BATHING AT WHAKAREWAREWA.

shores. Rotoehu, by the way, boasts a soda-water spring on its margin, and a Maori settle-
ment named Taheke. A two-hours’ walk through the forest from Rotoma brings the visitor
to Lake Okatina, and the road thence leads, by way of a gully, te Lake Tarawera, in

the immediate vicinity of which lies the lovely little Lake Okarika, in whose surroundings

1102 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

and general aspect enthusiastic Scotsmen claim to see in miniature some of the charac-
teristic features of Loch Katrine.

Before pushing on from Ohinemutu to Taupo, one with an eye for the picturesque
will be tempted to traverse the forty-two miles of country which separates him from the

sea-port of Tauranga. He will have the choice of two routes, of which the shorter,

rougher, and more romantic, is that by way of the Oropi or Eighteen-mile Bush. For -

miles the road passes over hills and down dales, through passes and along precipitous
gulches, and on under the outstretched arms of giant trees, whose trunks are hung with
masses of swaying vines dangling like swinging halters from the rugged trunks. Ferns
of infinite variety and artistic design please the eye with their green lace-like fronds,
while through the forest the long-stemmed fern-trees lift their graceful rods and spread
their round branchy tops of fluttering foliage like palm-trees in the tropics. In the midst
of the bush,’ the coach follows a narrow winding road chiselled out of the face of a

precipitous cliff, and on gaining its crest one. may look back upon the Maungarewa

Gorge, once a superb vista of craggy rocks overhung and embowered with the choicest -

feliage, and with the narrow stream at its foot spanned by a rustic bridge. But the
glory has departed. The spoiler has been here, and has transformed this beauteous spot
into a blackened and howling waste. |

On emerging from the bush, the road gradually descends until it passes by the
“Gate Pah,” the scene of a memorable action, and thence winds its way through hills
of fern for three miles until the town of Tauranga is reached, covering a small peninsula
within the bosom of a land-locked harbour of the Bay of Plenty; and its principal street,
“The Strand,” skirts its stretch of beach. Outside the peninsula, a long narrow tongue of
land curves round to the Bay, and terminates immediately in front of the town in a
conical rock, eight hundred and sixty feet high, called Maunganui.

From Ohinemutu there is yet another very pleasant excursion to be made to the
wonderful Wai-o-tapu Valley, which has only recently been opened up to the tourist, It
is a twenty-mile journey, and lies between the Paeroa Range on the east and the ample
expanse of the Kaingaroa Plain on the west, stretching from Lake Ngahewa to Ohako.
Two lofty mountains — Maungaongaonga and Maungakakaramea— guard the northern

entrance to the Valley, while all around this entrance steam-jets burst forth from —

numerous fumaroles, and an immense seething chauldron boils, hisses and groans with the
noise of a steam-hammer. Maungakakaramea itself is wreathed from base to summit
with steam, and its steep slopes are deeply fissured. From the top of Maungaongaonga
a magnificent prospect is obtained of the extensive plain with its thirty-four lakes, and
as far south as Lake Taupo, with the snow-clad peaks of Tongariro and Ruapehu
clearly defined against the sky. ‘The Pink Chauldron” is the chief attraction of the
Wai-o-tapu Valley. It is a deep depression on the south-eastern side of Maungaongaonga,
coated with silicates ~of many hues, but with a predominance of pink. A spring of
boiling water occupies one corner of the basin; and, on the upper side, three geysers

rise one above the other, forming a terrace, which, it is hoped, will reproduce in the

course of time many if not all of the marvellous beauties of those which have disap-
peared from Rotomahana. The clear blue water flows over lovely incrustations of white

and pink silica, the slope being covered with thousands of tiny cup-like depressions. A

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1103

sulphur lake of brilliant yellow lies at the base of the terrace, and the water from it,
after skirting the base, tumbles over a precipice, thus forming the Primrose Falls. Near
the chauldron lies a foliage-lined lakelet which is strongly impregnated with alum, and one
hundred yards distant from the lake is a mud volcano with a crater, twelve feet high

and some ninety feet in circumference, from which a bluish mud is ejected in copious

THE GEYSERS, WHAKAREWAREWA.

quantity. The Valley contains also a
large steaming lake resting on a basin
of milk-white silica; the Rotowherowhero
or Green Lake, with numbers of wild
ducks sailing over its emerald waters ;
the boiling Blue Lake; and the “Sulphur Terrace” and “Cave,” the last-named enriched
with pendulous stalactites of pure sulphur.

There are two routes over the fifty miles of country extending from Rotorua to
Wairakei in the Taupo District, and each of these lies through a stretch of pleasant
country presenting its own attractions. One leads, by a narrow bridle-track past Whaka-

rewarewa, through the Hemo Gorge, and over grassy plains, to Orakeikorako, twenty

1104 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

miles down the Waikato River from Taupo. After leaving the Gorge the mountain
mass of Hapurangi, swelling like a dome from the plain, dominates the prospect until
one comes within view of the colossal Mount Horohoro, rising like a gigantic wall to
a height of two thousand four hundred feet above the sea-level, with a dense forest. at
its base, and beyond that on all sides a broad plain of pumice. Far away to the
south-east lie the Paeroa Mountains, quaking with internal fires, and penetrated by
boiling mud pools and hot springs. Ten miles below Orakeikorako, the Waikato River

forms itself into a long and rapid reach, having a breadth of two or three chains. At

Orakeikorako, both sides of the River are studded with innumerable steam-jets and hot
springs (Hochstetter counted seventy-six of the former) while the banks are fringed with

thick clustering masses of pure white silica. The place and its Maori settlement derive . wl
their name from a great geyser of intermittent action, which, while in play, throws off

a column of boiling water to a height of fifty feet. A broad terrace of silica in
process of disintegration carries a path which leads to the “Alum Cave,” which is more
properly a hole from thirty to forty feet deep, whose walls and loose boulders are
coated with an inflorescence of alum. The other route lies to the westward, and is that
traversed by the coach, but its features are decidedly inferior in point of interest.

After a journey of about thirty miles we reach Ateamuri, where the Waikato winds
through a rocky valley margined by steep mountains; while, at the bridge, the River
thunders over enormous rocks and boulders. Here a tremendous pinnacle of rock called
Pohaturoa rears its curious form to a height of four hundred feet and overlooks the
mass of huge boulders: that lie scattered about its base. Thence, we mount to the
central table-land of Taupo, with its desolate plains covered with snow-white pumice. |
Wairakei, or the “Valley of Geysers,” six miles from Taupo, is certainly one of the
marvels of the world. Its precipitous sides, from sixty to one hundred feet in height,
are beautifully clad with trees, ferns and mosses of diversified hues, while down its
centre flows the hot stream known as Te Wairakei, replete with thermal phenomena.
Clouds of vapour ascend on every hand, and the insecurity of the soil renders it
necessary to pick one’s steps with due caution. The stream, fed by the hot springs —
on its banks, opens out into a charming blue lakelet, at a little distance above
which heavy thuds, followed by reverberations that shake the ground, would almost
persuade the visitor that he stands over the site of some vast internal forge. This
is “The Steam Hammer.”

On the southern bank of the stream, we pass in review the various geysers:
Terekereke, a dark cavern with a rocky bridge; Tuhuatahi, a huge boiling ‘chauldron ;
with a circular basin about fifty feet in diameter, whose clear waters are in constant
effervescence ; the Great and Little Wairakei: and ‘The Heron’s Nest,” a geyser cone of b.
incrusted sticks, with an intermittent fountain and surrounded by numerous fumaroles.
Crossing to the northern bank near the location of “The Steam Hammer,” we pass the
‘Petrifying Geyser,” a curious spring whose waters invest every substance that they meet.
with a beautiful incrustation suggestive of nothing so much as red coral; the “Terraces,”
fit theme for painter or poet; Nga Mahanga, or “The Twins,” a large pear-shaped
basin, twenty-four by twelve feet, with its lip festooned by pendant masses of sponge,
and divided into two parts by a band of sinter—a fountain plays at five-minute intervals ;

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1105

“The Prince of Wales's Feathers,” an intermittent fountain which throws its aqueous plumes
to a height of twenty-five feet, and to a distance of fifty feet on either side; Korowhiti,
or “ The Whistler,” a small water-spout which issues from a fissure of black rock with
the sound of a whistle; “The Boilers,” an ebullient rock-bound pool, seized with irregular
spasms which expend their energy in the propulsion of a column of water to a height
of six or eight feet; “The Funnel,” a triangular fissure in the rock continually spouting
steam, and occasionally geysers as well; ‘“‘“The Eagle’s Nest,” a symmetrical geyser-cone
built up of long sticks like an eagle’s eyrie and cemented with snow-white sinter, from

‘

whose midst a feathery
geyser plays intermittent-
ly; the “Old Terrace,” a
payed plateau partially
overgrown and decom-
posed; a congeries of
white and gray mud vol-

canoes, some steaming

and others seething; the MOUNT TARAWERA AFTER THE ERUPTION,

“White Springs,” two

large basins and a small lake of boiling milk-like water holding white-clay in solution; ‘“ The
Donkey Engine,” a small mound busily puffing steam with a regular pulsation; the * Red
Terrace Cascade,” a parti-coloured terrace about fifteen feet wide, over which the waters
from a neighbouring geyser ripple and leap in charming little cascades; the “ Black Geyser,”
a circular black basin, eight feet in diameter, filled with clear hot water from an intermittent
geyser, and its bottom heaped with smooth black stones; Pirorirori, or the Blue Lake,
a long lake with steep banks and of ovoid form, its name derived from the pale-blue

hue of the water imparted by the clay which it holds in solution; Te Kiriohinekai, or

1106 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

“The New Skin,” a hot greenish-blue stream of wonderful curative properties flowing out of
the Lake, and forming in its course “‘ The Water-fall,” “The Fountain” and “ The Cascade”
baths; “ The Sulphur Springs,” active so/fataras with deposits of pure sulphur; Okurawai,
or “The Coloured Springs,” a group of about a hundred boiling springs, some ejecting
spouts of water or clay, and all glowing with vivid colours—red, pink, orange, yellow,
cream, gray and white, which dazzle and coruscate in the sunlight with brilliant effect ;
and finally, Karapiti, or “ The Great Steam-hole,” the largest fumarole in the Hot Lake
country, visible for nifty miles, and with a
force so terrific that branches of trees
thrown into its screeching funnel are at
once hurled forth again with tremendous
velocity. This enumeration requires to be
supplemented with a brief description of
the Great Wairakei Geyser. Its crater is
a deep, triangular cavity, some twenty feet
wide at the top, yawning beneath a_per-
pendicular cliff ‘of black rock, and with its
pool fringed by white incrustations of silica
pointed and fretted like a delicate fabric
of lace, while gleaming in the clear depths
of the water lie masses of silicated rock in

strange coralline forms and displaying lovely
A NATIVE ‘'WHARE” BURIED BY THE ERUPTION, hues of pink, yellow and white. A large
_incrusted rock shaped like an arm-chair

constitutes the apex of the triangle, and at its foot the gurgling water finds an outlet.
The geyser, like its lesser companions, is intermittent; the water, varying at intervals from
five to fifteen minutes, becoming violently agitated, and then rising rapidly into a shoot-
ing column from four to fifteen feet in height, sometimes attaining even a height of
forty feet. The eruption usually lasts about a couple of minutes, and the water then
as suddenly subsides. Twenty feet to the west lies the Little Wairakei, a boiling pool,
with small fretted white terraces. The rich mass of vegetation with which the Wairakei
Valley abounds forms one of its loveliest features, and from an artistic point of view
gives it a certain amount of pre-eminence over similar scenery in the Rotorua District.
Half-way between Wairakei and Taupo, and only three miles from the latter, we
come in sight of the Huka (“Foam”) Falls, which invest this part of the Waikato
River with commanding interest. Local tradition has been busy with this wild spot, and
old-time stories make the scene romantic with associations. One such legend affirms that
a party of some seventy Wanganui Maoris once in a spirit of bravado dared to shoot
the Falls, and that their canoe was engulphed the moment it reached the foaming
gorge, one chief only, who leaped on to a boulder as the rapids were entered, escaping
to bear home the melancholy tidings. Lake Taupo, called also by the natives Te
Moana, or “The Sea,” is of an irregular oval shape, twenty-four miles across from
north-east to south-west, fourteen miles broad from east to west, and with a superficial

area of over three hundred square miles. It is nearly one thousand two hundred feet

he?

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1107

above sea-level, and the air is clear, dry and bracing. The lacustrine scenery is not
particularly prepossessing or impressive. Low shores marked by few indentations or
rocky promontories, a singular poverty of foliage, and one island only on Taupo’s broad
and shimmering bosom, are its distinguishing features; and these are hardly sufficient

THE FERNS OF NEW ZEALAND.

to endow it with any great beauty. Still, on a cloud-
less day, the prospect to the southward has powerful
attractions in the graceful cone of Tongariro with its
fleecy canopy of steam, and with the huge bulk of Ruapehu still farther in the back-
ground, dwarfing all its neighbour peaks. The village of Taupo, or Tapu-wae-haruru,
“The Place of Sounding Footsteps,” so called from the hollow cavernous sound of one’s
feet on the pumice plain, is situated on a flat directly overlooking the northern shore
of the Lake, and some thirty or forty feet above it.

The visitor may notice that the water near the shore, a mile or so to the left, is
steaming for some distance, denoting the presence of subaqueous boiling springs, and
this phenomenon will prepare him for others of a like kind in the locality. On the

1108 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

farther bank nestles a small Maori settlement. In fact, the shores of the Lake are
studded with such settlements and with the remains of antique Aahs, for Taupo was once
the centre of a very numerous aboriginal population.” The verdant crest of Tauhara, an
isolated wooded mountain standing about four miles from the township, attracts the eye
of the traveller, forming one of those picturesque morceaux that the painter would not
willingly omit from his. canvas. From a cliff, overhanging a picturesque gorge through
which the Waikato flows, about a mile from the township, may be seen a number of
columns of steam issuing from springs on the right-hand bank. As the eye rests
carelessly upon them, there suddenly bursts from a funnel of silica, looking for all the
world like a large nest built of loose sticks, a pillar of hot water shooting boldly up
into the air to a height of perhaps fifty feet or so, describing a beautiful curve, and
descending in foam. This is known as “ The Crow’s Nest.” Hard by it, there is a
circular cavity in the high river-bank, its sides covered with incrustations of red, crimson,
green, orange, yellow, black and brown; and, at its’ bottom, is a boiling pool of blue
water throwing off clouds of dense steam. This is “The Witch’s Chauldron.” On the top
of the bank, and one hundred yards from the River, in the midst of a clump of
manuka scrub, lies “Big Ben,” an aperture some fifteen feet deep, at the bottom of
which the mud is boiling to the accompaniment of a dull throbbing noise, like the beat
of a steamer’s screw. ‘ |

From this spot it is only a short walk to Glen Loffley, with its douche, plunge,
swimming and vapour baths, A track extending along the north-eastern side of Tauhara
“leads up to Rotokawa, or the Bitter Lake, eight miles distant. It measures a mile long
by three-quarters of a mile broad, and its waters have a nauseous sweet-acid taste.
Fine slabs of sulphur glittering with crystals may be dug anywhere beyond the Lake.
At the extreme south-western end of Taupo, within the recess of a pretty bay, lies
ensconced the native settlement of Tokaano in the midst of hot alkaline springs giving
forth volumes of steam. There is also a chalybeate spring of one hundred and fifty-six
degrees Fahrenheit, which deposits large quantities of iron ochre. Some five hundred
feet above the Lake, on the sides of the Kakaramea Mountain, hot steam and _ boiling
water are pouring out from clefts and fissures with a continual fizzing noise. In fact,
as one writer has aptly remarked, this side of the Mountain seems to have been. boiled
soft, and to be on the point of falling in. It was here that in 1846 an avalanche of —
mud overwhelmed a native village, and buried alive the powerful chief Te Heu Heu
and his harem of wives, together ‘with upwards of sixty of his devoted followers.
Hochstetter says: “1 believe if anyone at Tokaano or on the declivity of the Kaka-
ramea would endeavour to count the several spots which give out either hot water,
steam, or boiling mud, he would find more than five hundred of them.”

At Tokaano we are almost upon the thirty-ninth parallél of latitude, which separates
the province of Auckland from the provinces of Hawke's Bay and Wellington. The
distance to Napier, on the east coast, is about one hundred miles, and some practical
conception of the advantage of railway travelling is obtained from a consideration of the
fact that the coach-journey will take two days. The Napier coach leaves Taupo at
seven o'clock in the morning, and the route strikes away to the south-eastward across
the Kaimanawa Range and the Rangitaiki River to Runanga. For the first twenty-four

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1109

miles the journey is tame and uninteresting, a dreary monotony of pumice and_tussock-

grass. At Runanga, however, there comes a sudden and welcome change in the land-

THE FLOWERS OF NEW ZEALAND,

scape, for the road here approaches the pretty Waipunga River, hurrying musically along its

course from the mountains; and, by following its charming sinuosities, the traveller is intro-

1110 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

duced to forest scenery in a country of rolling undulations, the vegetation being profuse and
diversified. By six o'clock the coach rumbles into the small secluded hamlet of Tarawera,
whence the Turanga-kuma Range is scaled by a winding zig-zag road, which twists and
contorts itself in every possible form as it works its way up the steep and lofty acclivity,
and at the same time calls for the display of a keen eye, a cool head, and a steady
nerve on the part of the driver, for in some places a foot or so of ground is the
measure of distance between security and certain death, It would seem as if the forces
which are responsible for the elevation of this Range had expended themselves in
tearing and rending it into all sorts of grotesque and whimsical shapes, and the eye of
the traveller therefore has plenty of material upon which to fasten. The prospect is
certainly highly attractive and full of varying interest. Having at last gained the crest
of Turanga-kuma, the coach dashes through the native settlkement of Te WHarato, and
begins the descent into the valley of the Mohaka, crossing that picturesque River by a
bridge near a charming water-fall, and catching also a glimpse of the old Armed Consta- ~
bulary block-houses, relics of more unsettled times.

The Titiokura Range, rising to a height of two thousand seven hundred and fifty
feet above the sea, lies immediately in front, and up its steep gradients and formidable
slopes the horses toil patiently and slowly. At last the summit is gained, and an exten-
sive panorama meets the gaze, but it is hardly so fine as that obtained from the height |
of Turanga-kuma. -At a distance of fourteen miles from Napier, the road dips into. the
shallow bed of the Esk, and for the next few miles the traveller wonders whether the
River is ever to be shaken off the course of the road, for in the strangest way it re-
appears again and again, until the mind looses count of the number of times the coach
crosses it. As a matter of fact, it is crossed on no less than forty-five occasions, but
at last the Petane Valley is entered, and a good carriage-drive is’ struck which leads
into Napier by way of the thriving township of Meanee, and is environed by fertile
tracts of grazing-land. Hawke's Bay is, par excellence, a pastoral province; and, although
it possesses also very valuable forests of good timber, pastoral pursuits predominate, and
wool and live stock are the staple products. 2

The busy and progressive town of Napier is prettily situated ‘on Scinde Island, which
may have been at one time surrounded by water, but is now a peninsula terminating
to the north in a group of hills lying closely together. On the flat land at their base
lies the business portion of the place. The streets containing the shops, warehouses,
banks, hotels, churches, and Government and other buildings, are irregularly laid out,
while the villas of opulent merchants lie embosomed amid trees and trim lawns on the
salubrious sides of the hills. The town follows the flowing and semicircular curve of
the ocean beach, which has not inaptly been compared, in its general aspect, to the
Bay of Naples, although the landscape lacks the charming features of the celebrated
Tyrrhenian Sea. The port retains its pretty Maori name of Ahuriri, and is slightly
beyond the town proper. Its roadstead is exposed during easterly gales, but costly
works are in progress for the improvement of the entrance, and the anchorage is good.
The northern extension of Scinde Island is connected by a bridge with “The Spit”
running south from Petane, and within this enclosure lies the inner harbour, which is,
unfortunately, not available for harbour purposes. It is at “ The Spit” that passengers are

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, rit

landed, and where all the shipping traffic takes place, The road from “The Spit" slopes
upward in a long incline which has been carried through steep embankments, overrun
and rendered highly attractive to the eye by a profuse growth of ice-plants glowing

with varied hues, These embankments slope again on their farther side into deep vales

well planted with trees,
while church buildings
crown one of the heights.
THE TOWN OF From this point the road
ge act descends right into the
heart of the town, opening up to the view,
ere we reach it, a fine prospect of the
expanse of ocean merging at the horizon
into the soft blue of the sky. As the traveller
wanders through the streets and notes their names,
every thoroughfare calls to mind one or other of
the master-minds of English literature—Milton
Road, Shakespeare Road, Chaucer Road, Tennyson Street, Browning Street, Carlyle
Street, Dickens Street, and so on. These names were given by Mr. Alfred Domett
(the author of “Ranolf and Amohia”), who laid off the city in 1855. Napier is
what the Americans would call “a live town,” and it possesses all the requirements
and conveniences of urban life. It is the head-quarters of the Bishop of Waiapu,
in which connection it may be mentioned that a fine cathedral is in course of erection.
The buildings are mostly of wood, and the process of architectural evolution has not

yet advanced far enough to justify the people in aiming at much display. A capital

1112 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

view of the town and its environs is obtained from Prospect Hill, whereon stands the
light-house, and another excellent panorama may be had from the elevated ground
which forms the site of the Hospital.

Clyde, on the river Wiaroa, forty miles by sea from Napier, is the only provincial
township of any note north of Napier. It is the déét for a hilly grazing country, and
hop-growing is also carried on in its vicinity. Thence it is not far to Gisborne, the
second largest and the most southerly town of the province of Auckland. A second
township has also sprung up about two miles off, known as New Gisborne, with a popu-
lation of two hundred persons. In Gisborne proper there are branches of the Commer-
cial and Federal Banks, a mechanics’ institute with a well-furnished library of upwards of
twelve hundred volumes, a public hall, and State and Roman Catholic schools. The country
lying around Gisborne is of a fertile character, some of it heavily timbered and the
rest devoted to agricultural and pastoral pursuits. Gisborne is the port of entry for
Poverty Bay. Considerable attention has been given to harbour construction and improve-
ment, and the anchorage and landing are both good. The town is built upon a wide
stretch of level land at the mouth of the river Turanganui, and in some of its charac-
teristics it resembles Napier. The neighbourhood of this town is historic ground, for
here is the spot where Captain Cook first landed in New Zealand, in October, 1769. The
Bay proper is subdivided into several inlets by three small rivers, the Turanganui, the
Koputetea and the Werowero, and of these the first-named is celebrated as being the scene
of Cook’s landing, while the south-west point of the Bay was the first land sighted by
the explorers in New Zealand. It was owing to the unfavorable circumstances under
which he landed here, and the unsuccessful attempts of his ships’ crews to obtain
provisions, that Captain Cook gave his first port of refuge the somewhat invidious
appellation of Poverty Bay.

In the Cemetery of the town there is to be found another historic feature, in the
shape of a memorial monument to the victims of Te Kooti’s massacre in November,
1868. As will be seen from what has been said of the evidences of progress, the
people of Gisborne are active and enterprising in proportion to their numbers, and it is
a town of which it may be said that the future depends less on the inhabitants than
on the operation of circumstances which are beyond the reach of their ‘influence. Every |
trace of the old days has so far disappeared that it is impossible to associate Gisborne
in the mind with the historic scene of the Maori outrage of over twenty years ago. Events
have moved on rapidly since then, and this town has moved with them. It is yet to be
tapped by a line of railway, which will, doubtless, add largely to its importance when
it comes. Meantime, it is a regular stopping-place for the large steamers which ply
along the east coast, and consequently it has communication about thrice weekly with
Auckland and Napier. There are two dairy factories in existence, honey and fruit are
largely produced, and two or three companies have been formed for the purpose of
working the considerable deposits of petroleum which exist in the district.

Returning to Napier, the traveller may pass by train right through the province of
Woodville in the vicinity of the celebrated Manawatu Gorge, a journey of ninety-five
miles. It is a splendid tract of land, dotted over with thriving townships, rich in highly-
cultivated farms, and teeming with sheep, cattle and horses. The route lies through

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1113
Hastings, with its plantations of trees, its churches and comfortable homesteads, and its
flocks of long-woolled sheep; Te Aute, with its native school; Kaikora, on a_ plain
divided into numerous farms and backed by undulating downs; Waipawa, with its
growing township and affluence of ahzkatea timber; Waipukurau, the picture of content

and plenty: and Takapau, nestling amid groves of picturesque cabbage-trees, and with
plenty ; I g g g

THROUGH THE SEVENTY-MILE BUSH.

1114 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

the Rautaniwha Plains stretching away to the west, far beyond the line of vision.

Nine miles farther on, Ormondville is reached, and the line enters the Seventy-mile
Bush, where some of the finest sylvan scenery in the colony is to be met with. This
tract of country contains also almost unlimited supplies of some of the most valuable
indigenous timber; and the land, when cleared, is admirably suited for agricultural
purposes. The great bulk of the forest is in the hands of the Government, and it has
established there two settlements of Scandinavian immigrants—Norsewood and Danevirke
—while a considerable trade is also done in timber. In March, 1888, during a particu-
larly dry season, a fire broke out in this part of the bush and completely destroyed the
Norsewood settlement, many of the settlers saving their lives with difficulty. After
several hours’ journey through the magnificent forest, with its occasional stump clearings,
rising settlements and, sequestered homesteads, the line emerges finally from its shade,
and reaching Woodville the tourist finds himself at the present terminus of the railway.
This is a promising centre of inland traffic, and its ‘saw-mills and dairy factory indicate
the chief occupation of its people. The portion of the line required to effect a junction
with the Foxton-Wellington Railway at Palmerston North is still in course of construction,
and when it is completed Wellington will be in uninterrupted communication by land

with Napier on the east coast, as it now is with New Plymouth on the west coast.

THROUGH THE MANAWATU GORGE TO WANGANUI.

Through the Gorge to Palmerston the journey is by coach. This Gorge is a chasm,
or tremendous rift, in the Rauhine Mountains, by which the River Manawatu, on leaving
Hawke’s Bay, enters the province of Wellington. Two miles out of Woodville a gently
sloping and winding avenue leads down to the entrance of the Gorge, where the River
is spanned by a fine bridge. Fifty feet below rolls the stream, on the farther side of
which the buttresses of the hills slope sharply back, covered from the water's edge to
the summits with a dense and varied vegetation—tree ferns, zkau palms, creepers, pines
—whatever in New Zealand forest life is rich and beautiful; whilst overhead from the
narrow shelf of road the hills ascend for many hundred feet with an ascent so steep
that it strains the eye to follow them to the top. At intervals the sides of the Gorge
are seamed with deep ravines, darkened to perpetual twilight by the overspreading green
of shrubs and ferns that luxuriate in their dark recesses, down which the cool pellucid
runnels tumble from the hills to mix with the yellow water of the River. Owing to
the windings of the Gorge, its full magnificence is not at once revealed, and there is
something delightful in the feeling of expectation with which one looks for fresh revela-
tions at each successive turn of the road. After passing several pretty cascades that
tumble down the hill-side, and rush through culverts underneath the road to the River,
the Gorge gradually widens, and presently the coach is out in the open. Beyond the
Manawatu the country is level; and, until reaching Palmerston, verdant with rolling grass
or grain, and affluent with its herds of sleek-coated cattle. Palmerston North, so qualified
in its designation to distinguish it from the other Palmerston in the province of Otago,
has been laid out on a large scale. It was originally founded by a colony of Danes
and Norwegians, but their identity has been lost in the flowing tide of Anglo-Saxon
colonization, Taking the train at Palmerston for New Plymouth, the traveller passes the

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1115

townships of Fielding and Halcombe, on the Manchester block, which was settled about
1875 under the auspices of a number of English capitalists, presided over by the Duke
of Manchester, and with the
Hon. Colonel Fielding as
their negotiating agent. It
is an excellent farming

country, and the abundance

of timber which it possesses
is also being rapidly turned
to marketable account. A
few miles farther on _ lies
Marton, named after the

birth-place of Captain Cook,

and wearing an appearance

of prosperity. Nearly the

whole of the fertile plain in

which it sits has been laid

off in square-mile blocks,
subdivided into farms of

eighty acres each, whereon

agricultural operations are
conducted with great spirit
and enterprise. Marton is
the centre of the fertile
Rangitikei District, and no
finer rustic settlement is to
be met with on the route
northward. It is a pleasant
drive of six miles thence to
the township of Bulls, or
Clifton, on the Rangitikei
River, and the eastern hori-
zon, bounded by the Tara-
rau and Ruahine Ranges,
forms a very agreeable pic-
ture, while to the northward
is very clearly discernible
the snow-clad peak of the
lofty Ruapehu glistening in
the sunlight. From Mar-
ton to Turakina the train
passes through ‘undulating

open country with occasional,

low-lying hills, until it

THE SEA.

MOUNT EGMONT FROM

1116 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

reaches the settlement itself, which reposes by the side of the Turakina River, within
the bosom of a small valley bounded on the west by sand-hills and the sea, and on
all other sides by gentle hills. Crossing the River at the bridge, and hastening over
open flax and fern country, the line descends again to the bridge of another river, the
Whangaehu, and thence runs down to the country drained by the Wanganui. It is a rich
and picturesque district, and settlement seems to have made considerable progress
throughout its entire extent. At Aramoho Junction the main route is left by means of
a substantial railway bridge, and a run of three miles along the branch line takes the
traveller to Wanganui, the second town of the province of Wellington. |

“The City of the Sand-hills,” as its people love to term it, is built upon a fertile
alluvial flat upon the right bank of the Wanganui River, and about four miles from
the Heads where lie the shipping, and with which it is connected by rail. Sheltered
on one side by the banks of the River, and on he others by low sand-hills, it lies
secluded from raw and cutting winds, and therefore enjoys a singularly mild and pleasant
climate. With its broad and placid stream stretching away through a diversified landscape
dotted with rising hamlets and curious Maori villages, with the gleaming crests of
Ruapehu, Tongariro and other lofty mountains outlined upon the distant horizon, and
with rich and undulating country all around it, Wanganui must certainly be pronounced
the prettiest inland town of any note in the North Island. The two principal thorough-
fares are Taupo Quay, lying along the River fore-shore and at the back of the Railway
Station, and the Victoria Avenue, which strikes off at right angles from Taupo Quay
and runs at an even width for fully a mile, and is as straight as an arrow. The River
is spanned by a massive iron bridge, six hundred feet in length, and resting upon seven
cast-iron cylinder piers, with a swing-span one hundred and thirty feet long and opening
out two clear passages, each forty feet wide. “Away from the symmetrical town,
nestling round its two sandy moles, and skirted by the silvery River at your feet, your
eyes are drawn as by some irresistible fascination to yonder mighty altar, uprearing its
spotless architecture right away up from the puny brethren around it, till it stands out
clear, distinct, sharp-cut, in virgin purity, looking like ‘a great white throne’ let down
from Heaven. It is Mount Ruapehu, crowned with eternal snows, draped with samite,
and glistening in the sun; and yet so calm, peaceful, pure, that as you gaze the spell
works, and you stand hushed, subdued, and yet with the sense of a great peace
within you.” To be seen at its best, however, it must be viewed at sunset, “when the
glittering white changes to the faintest pink, and deepens to a rosy red, while the sky
blazes with ultramarine, vermilion and gold, and when, after a_ time, all these glowing
colours slowly grow gray, fading like a dream into the shadows of night, but leaving a
tawny glory in the west like a pillar of fire.”

Wanganui, which is built entirely of wood, is well supplied with water from the
Virginia Lake Reservoir, a conservation fed from the Westmere Lake just outside the town.
The pleasant country drive of nine miles to the village of Kai-iwi leads past three
charming basins, which lend their attractiveness to the changing features of lovely
scenery. A Spanish vigneron carries on a’ flourishing vineyard by the side of the
Victoria Avenue, growing some twenty varieties of luscious grapes under glass, in an
outhouse about three hundred feet in length by forty feet wide. Another settler has a

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1117

nursery of twenty thousand fruit-trees. The industries of the place include an iron and
brass foundry and engineering works, a sash and door factory, flour-mills, bone-mills,
cheese and bacon factories, hop-gardens and a malt-house, meat-preserving works, rope
works, and a steam confectionery and biscuit manufactory and bakery. The chief
pleasure ground is the Recreation Reserve on the Town Belt; while Victoria Park at St.
John’s Hill is greatly used by cricket clubs and picnic parties, and the Queen’s Gardens,
a hilly enclosure in the heart of the town, contains the remains of the old Rutland
Stockade, now devoted to the purposes of a gaol. In the reserve at the rear of the
Court House stands a handsome monument erected by the Provincial Government of
Wellington “to the memory of those brave men who fell at Moutuo on May 14th,
1864, in defence of law and order against fanaticism and barbarism.” So runs the
inscription, and the student vy
of New Zealand history will
hardly need to be reminded
that the saviours of Wan-
ganui,whose memory is thus
celebrated, were Maori resi-
dents; for here, in this
Wanganui District, there
has always been a large
Maori population, and if
the tourist should have the
good fortune to visit the
town while the Native Land
Court is sitting he will see
much to engage his atten-
tion and stimulate his curi-
osity. He will find a long
double line of Maori tents

ranged along the river-side,

and groups of the dusky

visitors squatted on their

THE RECREATION GROUNDS AT NEW PLYMOUTH.

haunches in the sun, smoking

their pipes, and indolently passing the time away in fitful conversation; while, up the
town, the young bloods of the tribe will be found in possession of perhaps a couple of
billiard-rooms which they will lease during their stay. Such ardent votaries are they of
“the green-cloth” that the chances are that these rooms will not once be deserted, night

or day, until the canoes are launched for the homeward journey.

TARANAKI.

Leaving Wanganui by rail to continue the trip northward, the traveller passes the
fine reach of the River between the town and Aramoho, and thence climbs a long incline
beautifully diversified with fern-gullies and abounding with charming views. The route

lies past Maxwelltown in the sequestered bosom of. a valley; Nukumaru, with the post-

1118 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

and-rail enclosure wherein sleep some of the actors in a desperate engagement; Waito-
tara, in the heart of a deep and lovely vale, carrying in its background the eminence
on which stood the famous Wereroa fahk; thence by peaceful homesteads and rich
pastures to Waverley, in the centre of a prosperous grazing country. Over the
Whenuakura River, and through the fertile confiscated block of the same name, the train
hurries with unslackened speed till, crossing the Patea River, it enters the province of
Taranaki—* The Garden of New Zealand”—and draws up at the Railway Station of the
town of Patea. A run of eighteen miles conducts thence to Hawera, a busy township
seated in the midst of a plain, and bearing the evidence of having progressed rapidly
to its present status. The opening up of the Waimate Plains, lying between the railway
and the sea-coast, gave it a powerful impetus, and the Plains are still one of the main
sources of its stability. They lie on the other side’ of the Waingongora River, and are
about twenty miles in length by six in breadth. They are dotted over with Maori jahs
and villages and small European settlements, of which the principal are Manai and
Opunake. It is twelve miles from Hawera to Stratford, the nearest point on the
line to Mount Egmont, and thence to New Plymouth the route lies through a
valuable bush-country, in which extensive clearings, with a view to agricultural occupa-
tion, have been made.

New Plymouth has a prepossessing aspect. It slopes gradually upward from the
beach amid trees and gardens, and is backed by a dark green zone of native bush,
while in the distance towers the majestic form of Mount Egmont, affluent of picturesque
beauty, and sufficient of itself to transform into loveliness the tamest landscape. Mars-
land Hill, formerly the site of a military barracks, is the central point of the immediate
foreground, and all around it lie churches, chapels and residences, environed by planta-
tions of trees whose luxuriant growth attests the generous qualities of the soil. At the
foot of the hill stands the Anglican Church of St. Mary, built of stone, and containing
in its church-yard the remains of many soldiers and settlers who fell in various actions
with the Maoris. The business portion of the town hugs the sea-shore; while the
Huatoki Creek, as it winds its devious way through the place, adds its own attractions
to the couwp-d’ wil. Farther to the east, the Henui River flows past the Public Cemetery,
prettily laid out and possessing several interesting memorials of the wars which have
convulsed the district at one time or another. The Recreation Grounds are pleasantly
laid out, and are an agreeable resort for an afternoon's stroll, or for a row upon the
lake in their midst. Next to Mount Egmont, the most striking features of the prospect
presented by New Plymouth are the “Sugar Loaves,” a cluster of sandstone cones
slightly to the west of the town, one of them being on the main-land and the others
forming islets just off the shore, which glitters with its dark masses of iron-sand.

The harbour is an open roadstead, and in times past the feat of landing on its
surf-bound beach in windy weather had its peculiar excitements and perils, but the con-_
struction of a breakwater nearly two thousand feet long has greatly lessened these risks,
and improved the shipping facilities of the place. New Plymouth has its gas-works, and —
it derives an abundant water-supply from the Waiwakaiho River, two miles distant. The
entire country between New Plymouth and the Patea River is of exceptional fertility.
This natural richness must be attributed in great measure to Mount Egmont, from

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1119

whose slopes no less than ninety-seven streams meander through the woods and downs
of the district to the sea. Its Waimate Plains have already achieved a colonial celebrity
for well-fed stock, and their dairy produce is in great request throughout the North
Island, butter especially forming a notable article of export. A charming drive of some
nine or ten miles takes one to the rising town of Waitara, on the river of the same

-name. It is outbidding the older town as the port of call for the through traffic from

THE WELLINGTON POST OFFICE.

the Manukau, and is rapidly developing into a place of importance. Thence the drive
may be extended to the Waimate Plains, where the tourist may visit the celebrated
prophet Te Whiti, in his native village of Parihaka, in the -market-place of which he
was wont to deliver to throngs of natives those monthly harangues which were for a
long time as eagerly canvassed by the Press of the colony as were the utterances of
its public men. The prophet still occasionally speaks, but his sana (authority) has

practically departed, and he is no longer to be reckoned as a disturbing force in the

1120 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

country. He himself recognizes the futility of struggling longer, even on the lines of a passive
resistance, against the inroads of the /akeha, as he long since satisfied himself of the impolicy of

active hostility, and therefore he now counsels obedience and resignation to the white man’s rule.

-Tue City oF WELLINGTON.

From New Plymouth to Port Nicholson and. Wellington the journey may be
comfortably performed in one of the Union Company’s well-appointed steam-ships. The
entrance to the capital of New Zealand lies between Pencarrow and Palmer Heads, and
the only impediment to the navigation is the Barrett Reef, which stands right in the
fair-way, but well above the surface, and with a clear breadth of not less” than half-a-
dozen cables in the main channel. Passing Waddel Point and Ward Island, Halswell
Point is at length reached, and rounding it there spreads before the eyes of the traveller
a fine view of the capacious land-locked harbour of Wellington, six miles long by
six miles broad, with Soames’ Island and its quarantine station set right in the
centre of a noble expanse of water. Straight in front is Wellington, its business centre
grouped along the shores of what was formerly called Lambton Harbour, and _ its

environs extending beyond it on either side, but still from the natural conformation of

the ground courting the vicinity of the sea. Immediately behind the city, lofty and .

sombre-looking ranges tower up in fantastic ruggedness, their base converging towards
the Harbour at the
point where lie the
wharves and the centre
of commerce, but re-
ceding inward on either
side and thus opening
out the flats of Te
Aro and Thorndon.
Highly unpromis-
ing was the original
site of Wellington for
the location of a large
and important. city.
Well might the earliest
Governor of New Zea-

land feel his heart sink

with dismay as he sur-
WELLINGTON HEAD. veyed the infant settle-

ment planted upon a

narrow strip of land, bounded by deep water, and overhung by frowning ranges which seemed
to interpose an impassable barrier to its expansion. But when the New Zealand Company
selected Port Nicholson as the chief seat of its colonizing er‘erprise, its Directors
discerned how richly the future could be made to justify the wisdom of their choice.
The two great natural advantages which dominated all other considerations of straitened

limits, boisterous gales and proneness to earthquake tremors, were the central position of

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1121

the place from a colonial point of view, and the possession of a splendid harbour, with
deep water right up to the fore-shore. When, in recognition of its central position, the seat
of Government was removed there from Auckland in 1865, both the advantages we have
indicated, coupled at last with the presence of the machinery of General Administration,

quickly transformed the insignificant “fishing village, somewhere in Cook Strait”—as it

THE QUEEN'S WHARF, WELLINGTON.

was contemptuously styled—into the fourth city of the colony. Wellington still holds only
fourth rank in size and importance, but at its present rate of progress it bids fair, ere
long, to dispute the title of Christchurch to stand next in order of magnitude to Auck-
land and Dunedin. Its southern competitor, however, is no laggard in the race of
advancement ; it still has a much larger industrial population than the “Empire City,”
and in point of artificial beauty it is far superior. Still, the possession -of ‘‘a corner
lot on the ocean highway” countervails many drawbacks, and when one notes at
Wellington how the energy and ingenuity of man have triumphed together there over
the parsimony of Nature, the future becomes radiant with promise.

An area of fifty-two acres of ground, reclaimed from what was once the beach,
flanked by Lambton Quay, is crowded by bonded stores and warehouses, the Supreme
and Resident Magistrate’s Courts, the Police Station, the Railway Station and its goods-
shed, and the General Government buildings; while Lambton Quay loses the significa-
tion of its title through being thrust back from the fore-shore. Farther along, the
Wellington and the Manawatu Railway Company has reclaimed a tract of twenty acres
additional, between the Thorndon Baths and Kaiwarra, as the site for its own railway
station and goods-sheds, and on the other side of the city, between the Queen’s Wharf

and Oriental Bay, the Harbour Board has reclaimed another vacant instalment of fifty-

1122 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

three acres. The entire breastwork of all this reclaimed ground may be used for the
berthage of vessels, as there is a sufficient depth of water; but the largest craft are
accommodated at the Queen’s Wharf, a powerfully-built wooden structure, but of no
great length, extending from the heart of the city, and amply furnished with shed
accommodation for cargo. The Railway Wharf is a more recent work, and derives its
name from its proximity to the Station of the Wellington, Hutt and Wairarapa Railway.

As a capital city, Wellington is not likely to impress the stranger. Its streets are
narrow and tortuous, the footpaths of proportionately contracted width, and the buildings
of all sizes and designs, are built principally of wood and galvanized iron. Some years
ago nothing more durable than timber was used, for the very reason that the preva-
lence of earthquakes then made people afraid to build with brick or stone. That
dread has, however, vanished, owing to extended immunity from such alarms, and within
the last decade many substantial edifices have been reared at considerable cost. If
the odd assortment of buildings produces a mean opinion of the city from an_archi-
tectural point of view, the bustle of traffic and the general appearance of business
activity must go far to convince the visitor of the commercial importance of the place.
An ample avenue, planted down the centre with a long double line of pines, with broad
asphalted footpaths at the side of them, and seats disposed at regular intervals to tempt
the traveller to rest, leads directly from the water-side to the Basin Reserve, and it
certainly is the best promenade in the city, while the row of trees practically converts it
into two thoroughfares. Where Lambton Quay and Willis Street join hands, Manners
Street strikes off to the east, along the sweep of the fore-shore, and carries us into
Courtenay Place, which also hugs the Harbour, and leads round the “Rocks” by an
easy and picturesque walk to Oriental and Evans Bays. Just at the back stands Mount
Victoria, crowned by its signal-station, alluring the wayfarer to scale its side for the
sake of the view to be obtained from its summit; while a fine panoramic survey of
the neighbouring landscape is to be had also from the brow of the Botanical Garden
Reserve, behind the elevated stand of the Terrace.

Passing up a right-of-way at the side of Barrett’s Hotel, the visitor mounts to Boulcott
Street by several steep flights of wooden steps furnished with hand-rails. These are
well-known as Plimmer’s Steps, and are a fair type of the original—nay, even of many ~
of the present—means of access from one street to another lying above the narrow
strip of flat which forms the heart of the city. In fact, the Terrace is approached at
half-a-dozen various points from the leading thoroughfares by these rude and primitive
stairs, which, if ill-accordant with the pretensions of a capital city, are at any rate
genuine and interesting relics of early Wellington. After mounting Plimmer’s Steps we
pass the head of Boulcott Street, and hold straight on up the hill to Wellington
Terrace, and thence we rise by a gradual ascent to the hill whereon is the Roman
Catholic Cemetery. From this point we gain a comprehensive view of the Te Aro end
of the city, where reside the bulk of the population, and especially the industrial portion
of it. There, too, are situated the Asylum, the Hospital, the College, the Armed Constabu-
lary Barracks and the Basin Reserve. Beyond Te Aro, the eye encounters Mount Victoria,
while more remote still, but hidden from the gaze, the shore curves into the recess of

Evans Bay, with its patent slip capable of accommodating vessels up to a capacity of

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1123

two thousand tons, and with the charming little township of Kilbirnie nestling upon the

slopes at its back. Turning the head to the opposite direction, a view is obtained of

OF WELLINGTON.

THE CITY

the pretentious quarter known as Thorndon, with its fine residences and lovely gardens,

and nearer the city proper such striking edifices as Government House, the Parliament

—

1124 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Buildings and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary. On the eastern side of
Lambton Quay the attention is riveted by a massive pile of wooden buildings, covering
two acres of ground, consisting of one hundred and fifty-two rooms, and containing no less
than twenty-two chimney-stacks. These are the General Government Offices, and they
are said to form the largest wooden building in the world. They possess seven public
entrances, each approached by a flight of ten steps under Roman-Doric porticoes. The
elevations are Italian in style, plain in design, with projecting eaves and modillions. The
new Government Printing Offices—a rather squat
pile of brick—occupy the nearer corner of the
adjoining block. They are furnished with the
electric light, but are said to be imperfectly ven-
tilated, while great fault is found with the design.

On the opposite side of Lambton Quay from
the General, Government Offices stands Govern-
ment. House, amid grounds well planted with
trees. The building itself, which is of wood,
crowns a slight elevation, and is in the Italian
style of architecture. This is the residence of
the Governor while Parliament is in session,
and during the major portion of the year.
Sydney Street flanks the northern side of the
Government House Reserve, and divides it from
the Parliament Buildings. The latter form a
pile of wooden buildings in the Gothic style,
their numerous gables crowned by iron rods
carrying ornamental vanes, the effect of the
facade being enhanced by small steeples. Here
meet, during the winter months of the year, —
the Legislative Council and the House of Re-
presentatives, the average duration of the session
being from three to four months. The Council
is a body whose Members are nominated for
life, and corresponding to the House of Lords
in the British Legislature. The popular Chamber
used to consist of ninety-one European and four
Maori representatives; but a recent Act has re-
duced the number to seventy-five. The Members
receive an honorarium for their services, and
those of them who reside out of Wellington are —

paid their travelling expenses from and to their _

homes. Both Chambers are illuminated with the ©

ST. ANDREW'S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,

electric light. The Parliamentary Library is said
to be the best in the colony. It is especially rich in its legislative archives and works
of reference. In close propinquity to the Houses of Parliament stands the spacious wooden

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 11

to
uw

building in which is housed the Colonial Museum, a monument to the devotion and
scientific zeal of Dr. (now Sir James) Hector, who has had charge of it ever since its
foundation in September, 1865. The nucleus of this fine establishment was formed with
the collection from the Museum of the New Zealand Society, and since then it has been
receiving constant accessions of deposits and donations, until now it is one of the most
complete of its kind in the colony. Its collection of articles of Maori archeology and
curiosities is, in its way, quite unique, and of great value. The principal feature is the
Maori house originally constructed at Tauranga by the Ngatikaipoho tribe, and remarkable
for the excellence of the carving lavished upon it in the best style of Maori art.
Eighteen of the most skilful native carvers were engaged for a considerable time in the
fashioning of the strange uncouth figures which are ranged along its walls.

To the right of the Parliament Buildings stands the Roman Catholic Church of St.
Mary’s, the central roof of the edifice flanked by walls much lower in height, and with
a tower and spire over the main

entrance. Like the other ecclesias-

tical structures of Wellington,
it is built of wood. Under the
same spiritual administration is St.

Patrick’s College, a handsome

THE

HOUSES
OF PARLIAMENT,

—"}

WRNEAAD ANA] MOMS" Ny meena’ jacaeeyy

5
i=
js
ig
is
a

THE GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS.

building erected, in 1884, in the Te Aro quarter of the city, and on a commanding site.
The other leading educational institution of the place is the Wellington College, situated,
in the same part of the city, upon a hill-side near the Adelaide Road, and surrounded
with grounds having an area of no less than seventy-five acres. The primary schools

are in number and size fully equal to the requirements of the population. Chief among

1126 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

the Anglican churches stands St. Paul's Cathedral, in the Thorndon quarter, but St.
Peter’s, rebuilt in Willis Street in 1880, has a spire one hundred and thirty-five feet high.
For internal finish, however, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, situated on the Terrace,
unquestionably bears off the palm. The other Presbyterian Church of St. John’s is in
Willis Street, and possesses a very fine organ and an efficient choir,

One of the handsomest buildings of Wellington is the Hospital, erected on a rather
bleak situation on the hillside near the Adelaide Road. Not far off is the wooden
structure of the Lunatic Asylum, both edifices, along with the Gaol. and the Armed
Constabulary Dépét, being located in the Te Aro quarter of the city. The places of
public entertainment consist of the Theatre Royal, the Princess Theatre in Tory Street,
St. George’s Hall, and the Masonic, Rechabite and Oddfellows’ Halls, as well as the
Columbia Skating Rink. The Te Aro Opera House in Manners Street was indisputably
the finest building of the kind in the colony, but unfortunately it was burned to the
ground in the beginning of 1888. All the leading banks and insurance companies are
worthily represented, while the industries of the place comprise several frozen meat and
export companies, two foundries, tanneries, soap and candle works, coffee mills, sash and
door factories, brick, drain and tile works, a coach factory, saw-mills, a flour-mill, woollen-
mills, breweries, boot factories, and cordial, biscuit and confectionery works. A_ private
company supplies Wellington with gas, and another company has furnished a capital
system of trams, extending from the Railway Station at Pipitea Point, at one end of
the city, to Newtown, at its other extremity, whence anyone in search of the picturesque
may penetrate to Island Bay, scarcely a mile distant. The Island Bay Park Company
has constructed a race-course and a _ people’s park on the flat near the beach, and
successful race meetings are held here three or four times a year. Still, it is at the
Hutt, about ten miles distant from the other side of the city, that the Wellington
Racing Club holds its periodical meetings, and that the annual contest for the Wellington
Cup always takes place. ;

The people of ‘“The Empire City” possess in full measure the Briton’s love for
the water, and with such a fine harbour it would be passing strange were it otherwise.
They possess two swimmimg baths and two first-class rowing and boating clubs, while
the annual regatta is quite a feature in its way. The Corporation has obtained for the —
city a magnificent water-supply. Originally, the water was procured by a diversion of
the Kaiwarra stream through a tunnel into a reservoir in Polhill Gully, up the hills at
the back of the city, but as this source was deemed insufficient, an inexhaustible supply —
from the Wainui-o-mata River, sixteen miles distant, has been provided at a cost of one
hundred and thirty thousand pounds.

Wellington is by no means deficient in pleasure and recreation grounds. First in
attractiveness come the Botanical Gardens, at the back of the Terrace, and approached
by the Tinakori Road, or Sydney Street. They cover an area of one hundred acres of
hilly ground, originally dense bush, and still containing many clumps of native timber
in its primeval state. The Basin Reserve in Sussex Square is the favourite resort for
cricket and foot-ball, and the people are intensely fond of both games. Newtown Park
is another reserve of a similar kind, but of more recent formation. No one who visits

Wellington ‘fails to hear of McNab’s Gardens at the Lower Hutt, or neglects to see

|
|

pete ass ore

}

, .

af
Ha

Hi.
m

DESCRIPTIVE

SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND,

HARBOUR,

WELLINGTON

1128 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

them. A pleasant drive of an hour, past Thorndon and along the curvature of the
Harbour, takes one to the charming valley in which they lie—a valley originally destined
as the site of the city, which was then dignified with the pretentious title of Britannia.
But an inundation from the erratic Hutt overwhelmed the tiny settlement and obliged
its founders to shift their location to Thorndon Flat,

The valetudinarian may with confidence take up his residence in the capital of New
Zealand. In the charming complexions of the ladies there is as notable an attestation
of the salubrity of the place as even the vital statistics
will furnish. True, the winds are sometimes so boisterous
that it has passed into a proverb throughout the colony
that you may infallibly recognize a Wellingtonian by
his habit of putting a precautionary hand to his hat
as he approaches a street corner, but then the preva-
lence of wind is a’sure guarantee that the atmosphere
is kept sweet. In common with the other large ports
of the colony, the Harbour has its defence works.
There is a battery of heavy guns at Point Halswell,
which commands the entrance, and above Kaiwarra,
in a commanding position on the hill-side, there is

another heavy battery, so that a hostile cruiser would

be made to levy black-mail on the city.

Over THE RimuTAKA TO MASTERTON.

No greater engineering feat has been performed
in New Zealand than in the construction of the rail-
way line from Wellington over the lofty Rimutaka
Range to the Wairarapa District. The scenery pre-
sented along the route is worth coming hundreds of
miles to see. The train which leaves Wellington
plunges through the rich alluvial valley of the Lower

. Hutt, and thence over the Silver-stream, penetrating
birch-woods and bush-clearings to the Upper Hutt,
whence the iron horse toils up a wooded ascent to

Mungaroa. Through deep cuttings, and across numerous

gullies, we mount higher and higher, until, reaching Kai-

PLIMMER’S STEPS,

toke, we prepare to undertake the cvwx of the trip, for
some of the gradients now to be encountered are as much as one in fifteen, and many of
the curves are of five chains’ radius. We make acquaintance here with the Fell locomo-

tives, four of which cost the Government no less than nineteen thousand pounds. They

are exceedingly powerful engines, and in addition to the side wheels they are provided

with centre ones as well, which grip a corresponding central line of rail, rising some
eighteen inches above the level of the flanking rails, and, in this manner, two of the
locomotives—one harnessed in front of the train, and the other behind—haul it up the

have no easy task before it in any attempt that might

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND.

THE

RIMUTAKA GORGE.

desperate incline. As the loco-

mere ya -

motives pant and snort on their
toilsome progress up the tre-

mendous ascent the _ traveller

finds the pace by no means
too slow, for the grandeur of

the changing scenery tempts

the eye to linger upon _ its
features of striking interest.
Ever and anon a serpentine
course is pursued along a narrow causeway excavated from the winding wall of cliff
—and the traveller hangs as it were, like Mahomet's coffin, between earth and heaven—

away above his head a precipitous face of frowning rock, and deep below, how

1130 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

deep one cares not to enquire, yawning gorges and ravines, to fall into any one of
which would be instant and terrible death. One begins to wonder when this maze will
end, when the sign-board of a siding informs him that he has compassed the seven miles
lying between Kaitoke and the Summit, and that the descent is now to begin.

But the descent is still more exciting than the ascent, for, on this side, Boreas
always seems to hold open. court. There are four tunnels on the line, and between two
of them lies the place called Siberia, where, in September, 1880, a furious gale, sweeping
up from the gully beneath as if forced through a funnel, hurled several of the passenger

carriages off the rails and into the gully, with the result that four persons were killed

outright, and some others were wounded, Since then the danger has been minimized ~

by the erection of break-winds, and the gales may now be set at defiance. There is
also a “running siding” in case the engines should become unmanageable by making
the descent too quickly. From the Summit it is eight miles to Cross Creek Station,
where the train once more regains level ground, and parts company with the
couple of ‘“ Fells.”

The route now emerges upon the Wairarapa Plain, which extends from the mouth
of the Lake of the same name in Palliser Bay to the head of the Pairau Plains, a
distance of nearly eighty miles, and with an average breadth of some ten miles. The
extensive and shallow Wairarapa Lake soon breaks upon the view, and to sportsmen
the intelligence that its shores abound with wild duck and black swans may be sufficient
inducement to court closer acquaintance with it. To the Maori mind its chief recom-
mendation is its wealth of eels. The valley itself bears all the evidence of having at
no very distant date formed the bed of part of the Lake, or of an inland sea, and as
a consequence the soil is of poor “quality, fit rather for pastoral purposes than for
agricultural enterprise. To pasturage, therefore, it is mainly devoted. Eight miles from

Cross Creek lies the township of Featherstone, founded in 1854, and named after a

popular Superintendent of the province. It covers an area half-a-mile square, and presents.

a comfortable aspect to the traveller.

Seven miles farther on, the train stops at Woodside Station, and a branch train is
in readiness to carry away those of the passengers who are bound for the township of
Greytown, which may be clearly discerned in the distance, built in straggling fashion upon
both sides of the road leading to Masterton. It was, of course, named after Governor

Sir George Grey, and was originally settled by a “small farm” association, for whose

members the land was cut up into one-hundred-and-twenty-acre blocks. At another

interval of seven miles, the township of Carterton is met with, and the prevalence of
timbered land adds greatly to the attractions of the prospect, besides affording scope
for a busy saw-mill. There is also a dairy factory in the district, and to the outward
view every manifestation of plenty and settled content. A stretch of nine miles through
forest and pasture land takes the tourist to the isolated railway station of Masterton,
and ‘busses are in waiting to convey travellers and their luggage over the couple of

miles that separate them from the township. It is a pleasant drive, and forms an

agreeable introduction to the largest and certainly the most attractive town of the

Wairarapa District. It is the centre of a rich pastoral country, and its situation on a

far-extending plain, once covered with timber, but now pretty well cleared and laid down

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1131

in grass, with charming homesteads, clumps of bush, sleek herds and flocks dotting the
prospect on all sides, and with the snow-clad Tararua Ranges away in the dim distance,

is one that cannot fail to most favourably impress the beholder, and to tempt him to a

CHARLOTTE SOUND.

PICTON AND QUEEN

TOWN OF

THE

prolonged sojourn. The neat and well-formed thoroughfares bear testimony to the efficient
control of the Borough Council, and the numerous wooden shops, stores and hotels mark

the presence of a well-to-do community, The people are wide-awake and are fully

1132 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

convinced that they are building up the frame-work of a large and important inland
city. So far pastoral pursuits predominate in the district, and holdings ranging in area
from forty to forty thousand acres. The rabbit is a colonizing agent which compels
greater attention here than in any other part of the North Island, and the settlers
have long ago come to the conclusion that the pest takes up too much room and must
be extirpated. How to accomplish that end remains a problem yet to be solved.
Twelve miles beyond Masterton by rail lies the Scandinavian settlement of Maurice-
ville, planted in the midst of the forest out of which its site has been hewn. The
railway line is open for four miles farther, and it is being actively pushed on to
Woodville, with which, ere long, it will connect, thus affording a direct alternative route
to Napier. Meanwhile the existing gap is bridged by coaching through the Forty-Mile
Bush, where the road runs parallel to that through the Seventy-Mile Bush, and both
introduce the tourist to some of the best specimens of virgin forest to be found in
New Zealand. They are bound to be the seats of a large industrial population, while
the timber is a legacy of natural wealth whose value is incalculable. In this connection
it may be noted that the colony’s annual output of kauri timber amounts altogether to
about one hundred and ten million feet, while the timber in the kauri forests at present
known is estimated at twenty-three billion feet. The tree rises to a height of one
hundred feet without a branch, and the timber is largely exported in what is called
“junk,” the logs being squared with an axe. In view of the large demands of the
trade, and its great value to the colony, the question of forest conservation in New

Zealand is becoming an important one.

Tue TorocrapHy oF New ZEALAND.

The islands which appertain to the northern division of the colony may be set
down as the Chatham and Kermadec Groups, and the three islands which form the
Chatham Group lie about four hundred miles to the eastward of Cook Strait, and are
in regular communication with Akaroa. They are distinguished from the other islands
by their greater extent, superior fertility—supporting as they do a population of some
seven hundred—and milder climate, while the ethnologist will find them especially attrac-
tive from the fact that they contain the remnants of the Morioris, an undersized dark
and Papuan race, whom the Maoris are said to have dispossessed when they landed in
New Zealand. Chatham Island itself is forty miles long, of irregular shape, and marked
by numerous bights on the coast-line, with small lakes. The land generally lies low,
and the principal pursuits of the people are pastoral and agricultural. Wild pigs abound,
and wild ducks, curlew, plover and pigeons furnish plenty of sport. The area of land
is about six hundred thousand acres. In spite of the fact that Lieutenant Broughton,
R.N., in 1791 took nominal possession of the Islands for the British Crown, the New
Zealand Land Company, in 1841, claiming exclusive possession, proposed to sell them to

a German company which intended to place them under the national flag of the Hanse

Towns. Lord Stanley, however, promptly interfered, and defeated the imprudent project

by asserting the paramount authority of the Crown.
The Kermadec Group is the latest addition to New Zealand territory. Great Britain
hoisted her flag over these islands in 1886, and when she checked New Zealand's

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DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1133

aspiration to annex Samoa, maternal indulgence led her to soften the disappointment by
presenting her hopeful offspring with the Kermadecs. Accordingly New Zealand, in 1887,
sent down the Government steamer S¢e//a to proclaim her supremacy over them. They
comprise four islands, extending over some one hundred and fifty miles of sea-way, and
are distant about six hundred miles north-east of their foster-parent. They were discovered
in 1788 by the transport Lady Penrhyn. D’Entrecasteaux named them in 1793; D’Urville
passed them in 1827, and whalers and some few settlers afterwards broke their solitude
for a time, but were discouraged by volcanic outbreaks, For nine years the Kermadecs

remained uninhabited, and then, in 1878, a gentleman named Bell repaired thither with

THE FRENCH PASS.

his family from Samoa to subdue the semitropical wilderness, and under his hands con-
siderable progress in cultivation and in the increase of stock has been made. Steam may
still be seen escaping from the precipitous cliffs of Denham Bay, and on the northern coast
warm water oozes out of the sand. The centre of the Island is formed of a crater a
mile and three-quarters long by a mile and a quarter wide, from whose rim, averaging
one thousand feet high, spurs are thrown off towards the coast. Macauley Island, with
an area of seven hundred and fifty-six acres, is an extinct volcano, and Curtis Islands
and L’Espérance, or French Rock, are somewhat less in area.

A great mountain range, trending south-west to north-east, runs through the whole
of New Zealand from the South Cape to the East Cape, the only interruption being Cook
Strait. In the North Island the volcanic forces are still active, and three distinct volcanic
zones are clearly defined. The principal of these is the one known as the Taupo zone,
extending from Mount Egmont on the west coast past Lake Taupo, through the Hot Lake
region of the North Island to White Island in the Bay of Plenty. Right in the centre
of the Island stand the two giant volcanic cones of New Zealand—Ruapehu and Tongariro,
the former over nine thousand and the latter upwards of six thousand feet high. Ton-
gariro is active still in so/faéara, and its craters are constantly steaming. Ruapehu gave forth
steam immediately before the outbreak at Rotorua in 1836, as well as some time after,

but apparently it has resumed its deep repose. A company of smaller cones, Pihanga,

1134 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.
Hauhanga, Kakaramea and others lie in the surrounding district, and are called by the
natives the wives and children of the two giants. It is also part of this fanciful tradition that
Mount Egmont formerly stood beside Tongariro and Ruapehu, but that having quarrelled
with the latter he fled to the west coast where he still dwells in sullen isolation.
Tarawera, in the very centre of the Hot Lake District, was thought to be an extinct
volcano until 1886, when it suddenly burst out with terrific violence and devastating
effect; but it is now again inactive. The second volcanic zone spans the narrow isthmus
on which the city of Auckland is built, but its numerous cones have not within the
memory of man exhibited any tremors. In the Bay of Islands District is situated the third
zone, small extinct cones and occasional hot springs and so/fataras indicating its limits.
These volcanoes are quite distinct from the grand mountain chain which, in the
North Island, passes to the eastward of. Lake Taupo, starting from Cape Palliser and
trending away to the East Cape. It includes the forest ranges of Tararua, Ruahine,
Kaimaniwa and Te Whaiti, but its highest peaks do not attain a greater altitude than
six thousand feet. The Main Range is divided in its centre by the deep gorge through
which flows the River Manawatu. After Ruapehu, Tongariro and Egmont, the highest
peaks are Ikurangi (five thousand five hundred and thirty-five feet) and Pirongia, the
former near the East Cape and the latter in the Waikato country. In the province of
Auckland there are the Coromandel, the Pataroa, the Wairoa and the Hakarimata Ranges,
besides others of much less note. Farther north the highest mountain is Maungataniwha,

some distance beyond Hokianga. The North Island, as a whole, is largely diversified

with unimportant mountain ranges and hills.
The rivers of the North Island have already been mentioned in their Sieg so
that little more is required here than a mere recapitulation of their names. This part

of the colony is particularly well favoured with regard to water intercommunication. The

most northerly of the rivers is the Hokianga, about fifteen miles long, and receiving
the Mangamuka, Waima, Whirinaki, Omanai, Motukaraka, Orewa and. Hauraki Rivers.
The Awanui falls into Rangaunu Bay, and the Kaipara Gulf receives no less than seven
important streams, among which are the Northern Wairoa, navigable for one hundred
and fifty miles; the Otamatea, the Arapaua, Oruawharo and Kaipara Rivers. On the
eastern coast the Wiahou, or Thames, and the Piako discharge themselves into the Firth
of Thames, the former of which receives the Wairere. The Waikato, the longest river
in the colony, rises in Ruapehu and flows through Lake Taupo, receiving the Waipa
at Ngaruawahai. Farther south is the Mokau, forming the boundary between the provinces
of Auckland and Taranaki, In the Bay of Plenty District are the Rangitaiki and

Whakatane, and beyond East Cape is the Waiapu. The Wairoa falls into Hawke's

Bay, and the Ruamahunga into Palliser Bay. On the western coast south of the Mokau

are the Waitara, Patea, Waitotara, Wanganui, Rangitikei and Manawatu. ‘This last-named

river is remarkable for. the wild and striking character of the scenery along its banks,

in which respect this part of the country is not to be surpassed.

Stewart Island, named after the whaling captain who demonstrated its insularity in

1816, is, of course, the chief of those appertaining to the South or Middle Island of
New Zealand. The Maori name was Rakiura, but this, with the later one of New

Leinster, has fallen into disuse. It lies at an average distance of only fifteen miles

(

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1135

from the South Island; its greatest length is thirty-nine miles, and its utmost breadth
a trifle over twenty miles. An irregular ridge of mountains culminates in Mount Anglem,

three thousand two hundred feet high, and Rakeahua, with an elevation of two thousand

«(il

ee ee ane eee

THE HOP HARVEST IN THE NELSON DISTRICT.

one hundred and ten feet. Port William is the head-quarters of whaling and sealing
schooners, and Paterson’s Inlet extends more than half-way across the Island. The

scenery is attractive, especially at Port Pegasus and Mason Bay. Of the few hundred

1136 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

inhabitantss of the Island the majority are half-castes. Its oysters have extended the
repute of Stewart Island throughout Australia. The Auckland Islands lie some hundred
and eighty miles to the south of New Zealand. They were discovered in 1806, and
some forty years later leased by the Crown at a nominal rental to the Southern Whale
Fishing Company. Auckland Island, the largest of the group, is about thirty miles in
length. Campbell Island, one hundred and forty-five miles south-east of the Auckland
Islands, is akin to them, and is about thirty miles round. Macquarie Island, the most
southerly of the Australasian Group, is frequented only for its seals. It has a high
altitude, is five or six miles broad, and some twenty miles long. The barren clusters of
rocky islets known as the Bounty Group and the Antipodes Islands are intermediate
between the Chatham and Auckland Groups.

The South Island is far excellence the place for Alpine scenery. The mountain
ranges which lie along the southern shores of Cook Strait converge as they penetrate
south until they combine to form that grand cordillera which, in the province of
Canterbury, attains its highest elevation in such lofty peaks as Mount Cook (twelve
thousand three hundred and forty-nine feet), Stokes (separated from Mount Cook by a
steep col more than seven thousand feet high), Tasman, Tyndal, Darwin, Sefton and
Hochstetter, most of which are over eleven thousand feet high. The northern boundary
of this mighty mass is said to be Harper's Pass, three thousand five hundred feet high,
but still, north of this limit, the chain, now grown more irregular, rises into the
Spencer Mountains in Nelson Province, and these attain a considerable altitude in Mounts
Franklin and Humboldt. South of Mount Cook, the Southern Alps divide, at Mount
Holmes, into the Hooker, the Gray and the Ritter Ranges, but both chains unite again
in Mount Stuart and continue in broken form towards Mount Aspiring. On their —
western side a strip of land with an average breadth of some fifteen miles constitutes
the province of Westland, and on the eastern side are the plains of Canterbury. The
mountain ranges of Otago have been aptly compared by the Provincial Geologist, F. W..
Hutton, to the fingers of the right hand widely spread out, but with the first and
second fingers approximated, and with the palm resting in the south-west part of the
province of Canterbury. In this case the thumb will represent the Hawkdun and
Kahamui Mountains, running north-west and south-east, which form the southern boundary
of the Valley of the Waitaki. The first finger will represent the Dunstan and Lammer-
law Ranges, which form the eastern water-shed of the Clutha. Between this finger and
the next are the Raggedy Range, Rough Ridge, Rock and Pillar Range and the
Silver Peak Hills. The second or middle finger will represent all that rugged tract of
country between Lakes Wanaka and Wakatipu, called the Harris and Richardson Moun-
tains, continued southward in the Remarkables, Garvie Mountains, Obelisk Range and
Umbrella Mountains, and running through the Kaihiku Mountains to the sea at Nugget
Point. The third, or ring finger, will represent the Humboldt Mountains, the Thomson
and Livingstone Mountains, the Takitimu and the Longwood Ranges, lying between Lake
Wakatipu and the Oreti River on the east, and the Hollyford River, Lake Te Anau |
and the Waiau on the west. Between these and the next finger come the Hokonui
and Moonlight Ranges, and lastly, the little finger will represent the west coast moun-
tain range running in a north-easterly and south-westerly direction.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1137

Nearly all the rivers of the South Island take their rise in the grand central
mountain chain, The Wairau falls into Cook Strait at Cloudy Bay, and close to
the same source rise the Waimea and Motueka, flowing into Blind Bay, and _ the
Kaituna and Waitohe which flow into Pelorus and Queen Charlotte Sounds. The
Buller reaches the ocean some miles north of Cape Foulwind, and the Awatere, rising
in the Kaikoura Range, finds the sea near the White Bluff, and still farther south is

the mouth of the Clarence. The Waiau-ua and Hurunui, Waimakariri, Rakaia, Ashburton,

THE TOWN OF NELSON.

Rangitata, Selwyn, Hinds, Ashley and other smaller streams follow, and there are several
of what are called leakage rivers, like the Heathcote, Avon, Styx, Little Rakaia and
others whose course is intermittent. In Otago are the Waitaki and Awarua, the Ahuriri,
Taieri and the Clutha, or Molyneux, which is the largest river. in the South Island,
receiving among other tributaries the Kawarau. The Mataura, Oreti and Waiau follow,
the last-named receiving the Mararoa, Monowai, Borland, Dean, Lillburn, Wairaki and
Orawea,_ along the one hundred and forty miles of its course. On the west coast are
the Awarua, Hokitika, Arahura, Teremakau, Grey and Buller Rivers. The Aorere gives

its name to a densely-wooded timber valley before it finds its way into Blind Bay.

MARLBOROUGH AND NELSON.

After leaving Wellington, the first port of call in the South Island is Picton, situ-
ated on the immediately opposite side of Cook Strait at its narrowest part, and within
the deep recess of Captain Cook’s favourite haven, Queen Charlotte Sound, which he
has tersely described as “a collection of the finest harbours in the world.” Passing

through the Tory Channel, the entrance to the Sound is ample, the water deep, the

1138 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

tides regular, both shores indented with capital bays and coves, and fresh water and
timber abundant. The scenery is charming; forest-clad hills; plashing streams emerging
from gullies and gorges resplendent with tree-ferns, palms, flowering shrubs and trees;
birds of attractive plumage flitting about; and fish leaping from the placid bosom of the
water—such are the constituent features of the coup-d’eid. An amphitheatre of hills locks
in the voyager from the outer world. The White Rocks, Motuara and Long Island lie
within the entrance, and abreast of Motuara are three coves, the most southern of
which is Ship Cove, familiar by name to every reader of “Cook's Voyages.” The double
bay of Waitohi, on the southern side, contains the port and town of Picton, chief outlet
for Marlborough, the smallest province of New Zealand. It was detached from Nelson
in 1859, and has an area of about three million acres. Its physical geography may be
summed up as a succession of parallel valleys and mountain ranges, running generally
north-east and south-west, the most northerly and westerly valleys being those of the
Pelorus and the Rai, which are covered with valuable forests prolific in such marketable
timbers as the white pine, rzmu, matat and fotara.

Picton is a very small place, and if the man of commerce is disappointed with it
the tourist will find the scenery replete with interest. The town is built on an alluvial
flat of no great width, backed by undulating ranges, and the buildings skirt the water-
side. Although only a small place, it supports five hotels, has its own newspaper, and
possesses several churches, besides a telegraph office, a court-house and a hospital ; there
are also saw-mills in the vicinity. Moreover, it is connected by rail with the provincial
capital, Blenheim, which lies in the centre of the Wairau Plain, eighteen miles’ distant—
that same Wairau Plain which in 1843 was stained with the blood of the settlers who
fell in the first serious conflict with the Maori. Blenheim is situated at the confluence
of the Rivers Omaka and Opawa, and is a busy and interesting little place, furnished
with all the comforts and conveniences to be expected in a township of its size. The
leading banks and insurance companies are represented ; Ewart’s Hall and the Oddfellows’
Hall fully meet the demands of public entertainment, and there is besides a literary
institute with a good library, while the hotel accommodation is ample. Market Street is
the principal thoroughfare. The Telegraph Station is the most important in the colony,
for this is the point whence all South Island messages for the sister island are for- —
warded to Wellington, and it is also the distributing station for messages from the
North Island for places situated in the South.

Leaving Picton, and clearing Cape Jackson on the course westward to Nelson, the
tourist steams across the entrance to Pelorus Sound and past the mouth of Admiralty ~
Bay, with its hilly, wooded islets, to Blind or Tasman Bay. It is approached by the
narrow wall-like French Pass between D’Urville Island and the main-land. Right in
front appears a mass of green mountains, apparently impenetrable, to which the vessel
approaches nearer and nearer, until all at once she shoots round a projecting limb,
and enters a rocky channel one hundred and seventeen yards broad, with a _ strong
and swift current running at the rate of from eight to ten miles an hour. High hills
completely shut in this truly straight and narrow gate, and the scenery is striking in the
extreme. Passing out of it, the eastern side of Tasman Bay is coasted, with the Castor
Peak stretching over Croisilles (Cyo‘x Je) Harbour, to a height of from three thousand

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1139

THE BULLER ROAD AND RIVER.

three hundred to three thousand eight hundred feet, while farther on the sharp cone of
Mount Rintoul pierces the sky at an altitude of four thousand seven hundred and twenty feet.

Nestling within the retirement of the Bay, and on its south-eastern side, lies Nelson,
the chief town of the province. Both shores of the Bay are margined by towering

mountains, and between the town itself and a lofty range in the background extend the

1140 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Moutere Hills, composed of irregular and imperfectly-stratified beds of shingle, gravel,
sand and clay, resting upon tertiary strata, The port of Nelson lies within the shel-
tering arm of a curious natural breakwater called the Boulder Bank. It consists of
rounded pebbles on boulders. At high-water a large portion of it is submerged, but at
low-water, a difference of fourteen feet, it is dry throughout its entire length, The
largest and heaviest boulders face the sea; on the harbour side they become smaller, and
near the entrance they are so small “that vessels there can drive on the strand without
any damage, thus using the place as a natural dry-dock, in consequence of the great
difference of the water-level between ebb and _ flow.”

Completely environed inland by its hills, secluded too from the gales that frequently
whip the waters of the Strait into turbulent activity, with a sky of cloudless azure and
a balmy climate that seems like perennial summer, Dr. Johnson would have found in
Nelson the sober realization of the ‘“ Happy Valley” which he dreamed of for that creature
of his imagination, Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. It is the “Sleepy Hollow” of New
Zealand, though its inhabitants are as active and enterprising as their fellows elsewhere ;
but as the province is mountainous, and chiefly adapted for pastoral purposes, they have
perforce lagged in the race of progress. Nelson remains the place for a quiet holiday,
for learned leisure, for spending a calm, uneventful existence, “husbanding out life’s
taper to its close” amid scenes of idyllic beauty. .

A straggling cluster of houses has sprung up about the Port and its substantial
wooden wharf, but the town itself lies a little farther back and is approached by the
first tram-line constructed in New Zealand. It was the work, many years ago, of “an
English company formed for utilizing the deposits of chrome-ore on the Dun Mountain,
a sterile-looking ridge of rusty-brown colour, which springs to an altitude of some four
thousand feet at a distance of a few miles south-east of the town. The tram-way has
outlived the Company, and now does a good passenger traffic. The town itself is pretty
and picturesque. A small stream called the Matai meanders through it along willow-
fringed banks, and the dwellings of the people, lying not far distant from the leading
business thoroughfares, are gay with pleasant gardens. The heart of the town beats in
Trafalgar Square, but it beats very placidly, and is rarely troubled with any serious”
excitement. It has its Theatre Royal, its Masonic Hall, its Provincial Hall, its two ©
daily papers, and water-works, gas-works, a literary museum, hotels, banks and the other
adjuncts of "civilized life, as well as churches (one of them the Cathedral), schools, a
Roman Catholic orphanage, a public hospital and a lunatic asylum, Its Boys’ and Girls’
High Schools won for themselves so high a repute that pupils resort to them for their
education from all parts of New Zealand. .

The leading industries of Nelson comprise leather, soap and jam factories and
breweries, but the distinctive industry of the place is suggested by the prevalence of
hop-gardens. Nelson hops are famed throughout the colony, as well as beyond it, and
it requires no prescience to divine that this district is destined to be the Kent of the
Britain of the South. But the province is far richer in natural wealth than the English.
county. It has been pronounced by good authority to be “the veritable home of
minerals.” Coal, copper, oil-shales, zinc, marble, granite and hzmatite have all been

discovered in large quantities; of haematite ore, the quantity exposed at the Parapara

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1141

River alone is estimated at about fifty-three million tons, and there is another bed in
the same locality sixty feet thick. A capital view of Nelson is obtainable from the
Zig-zag Hill, and one of the pleasantest roads out of the town is that to the water-
works, about an hour's drive.

The road skirts the Matai, here

as elsewhere fringed with wil-
lows, and spanned by rustic
bridges. Villas and cottages nt ie
embosomed amid trees and gar-

dens fill in the prospect, and

LOADING COAL AT GREYMOUTH.

the ear is. regaled with the

songs of English birds from the

i a

: : || MY 1 mn
Zig-zag Hill may be prolonged it itt Wy

hedge-rows. Or the walk up

to the Cemetery, two miles out
of town. Church Hill, not far
from Trafalgar Square, is also
worth a visit. A few miles to THE INCLINE NEAR WESTPORT.

the eastward lies the village

of Whakapuaka, where the Australian cable touches dry land. The chief townships of
the province are Richmond, in the agricultural district of Waimea, and eight miles south-
west of Nelson; Motueka, in the district of the same name on the western side of Blind
Bay ;. Collingwood, at the mouth of the Aorere River, in the north-east corner of Golden
Bay; and Charleston, Reefton and Westport, in rich mineral country on the west coast.

The Amuri is a valuable pastoral district on the borders of the province of Canterbury.

1142 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Nelson’s only railway is the short line of twenty-two miles which terminates at
Bellgrove, the first stage on the overland route to the west coast. The intervening
country has a charming aspect, and .the little townships of Stoke and Richmond are
particularly interesting. Taking the coach at Bellgrove, we gradually ascend the Spooner
Range, and from the summit obtain a magnificent view of the surrounding country.
Looking back, the delightful valley of the Waimea lies stretched out beneath, and far
away beyond run the Port Hills, completely hiding Nelson from view, while more remote
still the eye rests upon the broad and placid bosom of Blind Bay, with the French
Pass clearly discernible near the verge of the extensive horizon. To the left, the moun-
tains of Collingwood, Takaka and Motueka raise their rugged sides and bold peaks to
heaven. Immediately in front, and extending away to the foot of another range, lies the
fertile valley of the Motueka, watered by the river of the same name. Descending the
range, and crossing the Motueka, a run of eighteen miles takes us to the foot of Hope
Saddle, up one side of which and down the other \the road winds about in the most
devious and fantastic manner, while the incidental scenery is wild and picturesque
enough to keep the attention of the traveller fully engrossed. Ten miles farther on the
Hope River is crossed, and thence it is but six miles to the comfortable hostelry
known as the Hope Junction Hotel. Here acquaintance is made with the Buller, one —
of the largest rivers in the South Island, but at this point of rather limited extent,
seeing that it takes its rise in Lakes Rotoiti and Rotoroa, only twelve miles distant. _

The Hope Junction is the half-way house between Nelson and Lyell. Thence the
road leads over an undulating’ country, crossed by beautiful little creeks, dotted with
clumps of bush resonant with the songs of birds, and marked. by the sites of old
camping-grounds, past the Owen, a tributary of the Buller, over the Buller itself at
Long Ford, and so on to Fern Flat, which no longer possesses the characteristics that
suggested its name, the ferns having disappeared before the progress of cultivation. It
is eighteen miles from Fern Flat to the Lyell, and the latter part of the journey is
extremely interesting, for the road here follows the course of the Buller, surging fiercely
on its rapid and impetuous course to the ocean. The country is wild and mountainous,
and the river scenery is enhanced at one point by a majestic cascade one hundred and
fifty feet high. The mining township of Lyell stands just at the point of junction of |
the Buller River with the Lyell Creek, and it is the centre of an active quartz-mining
and agricultural district. Thirty-eight miles west of Lyell, and on the margin of the sea,
is situated Westport, an important coaling town which possesses far and away the best
natural harbour on the west coast. The trip thither should be taken, if only for the
sake of the romantic scenery. Eighteen miles out of Lyell, a sharp bend of the River
round a jutting flank of the mountain, whose precipitous face is indented by a narrow
shelf of roadway, ushers us. into the presence of the “Hawk's Crag,” and. a feeling of
awe pervades us as we gaze upward at the frowning mass of towering rock above our
head, and then downward, to where, some sixty feet below, the Buller bowls along with
tremendous velocity towards its rest in the ocean. Passing “The Crag,” the Buller Gorge
is entered, and emerging thence the route lies amid milder surroundings. Westport is
the place of export for the practically inexhaustible coal-fields of Mount Rochfort, which
cover an area of some thirty or forty miles northward of the town.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1143

A line of railway eighteen miles long connects the Port with Waimangaroa and
Ngakawhau, where the colleries are in full work. The mineral at the former place is
wrought at a height of two thousand feet above the sea-level, and is lowered by means
of ingenious self-acting incline tram-ways. Quite a small fleet of steamers is engaged in
the export trade, for the quality ‘of the coal has won a very high repute. Gold-mining
and timber-cutting are also carried on in the district. This trip to Westport, however,
is a divergence from the route which follows the course of the Inangahua River to
Reefton, and thence proceeds by way of the lovely Grey Valley to Greymouth, the

Newcastle of New Zealand. A noticeable incident of the coaching trip is the passage

THE TOWN OF GREYMOUTH.

of the Buller by punt at Redman’s Bar, just after leaving Lyell. Reefton is situated upon
the banks of the Inangahua, forty-eight miles north-east of Greymouth. It was the scene
of a remarkable “rush” in 1871, when auriferous quartz-reefs were first discovered in the
neighbourhood, and for nine years the “scrip fever” ran its intermittent course, sometimes
culminating in periods of. wild excitement, and at other times plunging its subjects into
corresponding: lassitude and depression. Gold, however, is by no means the only mineral
that repays systematic enterprise, for coal is found over an area forty miles square,
and several mines are at work for the use of the quartz-reducing batteries, and for

other local purposes.

WESTLAND AND CANTERBURY.

Greymouth, to which reference has already been made, stands on the sea-coast, on
the southern bank of the Grey River, which forms the boundary between the provinces
of Nelson and Westland. It is a place of considerable importance, as not only is the
surrounding district auriferous, but extensive agricultural settlements have been established
in the Grey Valley, while splendid coal is found in large quantities all around it. A line
of railway seven miles in length leads directly to the Brunnerton coal-mines, of which
there are four in active work, carrying on operations upon a scale of increasing magni-
tude. The Harbour Board has raised a loan of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds

in England, and is engaged upon a scheme of port improvement designed by Sir John

1144 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Coode, the effect of which must be to still further develope and stimulate the coal-mining
industry, and consequently to facilitate the progress of the town.

A line of tram-way fourteen miles long connects Greymouth with the inland mining
township of Kumara, which is situated on a. terrace about a mile from the southern
side of the Teremakau River, and on the main road between Greymouth and Hokitika.
It is a single line, and runs through a well-wooded country; but its most novel and
interesting feature is the crossing of the Teremakau River in a cage suspended from

two wire ropes and
propelled by a steam

engine. The trams

from either terminus
run to the River’s bank,
and thence the passen-

gers obtain the unique

THE WIRE OVER

THE TEREMAKAU.

TRAM-WAY

and exciting experience of
being whirled in mid-air
over the turbid and hurry-
ing flood to the farther
shore. Nineteen miles be-
yond Kumara lies Hoki-
tika, the capital of the pro-
vince of Westland, and the
principal town on the west THE TRAM-WAY BETWEEN GREYMOUTH AND KUMARA.
coast of the South Island.
It is built at the mouth of the Hokitika River, and was the scene of an extraordinary
“rush” from Australia, when rich discoveries of gold, in 1865, produced a fever of
excitement which recalled the palmy days of Bendigo and Ballarat. The gold has all
been worked out, but Hokitika still lives and progresses. It is well planned and substan-
tially built, and possesses all the institutions common to places of its size and impor-
tance. Lakes Kanieri and Mahinapua are situated in the immediate neighbourhood,
and will richly repay a visit. |

The route, however, lies to the east, overland to Christchurch. The trip is made
by coach along a good road for a few miles, then across the Arahura River by an
ample bridge, and for the next ten miles or so through a mining district, until Kumara
is again reached. On again the coach hurries, under great flumes, past tail-races, sluice-

boxes, sludge-channels, and all the other evidences of the restless quest for gold. The

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1145

last reminders of the

“sé “4 oF ” :
QUur? SACVA James are

soon left behind, and

scenery of increasing
wildness and sublimity
succeeds. The road soon strikes into the lovely
valley of the Teremakau, lofty trees lining both
sides of the course, and their foliage at in-
tervals intertwining overhead so as to form a

delightful leafy arcade; beyond the trees at one

side is thé ample channel of the River, and,

stretching upward with an extensive sweep from

its farther bank, are towering mountain ranges
: THE TERRACE OF THE BEALEY.

heavily crowned with snow. It is a run of twenty-

three miles from the Taipo Hotel to the celebrated Otira Gorge, and as the end of this

stage is neared the level road skirts the Otira River, with sky-piercing mountains on

1146 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

both sides, densely-wooded to their very brows, and with fleecy streamlets coursing
down their rugged and impressive fronts.

Of this wonderful Gorge the Rev. Charles Clark has said:—“I cannot pretend to
describe in detail this glorious region. It lives in my memory as a succession of
forests, mountains, lakes and water-falls, as brilliant and fascinating as the most vivid
fancy could depict, or the most exacting eye desire. There were bold hills covered with
luxuriant foliage, the rich trees waving in the transparent air, backed by the white
summits of still loftier ranges, upon whose surface, now delicate and lovely, now mon-
strous or grotesque, the changeful light wrought itself in a magical variety of contrasted
colours; deep solitary ravines, walled in by precipitous cliffs devoid of verdure, and
overhanging the dark swift streams that swirl about their bases, dismal to the eye and
oppressive to the heart; miles upon miles of road, smooth and well-kept as the avenues
of an English park, running through the dense undergrowth of stately fern-trees and an
endless variety of blooming creepers, that, interwining® each with other, formed an impene-
trable jungle. The trunks and even the loftiest branches of the huge trees were coated
with moss and hung with ferns, and looked like bearded Druids, some clasped in the
writhing coils of dark-stemmed vaéa vines, and yielding slowly to the insidious parasites
which sap their vitals, while they make gay the surfaces of their life. There were
hundreds of delicious chines, any one of which would make the fortune of its owner
could it be transferred to Devonshire or the Isle of Wight; nooks where the sunshine
steals in and goes to sleep and the winds breathe in soft whispers, festooned with
trailing ferns and carpeted with fairy mosses, and overhung with dripping boughs that
catch a brighter green from the translucent water that from a shelf of rock “five
hundred feet above comes leaping, sparkling, dancing, gurgling, dashing, and performing
all the antics with which Southey credits the waters that come down the Lodore. This
is the finest cascade in the Gorge, and is supplied by an Alpine lake lying three thou-
sand feet above the sea, and called the ‘Devil’s Punchbowl.’” :

At the summit of the Gorge stands the stake that marks the boundary line between
the provinces of Canterbury and Westland. Down the deep descent of Arthur's Pass
the tourist proceeds until, at a point more than a thousand feet lower than the head
of the Gorge, he reaches comparatively level ground again, strikes thence across the
shingly bed of the Bealey, plunges into the bush, crosses the Waimakariri near its
source, follows its course for some distance as it winds about amid romantic mountain
scenery, and then finishes this stage at the Bealey.

The last stage of the passage over the mountain ends at Porter’s Pass, the “top of ©
which is crowned by a telegraph post, the highest in the colony, and the Rev. Charles
Clark; who approached it from the Christchurch, or eastern side, thus graphically
describes what he saw :—“Steadily for an hour we climbed up the Pass, down which the
coach bowls on its return journey in ten minutes, the road a mere shelf scooped out
of the hill-side, and zig-zagging on the brink of the precipice in a highly picturesque
and nervous fashion. . . . We were now fairly among the mountains, the road as it
wound among the foot-hills seeming to be blocked up at every turn by the heights that
appeared to crowd together for the purpose of gazing at us over ‘one another’s shoulders.
Late in the afternoon we opened on a broad sunny valley, and saw on a distant hill-

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1147
1147

LAN LD ORT

THE OTIRA GORGE.

1148 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

side an assemblage of rocks, some grouped like the buildings of a Cyclopean city
deserted by its founders, some standing alone, stern and grim like sentries petrified at
their posts; others again looking like the tombs of a colossal grave-yard, or the circling
seats of a vast amphitheatre; and farther still huge groups and solitary masses like the
gigantic monoliths of Stonehenge.”

The forty-four miles remaining to be traversed, namely, from Springfield to Christ-

church, is compassed by train, At the township of Springfield, just beyond the Pass,

the coach is exchanged for the train, which at Rolleston Junction joins the main trunk-

PORTER'S PASS, ON THE WEST COAST ROAD.

line extending from Dunedin to the capital of Canter-
bury. From the Junction, the railway line branches off
across the level country in the midst of which the capital
city of the province is situated. The course is now over
far-extending plains, that roll away to the horizon on all
sides in unbroken undulations whose continuity is broken
only by the far-away sky-line. From the windows of the
railway carriage the traveller's eye is refreshed as he speeds along by the comfortable
and thoroughly characteristic English scenery which this part of the older settled districts
presents. Retired little hamlets, plantations of trees, broad meadows, fields of waving
corn, rich orchards, increasing and multiplying evidences of population, enterprise and

industry seem to course after one another in rapid succession as the traveller sweeps

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1149

by, until he finds himself within the suburbs of an important industrial, commercial

and social centre, and inside the precincts of “The City of the Plains,”

CHRISTCHURCH.

Two features at once arrest the attention of the travelled visitor. The first is the

thoroughly English look of the place. In the outskirts are clumps of exotic trees,

pleasant hedge-rows, charming country lanes, neat cottages with plots of garden, and

cultivated farms; within the city limits—which, by the way, are belted with trees—

churches and schools that look just as if they had been lifted bodily out of some

English town and quietly dropped down here along with their Old World surroundings.

Nothing is here to suggest pronounced colonial peculiarities. The other striking feature

is the symmetry of the plan of the city,

and this fact at once reminds us that Christ-

church is the creation of a single generation—that it is essentially modern; and that if

we succeed in tracing many English resemblances, we fail at the same time to note any

servile imitations. The city is rather more than a mile square, and the streets, with

one exception, have been laid out, with geomet-
rical precision, in straight lines. The large open
space known as the Cathedral Square lies in
the very heart of the city, and one street which
pursues an even diagonal course right through
and beyond it, namely High Street, is the only
departure from the all-pervading look of square-
ness. It also increases the stranger’s chance
of loosing his way among this net-work of

wonderfully similar thoroughfares. The portrait

which we have thus roughly outlined still lacks

one or two touches to render it recognizable.

—

THE CATHEDRAL SQUARE, CHRISTCHURCH.

It would be unpardonable to forget the

River Avon in a description of Christchurch.

It is a comparatively shallow stream of pellucid water, which meanders in tranquil smooth-

ness through the city between low banks fringed with weeping willows, and under bridges

1150 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

which are both an ornament to the place and a picturesque feature in the landscape.
Nor can we overlook the fine plantation of trees which engirdles the city proper and
constitutes what is known as the Town Belt. It proclaims both the wisdom and the
appreciation of the beautiful in nature and art which possessed those who were privi-
leged to lay the original foundations of this flourishing seat of industry,

And this reflection at once starts the mind upon a consideration of the strange and
romantic genesis of ‘The Cathedral City.” It was intended to be a very exclusive place—
a kind of poetic Arcadia for the younger sons of the English nobility, where, under the
benediction of the Established Church, they were to preside over large landed estates,
to be farmed by a grateful yeomanry who should look up to them with feudal sub-
missiveness. The Anglican Church was to have supreme dominion over spiritual affairs,

and middle-class society was to be graciously

allowed to furnish the merchants and_ shop-
keepers of the new colony. In fine, Canterbury
was to be a ‘specimen slice from the English
commonwealth with all its characteristic strata,

from the spiritual and temporal aristocracy at

the top to the hard toilers at the base. It was

att Tis Be i
Bry bh TTP

)

Mie

HIGH STREET, CHRISTCHURCH.

a very pretty scheme on paper for those who designed it, but it was foreign to the
democratic genius of Anglo-Saxon colonization, and was therefore quietly discarded, when
the settlers came to realize the impossibility of setting up, in their new home, the kind of
imperium in tmperio which the promoters of the enterprise had contemplated. But traces
of the original leaven are -still to be met with in Christchurch. Its “society” is said to
be more exclusive than elsewhere, and tries to conform itself to old-fashioned predilections
for caste distinctions; the possession of a cathedral having its dean and chapter, in addition
to a bishop who is recognized as the Primate of the colony, keeps alive a decided
flavouring of High Churchism; and finally the streets retain the nomenclature which
they derive from Anglican bishoprics throughout the world—Hereford, Cashel, Lichfield,
Durham, Gloucester, St. Albans, Tuam, Armagh, Montreal, Colombo, Madras, Antigua,
Barbadoes, and so on. The “Canterbury Pilgrims,” as the first settlers termed them-

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 115)

selves, did an heroic work in carving out of the wilderness so fine a city and province.
Let it be remembered that these pioneers landed at Lyttelton in December, 1850, and
that therefore all we now see is the work of less than forty years, and we obtain an
estimate of labours which can hardly be too highly extolled.

So much for the past. Let us proceed to examine the present which it has evolved.
Alighting from the train, the visitor steps on the broad flagged pavement of the finest
railway station in New Zealand. It is built of brick, with white facings, and has

certainly avery pretentious appearance. Across the ample width of the well-formed

GLOUCESTER STREET, CHRISTCHURCH.

roadway from the Station stands a spacious family hotel, and in the intermediate distance
there is a group of neat-looking cabs. There are also steam-trams in waiting, offering
a cheap ride through the city to Sydenham or to Papanui, and as far as Heathcote
Bridge on the road to Sumner. The streets are broad and capitally macadamized,
the footpaths are trim and clean, and the deep concreted dish-channels on their sides
indicate an efficient system of drainage. Another feature particularly pleasing to the eye
is the presence of trees. As for the buildings, although Christchurch is not nearly so
advanced in the age of brick and stone as Auckland, still wood does not predominate
to any appreciable degree. In Colombo Street, High Street and Hereford Street, we
pass some stately edifices that would grace any metropolis. As, however, these recognized
avenues of business are reached, we begin to weary of the monotony of the dead level
of the site of the city, and to long for an eminence which will afford something like
a comprehensive survey of the place. Fortunately, art to a moderate extent supplies
the want which nature has ignored. In other words, the tower of the Cathedral, two
hundred and ten feet high, is the only real coign of vantage from which to view
the capital of Canterbury.

_ This is the finest ecclesiastical structure in the colony, and its site has been well

chosen. It occupies the centre of a large public square in the very heart of the city,

1152 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

and certainly graces ‘it withal. The corner-stone was laid in December, 1864, and for
more than twenty years the work of construction progressed at a fitful rate. At times
the community looked upon it as a work never destined to be completed, and it used
to be derisively said that one man and two boys were kept employed upon it merely
to rub the moss off the stones. The project has survived the shafts of sarcasm, and
the Cathedral now stands as an enduring monument of the pluck, zeal, and religious

fervour of the ‘Canterbury Pilgrims.” The style of architecture is Norman, and the

edifice is stated to be a copy of the Caen Cathedral in Frankish Normandy. The hand-
some spire springs from a square tower, and carries a plain cross at its apex, while
the tower contains a peal of ten bells. The building boasts a fine mosaic pavement,
and the choral portion of the services is excellently performed by a highly-trained and
efficient male choir.

On the opposite side of the Square stands, within a railed enclosure, the statue of
John Robert Godley, first agent of the Canterbury Association and virtual founder of
the city, and at its side the Post and Telegraph Offices, a large two-storey structure of
brick, with white stone facings, and with a square clock-tower over the main entrance.
The statue, it may be mentioned, was executed by Woolner, and is a capital likeness
of the original. To our right, the spacious printing establishment of the Lyttelton Times
newspaper attracts notice, and away to the left lie the busy commercial centres of High,
Hereford and Cashel Streets. On every side the streets strike off at regular intervals
to the Town Belt, with its poplar and other trees, and then we gradually lose sight of
them in a green perspective of more trees and gardens, Crossing Colombo Street from
the Cathedral, a short walk down Worcester Street, which strikes off at right angles
from it, brings the visitor to the near bank of the Avon, across which stream a hand-
some bluestone bridge springs in a single span, and leads direct to the Museum on the
other side of the road. é

Keeping, however, on the Cathedral side of the River, its banks are skirted past
Armagh Street, until Gloucester Street is reached, where the splendid new bridge carries
the thoroughfare over the rippling stream. Holding on his way, the traveller next
arrives at the intersection of Victoria Street, and passes over to the opposite. bank by
the substantial Victoria Bridge, constructed, like the others, of bluestone, and its sides
closed in with neat iron railings. Across the road from it stands the Supreme Court,
approached by a line of two or three steps, whence one may pass under low archways

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1153

]

into the Court itself. To the right the eye rests upon a low, grim and _ castellated
building, flying a flag from its corner tower, and closer examination shows us that it is
the Barracks of the Salvation Army. To the
left-hand lie some of the scholastic buildings
with which the city is amply furnished. In no
other respect have the pioneers more convin-
cingly attested their wisdom and foresight than
in the splendid provision they made for second-

ary and higher education. At a time when

a
j

the Provincial Government was in receipt of "
a princely revenue from its land fund, and ae il
when the settlers of the North Island had to a ee
struggle on as best they could without any
such wealth, no less than three hundred and
fifty thousand acres were set apart in this
favoured province as educational endowments,
while in 1873 fourteen thousand pounds were

voted for the erection of a Normal School

where teachers might be properly trained. The

Canterbury College, which now stands in Wor- emer

cester Street, at the western end of the city, is affiliated to the University of New Zea-
land, and boasts a long list of graduates. It is a building of the Gothic order, with a
high clock-tower over the main en-
trance. And the Church of England
has not been one whit behindhand
in educational enterprise. It estab-

lished, in the very early days, the

STINE

still flourishing institution of Christ’s
College, which is now equipped with a
large play-ground, a fives’-court, prac-
tice grounds for cricket and _ foot-
ball, and an ample swimming-bath.
In addition to these seats of learn-
ing, there are boys’ and girls’ high
schools, both richly endowed, six or
seven State primary schools, and a
well-endowed school of arts at the
corner of Hereford and Antigua
Streets. Nor must the Agricultural
College at Lincoln, thirteen miles
south of Christchurch, be forgotten.

A farm of six hundred acres is

attached to it, and lectures are regu-

THE WEST DOOR OF THE CATHEDRAL, larly given on agriculture, chemistry,

1154 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

botany and zoology, mathematics, physics, veterinary science, physical geography, meteoro-
logy and other kindred branches of study.

In close contiguity to Canterbury and Christ's Colleges are the Museum and _ the
Botanic Gardens, the main entrance to the latter commanded by a fine statue of the
late Mr. W. S. Moorhouse, a popular Superintendent of the province, to whom the
Museum, as well as the Lyttelton railway tunnel, owes its origin. But if the enterprising
Superintendent conceived and inaugurated the Museum, it was the late Sir Julius von
Haast, who, as Curator for the first twenty-five years of its existence, brought it to its
. present high state of excel-
lence. In its technological
department it has, as yet, no
rival in the colony. In fact,
it is a museum of which
both Christchurch and New
Zealand at large may justly
be proud. The mammal-room
is filled with rows of cases
containing by far the best
collection of specimens of
natural history yet formed
in the country. The tech-
nological - room contains a
valuable metallurgical series,
and interesting illustrations
of the ceramic art, the steel

and iron manufactures, engi-

THE STATUE OF JOHN ROBERT GODLEY. neering, ship-building and

textile skill. In the room

devoted to osteology there is a fine grouping of skeletons, including a gorilla, a
giant python from India, and articulated human skeletons, besides typical skulls of
the various races of the genus homo. In addition there are separate rooms for
fossils, paintings and plaster-casts of statuary and antiquities, while both geology and
ornithology are adequately represented. We have left to the last two specialities of
the Museum, namely, the moa-room and the Maori house. In the former stand two
splendid specimens of the dénornis maximus, twelve feet three inches high, as well as
other specimens ranging from the size of a small emu to that of a giraffe. That the
moa, although now extinct, existed at one time in very considerable numbers in some
districts, may be inferred from the fact that a search expedition, organized by Dr. von
Haast in the year 1866, obtained enough bones of this gigantic bird to fill an immense
waggon. For a long time—indeed, until within the last few months—it was believed
that living specimens of the moa might still be discovered in that almost inaccessible
mountainous region on the south-west and western coasts of Otago, where even the
Maori, in all probability, never penetrated. The expedition of Mr. Reischek, the Austrian
naturalist, who spent several months of the years 1887 and 1888 in that solitary country,

ices

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1155

has pretty well dissipated this hope. But Mr. Reischek’s researches brought to light two
species of bird new to science, and resulted in the discovery of a moderately extensive
grass-country among the hills, which was promptly taken up for run-holding purposes.
The Maori house was brought from Napier, and was intended for the residence of a
chief. It contains a fine collection of Maori curios, amongst them casts of an antique
Tam bell, found in the possession of the North Island natives, and of Koratangi, a
carved stone bird said by the Maoris to have been brought with them from Hawaiki.

The Public Gardens, or Government Domain, lie alongside the Museum and cover a
tract of eighty acres, picturesquely laid out and almost surrounded by the sinuous Avon
with its drooping willows. Among the earliest contributors whose interest in the Botanic

Gardens and Museum

was enlisted by Dr.
von Haast were
Baron von Miller,
of Melbourne, who

sent a collection of

four hundred and sixty
specimens of Austra-
lian plants, and Pro-
fessor Louis Agassiz,
to whom the Museum
is indebted for large
collections of the skins

of North American

mammals and a num-

THE HIGH SCHOOL, CHRISTCHURCH.

ber of interesting fos-

sils. Across the Avon, and to the north and south of the Public Gardens, extends Hagley
Park, a reserve of four hundred acres, which was presented to the people of Canterbury
by a number of English well-wishers. It is environed by belts of English trees and
Californian pines, while the numerous shady walks make up a total promenade of ten
miles. At the southern end there are spacious cricket grounds, and the portion of it
which adjoins the Hospital has been formed into Acclimatization Gardens. To row up
the River by the side of Hagley Park is a delightful experience, and the time may be
agreeably varied by angling for some of the splendid trout that disport themselves in
the clear stream. But the trout have by no means a monopoly of the running water ;
it is also populated by shoals of white-bait. The principal arena for cricket and foot-ball
is at Lancaster Park, a fine reserve of eleven acres, admirably laid out and _ furnished
with the necessary buildings. Christchurch has always enjoyed considerable repute for its
prowess in the cricket field. The chief sporting institution of the place is the Canter-
bury Jockey Club, which possesses a race-course reserve of rather more than three
hundred acres at Riccarton, about ten miles by rail from the city. Racing found a
congenial home in Canterbury from the earliest days of the settlement, and the
“added money” offered by the Jockey Club has steadily increased from year to year.

The principal events are the “New Zealand Cup” of one thousand sovereigns, and

1156 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

the “Derby” of seven hundred and fifty sovereigns. “Cup Day,” if not such a grand
affair as the. great event of “Carnival Week” at Melbourne, evokes quite as much
interest in the Christchurch world of fashion, and the array of brilliantly attired
beauty which Canterbury can furnish forth on a gala occasion is not to be despised even
by those who measure every display of the sort by the Flemington standard. There
are three theatres in the place, and an equal number of public halls, while social,
athletic and volunteer organizations are as numerous and flourishing here as elsewhere.
A private gas company contracts for the lighting of the city, and the water-supply is
derived from an excellent system of artesian
&. wells. Drainage has been one of the most
serious difficulties with which the people have
had to cope, and it has been found necessary
to maintain a drainage board to give it un-
divided attention.

Christchurch is a recognized seat of indus-
trial activity. It possesses flour-mills, foundries,
implement manufactories, boot, carpet and car-
riage factories, brass and copper works, breweries,
potteries, pickle, sauce and jam _ works, fell-
mongeries, tanneries and biscuit factories, besides
a woollen factory and glass-works at Kaiapoi,
fourteen miles north of Christchurch by rail.
The Kaiapoi Woollen Company has a capital
of one hundred thousand pounds; and, besides
a staff of two hundred and fifty at the mill, it

employs upwards of four hundred and fifty per-

SKELETONS OF A MOA AND A MAORI,

sons in its clothing factory. The cloth pro-
duced at the mill, among prizes innumerable, counts a gold medal won at the
Sydney Centennial Exhibition in 1888. The tweeds, blankets, rugs, shawls and hosiery
produced at Kaiapoi are not excelled anywhere. In engineering establishments Christ-
church is not a whit behind the other chief cities of New Zealand, and one local firm, —
that of Messrs. Scott Brothers, has lately achieved the distinction of manufacturing the
first ten locomotives constructed in the colony. Their works cover about an acre of
land in Manchester Street, and the firm have an auxiliary establishment in the vicinity
of the Lyttelton Graving Dock. As might be supposed, Christchurch being the centre of
the richest agricultural territory in New Zealand, the business of pork-packing is carried
on there upon an extensive scale. One establishment, that of Mr. T. H. Green, disposes
of between seven thousand and eight thousand pigs every season, and possesses facilities
for dealing with one thousand pigs at one time. In the various departments of trade
connected with grain and wool, Canterbury takes the lead in New Zealand. It must
also not be forgotten that to Christchurch enterprise, in the first instance, the colony
owed that magnificent commercial venture, the New Zealand Shipping Company, which
has done so much to improve the carrying trade of the colony, although it has not
proved a profitable investment for the share-holders. The rapid dispatch furnished by

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1157

this line, combined with the great commercial advantages conferred by the service, led
Parliament, in 1888, to decide that a fortnightly service by direct steamer would satisfy

all the mail requirements of the colony. A return laid before the House shewed that

a
NO |

A REACH ON THE RIVER AVON.

the steamers in 1887 brought to the colony two thousand five hundred and forty-eight

passengers, with ten thousand six hundred and eighty-seven tons of cargo by weight,

1158 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

and took away exports comprising every description of New Zealand produce—wool, skins,
leather, wheat, grass-seed, fruit, flax, and other goods, and two hundred and five thousand
six hundred and eighty-four carcases of mutton, seven thousand two hundred and eighty-
nine legs of mutton, and nineteen thousand and eighty-nine cases of meat. They also
purchased in the colony large supplies of coal. It is no wonder, under such circum-
stances, that the colonists consider it to be to their interest to support this enterprise. It
was arranged that the fortnightly service should be carried on conjointly with the steamers
of the Shaw, Savill and Albion Line, which now contributes in equal measure with the
New Zealand Shipping
Company to foster the

trade of the colony.
Four daily papers —

two morning and two

evening—and a num-

ber of weeklies repre-

sent the fourth estate.
Sumner and New

Brighton are very

popular sea-side re-
sorts, and at Sumner
is also located the
Colonial Institution for

the Deaf and Dumb.

THE CHRISTCHURCH MUSEUM. It is a charming little

watering-place, full of
attractions for holiday-making and vacation-spending folk from Lyttelton and elsewhere.
One of the sights of Sumner is a striking natural feature known to local sight-seers’
fame as “The Cave Rock.” It is a great mass of heaped-up crag that juts out from the
sandy beach, crowned by a signal-mast on the seaward side. Just beneath this flag-staff
is a large aperture hollowed out by the immemorial action of the sea.

Returning to the city, and taking the train to Lyttelton, eight miles distant, the
traveller is enabled to visit the chief port of the province. The last stage of the trip
is through the tunnel that pierces the lofty hills between city and port, and commemo-
rates the spirit and enterprise of the late Mr. Moorhouse. It is two thousand eight
hundred and seventy yards long, cost one hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds in
construction, and is still the largest engineering work of the kind in New Zealand.
Lyttelton, as a town, can never be very large or extensive, owing to the formation of
the surrounding country. It is situated within the bight of a range of bleak, sombre
and lofty hills, ranged in the shape of a horse-shoe, the sides in most jastances
descending in a steep and continuous slope to the water’s edge, and the bight itself
sloping more gradually upwards from a contracted area of comparatively level land. It
was over the face of one of these bleak and barren hills that travellers who had occa-
sion to visit Christchurch in the early days were compelled laboriously to climb. The

entire extent of the fore-shore is bounded by a wooden breastwork, from which wharves

ASCENT

HOCHSTETTER

DOME,

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1159

and jetties, constructed of the same material, stretch out at right angles; and at either
extremity of the breastwork spring the substantial rubble-stone piers of the breakwater
that hold within their secure embrace all the shipping of the place. Long lines of
galvanized-iron sheds lie within the breastwork, and on both sides of them, and down
the full extent of the wharves, run lines of iron rails pretty well covered with railway
trucks. So ample is the shed-accommodation of the Port that two of the largest
will alone hold eleven thousand tons of grain. Immediately beyond the sheds is situated
the business portion of the town, durably built of stone or brick, its buildings being
of an average height of two storeys. On the slopes of the hills, to the sides and at
the back, are dotted far in all
directions widely scattered villas
and dwellings more or less pic-
turesque and pretentious.

The harbour, originally called
Port Cooper, has had more money
spent upon it to ensure perfect
security for shipping and to provide

maritime facilities and conveniences

SEFTON MOORHOUSE

than any other sea-port of the
colony. The harbour works were
projected so far back as 1863, and
about half a million of money has
been spent upon them. The two
arms of the encircling breakwater,
formed of rubble-stone faced on
the outer slopes with huge blocks,
and extending respectively from
Officer's Point and Naval Point,

enclose a water area of about one THE STATUE OF SUPERINTENDENT MOORHOUSE,

hundred and seven acres, the depth

of water ranging from nineteen up to twenty-five feet at low-tides. The arm extending
from Officers’ Point is two thousand and ten feet long, forty feet wide on the top,
elevated six feet above high-water spring-tides, with a timber breastwork extending along
its inner face for nearly its whole length. The other arm is one thousand four
hundred and thirty-four feet long. Within this inner harbour the berthage space is
computed at upwards of eleven thousand feet, and will accommodate without trouble
twenty-two ocean ships and steamers, twenty barques and brigs, eight intercolonial
steamers, and thirty schooners and smaller craft.

The wharves vary in length from one hundred and sixteen to one thousand three
hundred and eighteen feet, the latter being the measurement. of the Gladstone Wharf.
The Graving Dock is a most important and useful addition to the harbour works; in
capacity it is second only to that of Auckland. Its dimensions are: length on floor,
four hundred and fifty feet; width on floor, forty-six feet; width of entrance, sixty-two
feet ; depth on sill at high-water, twenty-three feet. The total cost, including pumping

1160 AUSTRALASIA [LLUSTRATED.

machinery and caisson, was one hundred and four thousand pounds. In addition ‘there
is a patent slip capable of taking on vessels of four hundred tons burthen. The
wharves are lit up at night with the electric light. Lyttelton also has its fortifications,
and would not be found defenceless in time of war. In accordance with the general
scheme of naval defence drawn up for the colony, batteries have been constructed on
the heights commanding the entrance to the harbour, and any hostile cruiser would find
it a risky experiment to run the blockade even under the cover of night, for here, as
at Auckland and Wellington, the batteries have been furnished with powerful ‘electric
search-lights. The chief public institutions are the Sailors Home and the Orphanage.
A coach-road, carved out of the face and over the flank of the steep hill on the
northern side of the town, leads past the Observatory, and by way of the pleasant
watering-place of Sumner to Christchurch. It is called the Zig-zag, and affords the
stranger a capital view of the harbour and its quarantine station on Ripa Islet. At
one time it was the only means of communication for vehicles with the capital city of
the province, but that time lives now only in the remembrance of the oldest
inhabitants, who will also recollect that Lyttelton was originally designed to be the

metropolis of Canterbury.

Tue SoutTuern ALps.

We must now trace the route to the south over the Canterbury Plains. It lies
through a practically treeless country, coursed by rapid mountain torrents and streams
which almost dry up during the summer and autumn months, the Pacific lying on our
left-hand laving the low cliffs that border the Ninety-mile Beach, while away to our right
stretch the long extent of the Southern Alps, softened in outline by the blue haze of
distance, and with the snowy caps of their higher peaks glittering in the brilliant sunshine.
A run of rather more than a couple of hours brings the train to Ashburton, fifty-three
miles south of Christchurch, the first township of any note on the southward journey.
It is built of wood, and has a frontage to the eastern side of the line. It is a con-
siderable town, and plantations of poplars and blue-gums greatly enhance its appearance.
A little more than twenty years ago, Ashburton was only a_bullock-teamster’s camp,
boasting merely a rude public-house, a blacksmith’s shop and a police hut. Now it is—
a gas-lit town, with spacious streets lined by shops, public buildings, hotels, churches,
schools, a theatre and a public library; the public health and convenience have been
judiciously provided for by the dedication of pleasant reserves and wooded parks, while
tall chimney-stacks proclaim it the seat of numerous industries.

On still, over these shingly plains ‘with their scant herbage of tussock-grass, and
their bountiful evidences of agricultural enterprise, the traveller passes every five miles or
so small stations furnished with the granaries and stores of that ubiquitous corporation,
the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company. At Temuka, we reach the
Station through a plantation of trees, whose waving branches and pleasant verdure form
an agreeable relief from the monotony of timberless country. This is eighty-nine miles
from Christchurch, and eleven miles farther on 4s Timaru, the second town of ’Canter-
bury,.and nearly half way tc Dunedin. Timaru is solidly built of a dark bluestone,
taken from quarries in the neighbourhood, and the presence of trees within the limits

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1161

of the town, and of standing bush in the outskirts, gratefully salutes the eye. A glance

at the port suffices to indicate that scientific skill, backed by colonial enterprise, has

LYTTELTON.

TOWN AND PORT

THE

transformed a dangerous roadstead into a comparatively safe haven. The strand was

formed of shifting shingle, upon which the surf broke with great violence when the

1162 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

wind blew in from the sea, and, as a consequence, landing

under such circumstances

was a perilous feat, while shipping was exposed to great danger. In fact, two English

ships were wrecked on the beach with loss of life so recently as 1882, Since then a

powerful breakwater has been constructed at a cost of something like two hundred

THE BREAKWATER AT TIMARU.

thousand pounds. Immense
wooden tanks were formed
on the beach, and filled with
cement and shingle which
solidified into Titanic blocks
of concrete, some of them
weighing as much as thirty
tons each. These were then
carried seaward by a
gigantic travelling crane, and
placed in their required
positions, until they united
to form a solid breakwater
of concrete blocks _ thirty-
six feet wide, reaching to
half-tide in height, and cap-
ped with a monolithic con-
crete block of about five
hundred tons in weight.
This wall has been pushed
seaward some sixteen hun-
dred feet, and at that dis-
tance takes a cant to the
north and extends four hun-
dred feet farther. It is also
proposed to build a mole
from the shore on the north,
towards the extremity of the
cant, so as to produce a near
approximation to a perfectly
enclosed harbour. At pre-
sent vessels of a thousand
tons can anchor in safety
under the lee of the break-
water, and even with a
heavy sea running can come
alongside the wharf to load
or unload. The buildings of
Timaru are substantial, if not

strikingly handsome, and

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1163

some of them are of considerable proportions. All the various religious denominations
possess well-built places of worship, while the chief places of amusement and of public
assembly are the Theatre Royal, two Oddfellows’ Halls, a Foresters’ Hall, a Mechanics’
Institute, a Garrison Hall
and Assembly Rooms. In
addition to the Govern- i :
_ ment buildings and Town
Council Chambers, there
are also a hospital and a
high school, besides the
primary schools and a
Roman Catholic convent.
The wind-mill constitutes
a notable feature of the
landscape, and from this
latter point may be ob-
tained a good view of the
town. Timaru is favour-
ably situated for a Can-
terbury town, inasmuch as
it is set in the midst of a
billowy expanse of gently
_ undulating plain, and any
departure from the prevail-
ing dead level, however — ;--
slight, is very welcome.
The remarkable gorge
of Burke’s Pass lying di-
rectly behind the town, but
at a considerable distance
from it, indicates the route

to be followed in order to

make closer acquaintance
with the high Alps of New Zealand. The
first forty miles of the journey ends at
Fairlie Creek, which the train reaches in Hh
rather less than two hours and _ three-
quarters. The second stage of the journey
extends by coach from Fairlie Creek to
the Hermitage at the base of Mount Cook
itself, and, if the adventurous explorer
wishes to penetrate beyond that point, he
must make his own arrangements and trust

to his own powers of locomotion. From

SUMNER.

ROCK,

CAVE

THE

1164 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

the Creek to Lake Tekapo, twenty-six miles, there is an excellent road, and in

fine weather the drive is most enjoyable. At the end of the first five or six

miles is Silver-stream, famed for its trout, and seven miles farther is the township of

Burke’s Pass. It is a stiff pull

to the top of the Pass, two
thousand five hundred feet high, from
which is obtainable a capital survey
of the great Mackenzie Plains, so named
from a: daring outlaw who, from this
secure retreat, made regular forays in
the early days upon the stations of
the more settled country. The Rev.
W. S. Green, M.A., who made the

ascent of Mount Cook in 1882, says

TIMARU FROM THE WIND-MILL.

that the vast area now occupied by the

Mackenzie Plains “was once covered by the great glacier-field of the Waitaiki. Afterwards
it was filled by a lake, the ancient shores of which form the most complete series of
terraces that has ever come under my observation. When at last the waters of the great
lake broke through the dams of glacier deposits to the south-eastward, the rivers ploughed
deeply into its bed, shifting their channels now and again, and leaving abrupt escarp-
ments of shingle to mark their courses. Now the whole surface is covered with a sparse
vegetation, consisting of the various . native tussock-grasses, and interspersed with clumps
of ‘Spaniards,’ or sword-grass. On the Plains this latter plant grows short and. strong,
and presents a most formidable array of spikes, which pierce your flesh like so many
daggers, should an unfortunate stumble cause you to fall upon a clump. Vegetation of
any sort is so scanty that these Plains can barely support but one or two sheep per acre.”
After a slight descent from the Pass, the road takes a sharp bend to the right,

and skirts the hills over the upper level of an old lake terrace, till, rounding a hill,

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1165

which proves to be a moraine that dams the waters back, Lake Tekapo bursts suddenly
into view, its flood glittering in the generous sunshine, and the surrounding: hills clearly
reflected on its glassy surface. Lofty mountains rise on either hand, and above the
lower ranges snow-clad peaks, while far away on the left Mount Sefton raises its towering
crest towards the sky. A diminutive islet not far from the shore contains a clump of
‘pine-trees, and in the midst of it the dwelling of a run-holder. Lake Tekapo lies two
thousand four hundred and sixty eight feet above the sea-level, and is about fifteen miles

long by about three miles. broad. It is formed by the Godley River, which flows into

THE MACKENZIE PLAINS,

it from the north, and the Cass River from the north-west. According to Dr. von
Lendenfeldt, “few places on the earth can be found where there is such an accumula-
tion of moraine. Here we find a large moraine from seven to ten miles in breadth,
and so high that in many places the rivers do not cut down to the bottom, and do
not disclose the geological formation on which it rests. The Tekapo Lake is, like other
Alpine lakes, particularly dirty, and looks like milk. The same is the case with smaller
lakes of a like description in the European Alps, but it would be hard to find a lake
in Europe which is so large as Tekapo, and at the same time so dirty. The reason
of this is that these New Zealand lakes are shallow. The Lake of Geneva, though fed
in the same way as Tekapo from glaciers, is remarkable for its blue and transparent

water; but these lakes in New Zealand are nearly as muddy as the streams which issue

1166 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

from them and still bear the same character. The suspended particles cannot settle in

consequence of the strong currents which prevail.” Twelve miles from Tekapo, and on its

MACKENZIE COUNTY.

TEKAPO,

LAKE

south-western side, it is connected by a small
stream with a lake of less extent, which has
been named Alexandrina, after the Princess
of Wales.

A stretch of thirty miles separates Tekapo
from Lake Pukaki. At the end of the first
six miles, a branch road strikes off at the
right to Braemar Station, and thence across
the Tasman River to Mount Cook, which
was the route taken by the Rev. Mr. Green
in his memorable ascent of the “ Mont Blanc”
of New ‘Zealand. The route, however, lies
past Balmoral Station, and thence by a
gradual descent to Irishman’s Creek, where
the first glimpse of Mount Cook is obtained.
Holding on this course we cross the Mary
Burn, and ascend by a short rise to Simon’s
Pass, which offers an extensive view of the
northern portion of Otago. The road now
winds about over old moraine accumulations
to Dover's Pass, where Lake Pukaki comes
suddenly into view.

Dr. Von Haast has justly observed that
“amongst the different Alpine lakes of the
Province of Canterbury, Lake Pukaki is with-
out doubt the most picturesque. It lies one
thousand seven hundred and forty-six feet
above the sea, is ten miles long and four
miles broad, and its formation is one of
the most interesting objects which can be
presented to the geologist and physical geo-
grapher. Nowhere, so far as my knowledge
extends, are the proofs so convincing that
it has, like similar lakes in other Alpine
regions, been formed by the retreat of an
enormous glacier, But it may truly be stated
that the view from its shores towards its
sources will rival in beauty and majesty any
known views in the world. In the centre,
Mount Cook, resembling a large white tent,
rises above the’ other ice-clad giants, of which

Mount Stokes and Mount Sefton to the

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1167

south, and Mount Haidinger to the north, are the most conspicuous. The bed of the
River Tasman, nearly as wide as the Lake itself, continues for twenty-three miles in a
straight line to the base of Mount Cook, here dividing into two branches, of which the
the eastern one is the broadest and most important. In this main branch, two miles
above the southern foot of Mount Cook, terminates the

great Tasman Glacier, the largest

of all New Zealand glaciers. On both sides, the ranges present us not only with voches

LAKE PUKAKI AND MOUNT COOK,

moutonnées, but also with terraces cut into the rock, sloping down at such an angle that
their fall can be accurately measured (from one and a half to four degrees).”

The Lake is flanked by mountains, the Mary Range extending down one side, and
on the other the Ben Ohau, lofty and crested with snow, while between them, and
shutting in the prospect at the head of the Lake, the Southern Alps loom up far into
the heavens, culminating in Mount Cook, massive in its proportions, majestic in its
sheeted splendour of ice, and awe-inspiring in its tremendous height. Seen as the
setting sun is lavishing upon it a wealth of changeful iridescent hues, “it looks like an
enormous intensely-illuminated crimson flower held in Nature’s white fingers for the sun’s
dying blessing; while the sky overhead wears a soft violet hue, blending away towards
the zenith, by the most delicate gradations, into zones of orange red and _ primrose
yellow.” The immediate head of the Lake is a swamp formed by the waters of the
Tasman River which flows into it. In fact, both Pukaki and Tekapo are fed chiefly by

the Godley, Cass and Tasman Glaciers, of which the first-named has been termed by

1168 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Hochstetter the AZer de la
Glace of New Zealand.
The entire course of the
Tasman River, from the
glaciers to Pukaki, a dis-
tance of twenty-two miles,
is perfectly straight, and
there is only one slight
bend in the Godley, which
is of about the same length.

Twenty miles farther on

from Pukaki lies the Ben
Ohau Lake, measuring twelve miles long by
two and a half miles broad, nearly surrounded
by bush, and with much clearer waters than
either of its larger neighbours. The tourist's
course, however, does not lie in this direction.
Crossing the ferry at Pukaki, which is worked
by a wire rope, he starts on the last stage
of his journey to the Mount Cook Hermitage,
thirty-eight miles distant. After leaving the
Lake, he passes on the left the Ben Ohau
and Rhoborough Downs Stations, and from
the summit of the Downs the Lake is again
brought into view, its margin approached by
a very devious course, and its shores skirted
for another five miles until the Glentanner is
reached, at the head of the Lake and thirteen
miles distant from the ferry. Now opens up
the entire amplitude of the extensive valley
of the Tasman, and as the’ traveller passes
over a succession of low downs, mountain after
mountain marches into sight, presenting a
continuously successive series of kaleidoscopic
pictures. It is not until
he has passed the present
Glentanner homestead,
twelve miles from the
head of the Lake, that
the tourist obtains a first
correct glimpse of the
Great Tasman _ Glacier,
and, mounting the downs

which lie between him

AN AVALANCHE IN THE SOUTHERN ALPS.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1169

and Birch Hill, seven miles farther still, he realizes more adequately the vastness of the
Glacier. It lies to the right, while part of Mount Sefton is visible to the left. Straight

across the Tasman River the Liebié Range, with Mount Stanhope, forms an impenetrable

wall, and nearer the Lake the Play-ground and Howard Peaks dominate that portion of

MOUNT COOK AND THE HOOKER GLACIER.

the view. From the Downs the road descends to
some flats, and leads across a number of creeks
to Birch Hill Station, where we learn that we are
only six miles from the Hermitage. The entire Tasman Glacier with
moraine accumulations is now in open view,- the streams that unite to

form the Tasman River issuing from its terminal face, and above them

1170 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

some of the feeders produced by the Ball and MHochstetter Glaciers. Away to the
left the lofty peak of Mount Sefton stands strikingly forth, its clear-cut outline in
bold relief against the sky. : ,

Proceeding steadily on, the broad valley of the Hooker to the left of Mount Cook
opens up, and a sight is obtained of the Hermitage, snugly ensconced under the shelter
of the bush-clad slopes of the moraine formed by the Mueller Glacier. Then, rounding
the tremendous rocky bluff variously called Gibraltar and Sebastopol, Mount Sefton
comes once more within the range of vision,
and, as one nears the Hermitage, Mount Cook
himself, or as the natives have more aptly termed
him, <Aorangz, “The Cloud-piercer,” glides
majestically into view.

A three-mile drive from Gibraltar conducts -
to the Hermitage, and Mount Sefton welcomes
the arrival of the visitor to its solitudes by a
thunderous discharge of mighty avalanches down
his embattled sides. The giant Aorangi dwarfs
all the companion peaks. Since the ascent of
the Rev. W. S. Green, with his two Swiss
mountaineers, in 1882, no one seems to have
essayed the perilous feat of mounting to its
summit. After climbing to an altitude of some
four thousand feet above the sea-level, the
adventurous travellers found themselves abreast
of the southern aréte of the Mountain whose
glittering mass of ice-precipices and hanging gla-
ciers stood up over eight thousand feet above
them. “The actual summit, a flattish cap of
ice, did not become visible, clear of a lower
peak, till we had advanced about half-a-mile
farther. Mount Tasman was hidden by the shoulder of Mount Cook, but the great
ice-fall of the Hochstetter Glacier, pouring down from the hollow between these two

AN ALPINE CLIMBER,

mountains, presented us with as grand a spectacle as it is possible to conceive. Rising
beyond this glacier the square-topped Mount Haidinger, robed in white glaciers, stood
as the next worthy member of this giant family. After dwelling on some smaller peaks,
our eyes swept round to the great mass of Mount de la Béche, looking something like
Mount Rosa, and occupying a conspicuous position between two main branches of the
Glacier. Farther off, Mount Elie de, Beaumont appeared, and then the great buttresses’
of the Malte Brun Range, which flanked the side of the Glacier opposite Mount Cook,
and shut out from our view its own finest peak and Mount Darwin beyond. The
glacier on which we stood, having an area about twice as great as that of the Great ;
Aletsch, the largest glacier in Switzerland, is really a union of many fine streams of
ice, which, coming in on all sides in graceful curves, bear’ along their tale of boulders

to swell the great rampart of moraine which gave us such difficulty to surmount. The

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1171

ice beneath our feet was that coming from the Hochstetter Glacier, its lateral moraines
marking off its identity for many miles after it had united with the main stream.
We counted in all thirty distinct glaciers in sight together, some covered with moraines,
others composed of purer ice, and the smaller ones on the Malte Brun Chain, from
their insufficient mass, were broken off high up in their ravines, and sent their ice
down in avalanches, and their streams in glancing cascades.”

From a shoulder of the Mountain, and less than five thousand’ feet from its icy

crown, the climbers were rewarded with a magnificent prospect. ‘Deep down beneath

MOUNT SEFTON AND THE HOOKER RIVER.

us lay the Hooker Glacier, reminding us of the downward view from the avréte of the
the Finsteraarhorn ; while beyond, the glacier-seamed crags of Mount Sefton towered
skywards. Farther off lay the Mer de Glace of the Mueller Glacier, a splendid field of
white ice, its lower moraine-covered termination lost in the blue depths of the valley at
our feet. The high ridge connecting Mount Sefton with Mount Stokes alone prevented
us from seeing the western sea. It was a glorious day, scarcely a breath of air stirring ;
no cloud visible in the whole vault of blue; ranges upom ranges of peaks in all direc-
tions and of every form, from the ice-capped dome to the splintered azguel/e. It was a

wonderful sight, those lovely peaks standing up out of the purple haze, and then to

1172 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

think that not one had yet been climbed! Here was work, not for a short holiday
ramble merely, not to be accomplished even in a_ tife-time, but -work for a whole
company of climbers, which would occupy them for half a century of summers, and still
there would remain many a new route to be tried.”

At 5.30 p.m. on the 2nd of March, 1882, or the close of the sixth day from the
time they started to scale the Mountain, the party “reached the highest rocks, from
which an easy slope led up to an_icicled
bergschrund, which, starting from the cornice
of the aréte, ran round the cap of the sum-
mit from left to right. . . .. We bore
away to the left to avoid the highest part
of the dergschrund above us, and surmounting
the cornice without any difficulty, at six p.m.
stepped on to the topmost crest of Aorangi.
A look backwards, down into the dark, cloud-
filled abyss out of which we had climbed, was
enough to make us shudder; it looked fathom-
less, and this white icy ridge on which we
stood, with torn mists driving over it before
the fierce nor’-wester, seemed the only solid
thing in the midst of chaos. Mount Cook
was- now practically conquered. We advanced
rapidly along the cornice, which rose at an
angle of about twenty degrees towards what

was mathematically the highest point, now and

then cutting a step for greater security, but
SURMOUNTING A GLACIER. in most cases trusting to the grip gained by
the nails in our boats. Sometimes a_ blast
would come upon us with such force as to compel us to crouch low and drive in our
axes firmly, to guard against being blown off into space. Fierce squalls would shatter the
icicles of the cornice. and send them down the slopes up which we had climbed. Descend-
ing with a swishing sound, they soon pounded themselves to pieces, and so accounted for
the showers of coarse hail which had proved so disagreeable on the final ice-slope.”
The two largest glaciers on the Hermitage, or western side of Mount Cook, are
the Hooker and the Mueller, the former descending in two branches from the south and
south-western slopes of the Mountain, and being enlarged by several branches from
Mount Stokes and the Moorhouse Range. Opposite to it, the Mueller Glacier descends
from the south-western slopes of the Moorhouse Range, while its glacial cave lies two
thousand eight hundred and fifty-one feet above the sea-level. These two glaciers are
the most accessible to the tourist from the Hermitage, just above which the Mueller
assists to swell the Hooker River. Some time may be profitably spent in exploring
their ice-caves, visiting the ice-pinnacles forming a crystal wall some seven hundred feet
in height, gathering edelweiss, or hunting the curious little weka, a semi-nocturnal wood-

hen, which, if unable to fly, can at any rate run with the swiftness of a rat.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1173

A separate day, or rather several days, must be chosen for a trip to the great
Tasman Valley and Glacier, which lie on the other side of Mount Cook from the
Hooker and Mueller. It is the most important of all this family of glaciers, its length
being about eighteen miles, whilst even at its terminal face its breadth is one mile and
three-quarters. Streams issue from both sides of it. The outlet of the Tasman River
does not always appear to be in the same place, for sometimes it seems to emerge
from the eastern side, and at other times from near the centre of the Glacier, which, by
the way, is the lowest in the colony, as its extremity is only two thousand seven
hundred and seventy-two feet above the level of the sea. The terminal face is easily

accessible even to horsemen when they have reached the river-bed above the delta

A GLIMPSE ON THE FRANCIS JOSEPH GLACIER.

swamps, which, for about six miles above its entrance into the Lake, fill its entire valley.
But progress is exceedingly slow and laborious from the terminal face onward. It took
Von Lendenfeldt, in 1883, six days to get from the terminal face to the foot of the
Ball Glacier, eight miles above it. For a distance of three miles upward the Glacier is
entirely covered with an enormous deposit of adéérzs, so that the ice is only now and
then visible in transverse and longitudinal crevasses, and in large holes from one
hundred to one hundred and fifty feet deep. Von Haast says that “it was with great
difficulty, when travelling up to it, that I found my way through the old lateral
moraines, lying on the eastern side above the drift formation; the passage being barred
by enormous masses of huge blocks, over which it was difficult even to lead a_ horse.
For several miles upwards the Great Tasman Glacier is entirely covered by moraines of
great depth . . . . The main body of the Tasman River finds its exit on the

eastern side of the Glacier, about two hundred yards above its terminal face, from a

1174 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

number of caves and fissures joining the large outlet from the Murchison Glacier, which
had already washed its eastern side for more than two miles. The River meanders
through its valley, here two and a half miles broad, in at least twenty channels; it has
a great body of water, but in fine weather is easily fordable on horseback by anyone
having knowledge sufficient to select the fords. To its junction with the Hochstetter
Glacier, descending in a deep valley between Mount Cook and Mount Haidinger, this
Glacier (the Great Tasman) has only lateral moraines, but after the junction a large
medial moraine is formed which very soon covers the whole Glacier; only here and
there large hollows filled by pools of water of a deep blue colour and often of large
extent, being two hundred to two hundred and fifty feet deep, betray in their perpen-
dicular walls the existence of ice.” The slowness of the glacier motion is evidenced
by the fact that the sun is able to melt its flanks and to maintain a clear space from
ten to thirty chains broad on either side of the valley, while dense vegetation covers
its southern part. , \

The great ice-fall of the Hochstetter Glacier pours down from the hollow or basin
between Mount Tasman and Mount Cook, and presents a spectacle of surpassing
grandeur, forming in its descent “a splendid cascade of ice four thousand feet high.”
At its juncture with the Tasman Glacier there is a hole about five hundred feet deep.
The Hochstetter Dome stands at the northern end of the MHochstetter Glacier, and
dominates all the peaks of the Malte Brun Range. It is especially remarkable for the
length, breadth and depth of the crevasses on its southern slope. Von Lendenfeldt, who
made the ascent, along with his wife and three porters, from the eastern side, on the
25th of March, 1883, says:—‘ After travelling for some distance we reached the foot of
the steep ice-slope which descends from the ridge of Mount de la Béche at 9.30, and
remained there half-an-hour before continuing our ascent. The farther we proceeded up
the Glacier the more the crevasses vanished, and the latter part was a flat glacier for miles

as smooth as an asphalt pavement, with an incline of only three degrees, although the

line of perpetual snow lies much higher than this place, which is only about five thou- —
sand feet above the level of the sea. The eastern wall of Mount de la Béche is one
of the most remarkable sights around the Tasman Glacier, It is covered with a coating
of ice several hundred feet thick, splintered up into large blocks of a quadrilateral shape.
These blocks are formed by immense quantities of frozen snow, which has not yet been
transformed into crystallized ice. The ice is not blue, as it is in the ice-fall of the
Hochstetter Glacier, but quite white throughout. This furrowed coating of snow reaches
up to the range of Mount de la Béche, which is the highest point of the mass of
elevation that divides the Tasman Glacier from the Rudolph Glacier. 1 have calculated
the height of Mount de la Béche at ten thousand one hundred and seventy-nine feet,
so that it is the third mountain in. height in the Southern Alps; the highest mountain
being Mount Cook, the height of which is twelve thousand three hundred and forty-
nine feet, and the next Mount Tasman, ten thousand six hundred and forty-eight feet.
All the other mountains which form the enclosure of the basin of the Tasman Glacier
are about ten thousand feet high. Making our way up the undulating ice-slopes winding
about between the crevasses, we at length got over most of them, and reached the
saddle between the Hochstetter Dome and Mount Elie de Beaumont at 12.30 p.m.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1175

From this saddle we could see the flat land on the west coast, and here we had the
first view of the western ocean. The westerly lower peak of the Hochstetter. Dome is
round, the easterly one is pointed. We made for the latter. There was a large crevasse
before us, which was soon reached; we had not only to

find a place where it was bridged over by the déris of

an avalanche and get over it, but we also had to cut-steps
up the other slope—a steep wall of ice. Although the
height was one hundred and ten feet, this took an hour.”

A bergschrund proved a formidable obstacle to farther
progress, and. the party was obliged to go round the highest
peak over the Main Range on the northern side. After this

the narrator continues: ‘I was able to scramble up the

ice-wall, and we were over the
bergsthrund at 4.30 p.m. We
got up to the main ridge again,
cutting steps along the upper
margin in very steep ice, and
then walked along the ridge
towards the summit. Another
crevasse, which runs_ through
the summit from north to south,
forced .us to descend the steep
northern side once more. We
rounded this last difficulty and
cut steps up to the top. The
incline of this last bit was so
great that it was necessary not
only to cut large steps to stand
in, but also to cut little holes
for our hands. Slow was the
work, and I had to exert all
the energy that was left in my

brain to press on. At last,

A GALACIAL CAVE.

when lifting the ice-axe for a
blow, I saw the sun shining on its glittering blade; the sun shone over the top. Two
steps more and I was on the top, and pulled the others after me with the rope; this
was at 5.50 p.m. The sky was cloudless, and not a breath of wind disturbed the ab-
solute stillness which surrounded us. New Zealand lay at our feet. We surveyed the
land from sea to sea—a glorious panorama; the Southern Alps extended from south to
north, glittering in all the colours of the rainbow in the parting sun. . . . The wide
expanse of the western ocean, changing in colour rapidly as the sun neared the horizon,
lay at our feet to the westward; the clear straight horizon line apparently towering to
heaven. We could discern the coast-line to the south of Hokitika and the belt of flat

land which fringes the western slope of the Southern Alps. We could dimly recognize

1176 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

parts of the great eastern plain, nearly all Canterbury and Westland being visible. We
could trace the great mountain chain from Nelson to Otago, and survey the land from
sea to sea. The grandeur of the scenery around aroused in us an idea of the sublime;
we felt ourselves nearer to the Absolute, and felt proud and happy with the thought
that all the grand glaciers and rocks around were conquered by our energy and _ skill.”

From the Hermitage one may cross the Mueller Glacier to the foot of Mount
Sefton. It is a walk of only twenty minutes to the Glacier, and on the way across
the frozen mass, the spot is passed where the Mueller River, after having travelled for
miles under great fields of ice, bursts forth into the open light of day and speeds on
its impetuous course to join the Tasman. The ice-caves must not be overlooked.
Beneath one’s feet is heard the subterranean torrent as it hurries with unceasing roar to
its place of emergence, while overhead and around there is diffused an intense blue
colour, caused by the sunlight penetrating the walls and roof of ice. These ice-caves
and crevasses are objects of very great interest to Visitors. Having at last scrambled
over the glacier with its moraine dédrzs, the adventurous tourist arrives at the foot of
the striking Moorhouse Range crowned by the bold summit of Mount Sefton, ‘which
with its huge snow-fields and numerous tributary glaciers descending into the valley forms
one of the most striking vistas in the Southern Alps.” Dense masses of cloud encom-
pass and swathe the central part of its colossal bulk, but far above them. swells and
towers aloft the stately summit ribbed and flecked with ice, forming pinnacles, cascades,
and other fantastic shapes which glow with all the colours of the rainbow. While one
stands in rapt delight, the eye may catch sight of a descending avalanche sending up
clouds of snow, and immediately afterwards the ear is startled by the thunderous volley
which proceeds from the falling mass. Another important feature of the scene is that
formed by the swift and turbulent Hooker River, which issues from the valley of the
same name in one large stream close under the spur of Mount Cook, and continues
its course across an ample valley until it meets the Tasman. Its sides are bordered,
and part of its channel is studded, with heavy boulders, against which the ice-cold waters
angrily dash and gurgle in swirling eddies.

Farther away to the north, and nearer to the west coast, lie two other splendid
glaciers—the Francis Joseph and the Agassiz—of which the former descends from the
great snow-fields of Mounts Tasman and De la Béche to the singularly low position of
only seven hundred and five feet above the sea-level. It was discovered and named by
Von Haast, who has placed on record the following description of the panorama as
viewed from Lake Okarita:—‘ The contrast between the ever-restless sea—the gigantic
waves coming and going without intermission—and the quiet water-shed of Lake Okarita,
with its numerous islands, surrounded by luxuriant forest, was most striking. Above the
forest plains rose low hillocks, also clothed with the same intensely green west-coast vege-
tation, over which the Southern Alps appeared—a mass of snow, ice, rock and forest.
As far as the eye could reach, mountain appeared behind mountain, all clad in their
white garments, with which they are covered during the whole year almost entirely,
becoming -apparently lower until they appeared only as small points over the sea horizon
—half cloud, half ghost, as a modern philosopher has said so well. But what struck
me more than anything was the low position reached by an enormous glacier descending

ey |

)

DESCRIPTIVE

SKETCH OF

NEW

LEALAND,

THE TASMAN.

THE VALLEY OF

1178 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

north of Mount Cook from the ranges, appearing between the wooded hillocks at the
foot of the Alps. The sun being near his setting, every moment new changes were
effected ; the shades grew longer and darker, and whilst already the lower portion lay
in a deep shade, the summits were still shining with an intense rosy hue. Turning
towards the sea, the same contrast of colours was exhibited, the sea. being deep blue,
whilst the sky was of such a deep crimson and orange colour that if we could see it
faithfully rendered by
a an artist we should con-
sider it highly exagger-
‘ated. But the beauty
of the magnificent scene
did not fade away even
after the large orb of
the sun had disappeared,
because as night ad-
vanced the full moon
threw her soft silver
light over the whole-
picture, and lake and
sea, forest and snowy
giants still were visible,
and my heart swelled
with such a pure delight
as only the contempla-
tion of Nature can offer
to her admirers.”

Continuing his jour-

ney along the coast to
the Waiau River, Dr.

Haast says: “The view from the mouth of the Waiau River is most magnificent, as the

IN THE PUBLIC GARDENS OF OAMARU.

valley, being straight and nearly two miles broad, allows us to gaze at the Southern Alps
from foot to summit, having in the foreground the enormous ice masses of the Francis
Joseph Glacier appearing between a rich forest vegetation.” Following the course of the
Waiau, the party at last reached the Agassiz Glacier, and “turning a rocky point we
had at once the white unsullied face of the ice before us, broken up in a thousand
turrets, needles and other fantastic forms, the terminal face of the Glacier being still
hidden by a grove of pines, vatas, beeches, -and arborescent ferns in the foreground,

which gave to the whole picture a still stranger appearance.”

Oraco.

Regaining Timaru by the same route followed in leaving it, the railway soon carries
the tourist to the southern confines of the province of Canterbury. Crossing the
spacious bridge, which spans the impetuous Waitaki where it approaches the ocean after a

rapid course from the base of Mount Cook, the train enters the splendid province of

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1179

Otago, so named from a corruption of the Maori word “ Otakou,” signifying red earth,
and originally applied merely to the still existing native settlement on the heights above
Port Chalmers. Gradually the level prairie becomes more undulating, and shortly after
three o'clock the traveller finds himself in the outskirts of Oamaru. Looking seaward,
the port is seen to be a fac-simile of that at Timaru. Originally a dangerous open
roadstead, skill and enterprise have combined to convert it into a safe and commodious
harbour by the construction of a concrete breakwater, one thousand eight hundred and _ fifty
feet long, thirty-six feet wide, and thirty-two feet high, and of a rubble mole stretching
out for one thousand seven hundred and twenty feet in the direction of the breakwater,

the entrance between them being about four hundred feet wide, and the space enclosed

THAMES STREET, OAMARU.

having an area of about sixty acres, Vessels with a draught of twenty-four feet can be
conveniently berthed alongside the commodious wharves, upon which the trucks from
the railway can be run down to the very side of the shipping.

The town is very well built, of an almost perfectly white stone, from the prevalent
use of which as a local building material it has received the very appropriate title of
“The White City.” It is the handsomest town of its size in the colony. The stone,
of which extensive quarries exist in the immediate neighbourhood, contains over ninety
per cent. of carbonate of lime, and is said to be exactly similar to the Maltese lime-
stone of which the town of Valetta is built. Oamaru is the outlet of the most extensive
and prolific grain-producing district of New Zealand, and the massive piles of architecture
grouped about the business portion of the town, as well as the presence of numerous
local industries, indicate the energy and progressive character of the population. Thames

Street is a noble thoroughfare, possessing some stately buildings; among those that

1180 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

readily catch the eye being the branch offices of the Banks of New South Wales and
New Zealand. The noticeable three-storey block consisting of the Queen’s Hotel and

shops forms about the finest pile of masonry in the place. From Thames Street one

PORT CHALMERS,

proceeds by the intersecting thoroughfare of Severn Street to the Botanical Gardens,
amid which a charming fresh-water creek winds a very serpentine course. The Esplanade
is a spacious promenade facing the harbour, and there is a capital cricket ground near
the North Town Belt. Oamaru is the terminus of two branch railway lines, of which
one extends up the valley of the Waiareka twenty-four miles, and ‘the other up the
valley of the Waitaki to Hakateramea, about fifty miles. The finest ecclesiastical building

is St. Columba’s Presbyterian Church; and the Waitaki High School is the chief scholastic

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1181

institution. The Press is worthily represented, and the leading industries are suggested by
the woollen factory, two large meat-freezing works and abattoirs, and numerous grain stores.

Oamaru is seventy-eight miles north of Dunedin, and midway between the two
places lies the town of Palmerston, in a picturesque valley surrounded by low and
undulating hills. It is the point of departure by coach for the Dunstan gold-reefing
district, while coal-mining operations are carried on at Shag Point, only six miles distant.
The remaining forty miles of the trip to Dunedin lie through highly diversified country,
with the greatly indented contour of the coast-line on one side, and pleasing alternations
of hill and vale on the other. After leaving Blueskin, the railway line skirts the farthest
verge of bold and precipitous cliffs; then plunges through the Deborah Bay Tunnel and
out again into the brilliant sunshine; until, passing the Maori “ %azk,” at which reside
the chief Taiaroa and his people, the tourist finds himself gazing down from an eminence
upon the substantial little town of Port Chalmers, lying secluded within the bight of
Otago Harbour. This important haven is an estuary, or arm of the sea, fifteen miles
deep. The entrance is between Taiaroa Head, a bold dome-shaped headland, two
hundred and forty-four feet high and crowned by a battery of guns, and Hayward
Point, a precipitous bluff at the end of the Peninsula which projects from the main-land
below Dunedin. Between these two heads, a bar of hard white sandstone extends about
a mile in anorth-westerly direction. It is the chief drawback to the Port.

The channel from the Heads up to the wharves, seven miles distant, is compara-
tively deep, but narrow. From Port Chalmers the estuary penetrates farther inland to
Dunedin, a distance of eight miles. Port Chalmers is small but decidedly solid, most of
its buildings being constructed of a bluish stone quarried in the neighbourhood. The
whariage accommodation is ample, and all the conveniences of a first-class harbour are
provided. The Graving Dock, which was opened as long ago as 1872, measures three
hundred and twenty-eight feet long by forty-one feet wide, while the depth of water
ranges from seventeen feet six inches to twenty-one feet six inches. There is also a
floating-dock- one hundred and seventy feet long by forty-two broad. Since January,
1882, the largest steam-dredge in the world has been busily engaged in deepening the
entrance to the Port and the channel of the Upper Harbour to Dunedin, which has
now been completely buoyed. Amongst the public institutions may be mentioned the
Sailors’ Rest, the Mechanics’ Institute and the Foresters’ Hall, and the chief local indus-
tries that strike the eye are the quarries, the gas-works and a cordial factory.

Tue City or DuNEDIN.

The train which the visitor enters at the Port crosses one of the principal streets,
plunges into a short tunnel, and thence pursues a serpentine course along the margin
of the channel to Dunedin. On the right are sloping hills more or less wooded, and
dotted with growing settlements, and away across the water-way on the other side is
the undulating contour of the Peninsula, now almost wholly denuded of timber. Passing
the suburb of Ravensbourne and turning the corner of a cliff, the channel opens out
and deflects to the south, and the city of Dunedin, the metropolis of the South Island,
lies stretched out before the eye. Along the entire length of the fore-shore, and for

some distance inland, are long lines of noble thoroughfares pursuing an even course

1182 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

over land that has been won from the sea, and at their back steep heights over which
the city climbs in irregular fashion and hides its confines on their farther sides. Away
to the left is the narrow tongue of flat land

? that connects the Peninsula with the site of

ay" the city and the gleaming waters of the Pacific,
chanting a low monotone as they roll lazily
into the broad strand of the ocean beach
with its low sand-hills. To the right the
horizon is bounded by the elevated land that

ean
Hitt Ni

sweeps away in the direction

of Port Chalmers. Dunedin
is a very attractive and pre-
tentious city, lacking only a

harbour such as that of Auck-

SCENES IN AND AROUND DUNEDIN.

land or Wellington to give
it pre-eminent rank. From the bridge over the line at the fine Railway Station one may
gain a moderately good view of the business heart of the place, throbbing with the deep
pulsations of active commercial life. Rising from a slightly elevated site to the left stands

the First Presbyterian Church, a stately and well-proportioned edifice built of the white

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1183

Oamaru stone, and proclaiming to the stranger the devotion of the pioneers of settlement
to the “Auld Kirk.” Turning to the harbour, the eyes rove over Rattray Street Wharf and
its companion piers to the evidences of continuing enterprise in the reclamation of land
from the sea, and of
plodding energy in
the deepening of the
channel for the im-
provement of mari-
time facilities. Up
to the end of June,
1886, no less a sum
than five hundred
and ninety-seven
thousand pounds had
been expended on
harbour improve-
ments, and_ vessels
with a draught of
THE HIGH SCHOOL, DUNEDIN. sixteen feet may now

be brought right up

to the wharves, which, as Dunedin is the head-quarters of the powerful Union Steamship
Company, are always flanked by one or more vessels of the familiar red-funneled fleet.
The Gaelic name of Edinburgh has not been inaptly bestowed upon this very pre-
possessing New Zealand city. In the first place it resembles its Old World prototype
in its hilly situation. But a stronger resemblance still to the modern Athens is the
high regard in which learning and culture are held. Splendid provision has been made
for higher education, while the City School Committee controls seven State primary
schools with an aggregate average
attendance of three thousand
eight hundred and_ sixty-three.
The chief seat of secondary educa-
tion is the handsome _ building
known as the Boys’ High School,
which was completed in February,
1885. It has a curiously castel-
lated appearance, a square and
massive tower rising from the
centre of the facade to a height
of sixty-eight feet, and its corners

being finished off with steeples.

It is one of the finest buildings

THE INTERIOR OF THE MUSEUM, DUNEDIN,

in the city, and no other secondary
school or college in the colony can boast such palatial or commodious quarters.

Another “lion” of the place is the Museum—a plain three-storey building at the

1184 AUSTRALASIA -.ILLUSTRA TED.

northern end of Great King Street, and not far from the Botanical Gardens. It consists
of a hall, ninety feet long by forty-five feet broad, with two galleries and an extensive
basement, and it is enriched with upwards of six thousand specimens of natural history,
of which the most striking is the perfect skeleton of a gigantic whale depending from
the cross-beams between the upper and lower galleries. Behind the hall is situated the

library, containing more than one thousand nine hundred works

on natural history. The Museum is connected with the University, |

which stands not far off, on a reserve of eight acres, near the
Water of Leith, whose shallow pebbly bottom occupies the near

foreground of our sketch.

It is a striking-looking building, very

solidly built, and fitted up inter-
nally on the most approved style.
Its library contains about four
thousand volumes. The Hospital,
with its grounds, occupies an entire
block five acres in area, Another
square block constitutes the North —
Dunedin Recreation Ground, the
sides planted with trees, and the
central space open. From ‘this
point, it is but a short walk along
Great King Street to the Botanical
and Acclimatization Gardens, at
the entrance to which the road-
way sweeps off to the charming
little suburb of the North-east
THE DUNEDIN UNIVERSITY. Valley. From the Gardens proper

a little wooden bridge spans a

small stream or creek, and affords the traveller access to the Domain, which appears to
consist largely of the primeval: bush. In the road outside, the trams are filling up with
loads of passengers for the city and its southern suburbs, but for the nonce the visitor
may elect to take a solitary walk up the steep little acclivity to the Northern Cemetery,
where many of the early settlers, ‘after life’s fitful fever,” are lying at rest in their narrow
homes. Some of the monuments are handsome in design, and most of the grave enclo-
sures bear witness to loving and watchful tending. Between the Cemetery and the small
basin of Pelichet Bay lies the oval enclosure known as the North Cricket Ground, while,
bounding the horizon inland, stand the heights of Maori Hill, Roslyn and Mornington,
each of them giving its name to a separate borough. More remote from view, and in
close proximity to the ocean beach, at the southern end of the city, extend the suburban
boroughs of St. Kilda, South Dunedin and Caversham. Right behind, and on the slopes
of the hills which one passes in approaching Dunedin, is situated the borough of West
Harbour, or, as it is more familiarly and prettily termed, Ravensbourne. So that this
large centre of population practically consists of a congeries of eleven closely related

. boroughs, which have agreed to divide and govern.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1185

Leaving the vantage point at the Cemetery, and retracing one's steps to the
Museum in Great King Street, the intersecting thoroughfare of Albany Street directly
carries one by the tram-route into George Street, a rather narrow but very busy artery,
which at the open space
known as the Octagon takes
the name of Prince's Street,
and thence continues its per-
| fectly straight course as far

as the boundary of Caver-

sham. These two streets de-
scribe a total length of two
and a half miles through the
city, and both commercially
and architecturally they are
the leading thoroughfares of
the place. Passing into
George Street from Albany
Street, the eye falls, at the

next corner, upon a fine church

tt eee

THE KNOX PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.

with a lofty and symmetrical tower, resembling in its general outline and style First
Church, but built of stone of a more sombre hue. It is the Knox Presbyterian Church,
where the venerable and stalwart Dr. Stuart has filled the pulpit for many years past.
This province of Otago, has a history as interesting as that of the sister province
of Canterbury. Its colonization was projected and carried out under the auspices of a
Scottish Presbyterian Association, formed at Glasgow, in May, 1845, of lay members of
the Free Church of Scotland, from the General Assembly of which Church the scheme

1186 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

met with express approval. The necessary blocks of land were purchased from the New
Zealand Company, and with a view to the establishment and permanent endowment of
religious and educational institutions of a Presbyterian type, it was made a fundamental
article of the contract that the price of the land to the Association should be at the
rate of two pounds per acre, but that one-eighth

of the price so obtained should be made over to dat :

trustees for religious and educational uses in con-
nection with the Free Church of Scotland. When,
in 1850, the New Zealand Company surrendered its
rights to the Crown, the latter continued to observe

the original compact, and, as a consequence, the

Kirk waxed wealthy aad powerful, and educational

THE CITY OF DUNEDIN.

institutions sprang up and developed vigorously. This ecclesiastical acquisition of a share of
the unearned increment explains also the otherwise strange anomaly of two distinct Presby-
terian Churches existing in New Zealand, separated only by territorial limits, as their policy
is precisely the same: viz., the Presbyterian Church of Otago and Southland—comprehend-
ing merely those two districts; and the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, which com-
prises the rest of the colony from South Canterbury northward. From time to time the
latter Church has made overtures for union, but its twin sister, while willing to be linked
in the bonds of fellowship, has amusingly displayed the national canniness in questions of

finance by declining any closer and more real union which would involve a division of

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1187

the loaves and: fishes. Hence, one Church is strongly and richly endowed while numeri-
cally weaker than its poorer and more catholic sister. Presbyterianism, too, still remains
the dominant religion of Otago and Southland, although the disparity in number between

_its adherents and those of other forms of religious belief is lessening year by year.

THE PRESBYTERIAN FIRST CHURCH.

The pioneer colonists arrived at Port Chalmers in March and April, 1848, under.
the charge of Captain William Cargill—to whose memory a monument has -been raised
in Prince’s Street—and the Rev. Thomas Burns, a nephew of the immortal bard. We
are told, and can readily believe, that ‘“‘the prospects were not very cheering to those
harbingers of the present community, and doubtless the hearts of many of these failed
them, while sailing up the harbour, on seeing on both sides steep hills densely wooded
to their summits, without a patch of open land except the barren’ sands at the Maori
settlement. The discomfort of being conveyed in open boats, along with their household
effects, from Port Chalmers, and landed on the shores of the town of Dunedin, its
surface an entanglement of scrub and flax, without a roof to cover or protect, or a
known face to welcome them, and the dread uncertainty as to how or where provisions
could be obtained until they could grow their own—the time of their arrival being near
the beginning of winter—must all have tended to damp their enthusiasm.” In short, it
was. an experience that has been common to dozens of special settlement parties in New
Zealand, both before that time and since. By and by Dunedin and Otago received a
powerful stimulus from the discovery of rich deposits of gold in the Tuapeka District
in 1861. The fame of Gabriel’s Gully spread like wild-fire over the length and breadth
of Australia, population streamed in by hundreds and thousands, and Dunedin, emulating

on a moderate scale the example of Melbourne, grew rapidly in size and opulence, until

1188 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

thirteen years ago it was the largest town in the colony. Within the last decade, however,
Auckland has recovered her pre-eminence, and bids fair to retain it. If not now, there-
fore, the most populous city of New Zealand, Dunedin, at any rate, yields to none
other in architectural effect. Indeed, it possesses within a circumscribed space a greater
number of imposing buildings than any
other town in the colony. A few have
already been indicated, and, as the visitor
advances from Knox Church along George
Street to the immediate centre of business
activity, others will come into view. George
Street ends by expanding into the Octa-
gon, an open reserve whose shape is
suggested by its name, and consisting of
a number of grass-plots dotted with trees,
intersected by narrow asphalted walks, and
ornamented with a statue of Burns, which
represents the poet seated in an easy pos-
ture and with head uplifted as though
wrapt in meditation.

Within the octagonal limits of Moray
Place is quite a collection of fine struc-
tures, among which the chief place must

be assigned to the Town Hall, a hand-

some - pile consisting of a basement and
THE ROBERT BURNS STATUE, DUNEDIN. two. upper storeys, with cupolas at the
corners, and, springing from the centre, a

tower of four stages, the first faced. with the dial-plates of the town clock, the
second being the bell-tower, the third bearing a small railed enclosure offering a
capital prospect, and the last stage finishing off with a flag-staff. Within the bounds
of Moray Place stand also the Young Men’s Christian Association’s new building,
St. Paul’s Anglican Church fronting Stuart Street, and, the Jewish Synagogue, as well
as First Church. At the corner of Dowling Street is the Garrison Hall and the
Lyceum. On the seaward side, the Bank of New Zealand occupies one of the
corners of Princes and Rattray Streets, with an attractive edifice built of Oamaru
and Port Chalmers stone, and at the opposite corner stands the Colonial Bank. Midway
between the two corners of these streets is reared the Cargill Monument, furnished with
drinking fountains. The Colonial Bank is flanked on one side by the Post Office, and
on the other, or nearer, side by the Telegraph Station. This is the very heart of the
city. It is also the dividing point between the old and the new portions of Prince’s
Street. The part already described is narrow, with extremely contracted footpaths, and
with a gradual slope. The remainder of its length southward is spacious in width, as
becomes the leading avenue of business in a metropolis, and level withal. At this
point also it is ornamented with two of the handsomest hotels in the colony—the Grand

Hotel, a four-storey pile just opposite the Monument, and Wain’s, another four-storey

SOUND.

MILFORD

? ——.,

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1189

structure some little distance beyond. The thoroughfare striking up the hill round the

pie peta aie

corner of the Grand Hotel is High Street, one and a half miles in length, along which a

branch tram-line, worked by cable, extends to the borough of Mornington. Nearer the
harbour stand the fine imposing offices of
The Otago Daily Times and The Evening Star
newspapers, the Union Steam-ship Company
and the Otago Harbour Board. The Queen's
Theatre is in Prince’s Street, and another
and larger one, the Princess’s, is situated a
short distance up High Street. At the southern

end of Prince’s Street lies the Southern Recrea-

CTT

~—

THE DUNEDIN TOWN HALL.

tion Ground, at the seaward side of the thoroughfare, with. the Caledonian Ground
at its back, and, on the opposite side of the street, the Southern Cemetery, the
largest necropolis of the place.

Holding on his way through the borough of South Dunedin, towards the ocean
beach, the visitor soon arrives at the borough of St. Kilda, and at length reaches the
Forbury Race-course, where the Dunedin Jockey Club carries out its periodical meetings,
and where the annual contest for the ‘Dunedin Cup” takes place amid accessories that
distantly remind one of the ‘‘ Melbourne Cup.” MHorse-racing is a passion ‘with New
Zealanders, and nowhere else in the colony does it so overmasteringly dominate all other
sports as in the capital of Otago. Over the sand-hills which skirt the entrance, one may
pass by a few steps to the magnificent ocean beach, through which it is fondly hoped
a canal may some day be cut from the Pacific straight through to the harbour of
Dunedin. The two prominent headlands which bound either side of the beach are each
crowned by a battery of guns to repel any attempt at a hostile landing from the offing.
Seaward there is nothing to break the level horizon of the ocean, while as a_ holiday
resort the beach is not to be excelled. It is a heritage for which the people of the
city may justly feel thankful. The railway extends as far as Anderson’s Bay, thé
nearest point of the Peninsula, and thence one may prolong a pleasant walk along the
fore-shore opposite Dunedin to Portobello, returning over the crest of the Peninsula

Hills, from which some enchanting bits of scenery meet the eye. From the Southern

1190 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Cemetery the road dips to Caversham, about the most populous of the suburban
boroughs, whence it is not far to Green Island and its collieries.

Retracing his steps to the city, a trip up the cable tram-way will take the traveller
to the heights of Roslyn. As he passes York Place, a reserve of green sward containing
a white obelisk will arrest his attention, and an inquiry will elicit the information that
it was the primitive cemetery of the place, and that the stone records the names of
the very eatly pioneers whose. remains were there laid away to rest. Roslyn is a breezy
and picturesque little suburb, nicely planted with trees, adorned with charming villa
residences, and offering to the visitor a comprehensive panorama of the entire district.
Beyond it the land slopes downward to the Kaikorai Valley, the seat of several
important manufactories, amongst them being the branch mills of the Mosgiel Woollen
Company. Two miles farther on stands Flag-staff Hill, from which a splendid prospect
is to be obtained. Returning from the excursion, the traveller penetrates to the city
through the Town Belt, a broad zone of timber, which extends along the slopes of the
hills above Dunedin, completely engirdling it inland, and forming a well-defined belt of
division from the suburban boroughs upon the crest of the hills.

It was from a point of the Belt between Roslyn and Maori Hill that a vigorous
writer drew the following graphic sketch of Dunedin and its environs:—‘ Yonder rolled
old ocean, bluer than the sky it reflected, white-tipped here and there with feathery
crests of waves, petulantly foaming near the ‘obstinate rocky islet that lay in by the
beach, and was indifferent alike to storms and smiles; and yonder stood the fair high
hills of the Peninsula, tinted and beautified by the warm bright sunlight. Westward
lay the pretty villa-built townships of Melrose, Nevada and Roslyn, rendered picturesque
by the frequent patches of dark green foliage; and nearer, and all around, fair Dunedin
city itself, with its manifold slender spires and myriad bright-looking buildings—Knox
Church here and First Church over yonder, suggestive, in their graceful delicate archi-
tecture, of fairy work rather than the labour of man. Right below beamed Pelichet
Bay, smooth and azure, with tiny white-sailed craft skimming its surface like birds.
North-east was Manuka Hill, clothed in dense luxuriance of bush, and a little beyond, |
lo! God’s acre, with its narrow green mounds and pale stone record. Farther east the
picturesque diminutive township of Opoho. Below that, pretty North-east Valley.
Nearer ran the water of Leith musically over its pebbly bed much hidden by bridges
and tall buildings, till it won a way down by the Botanical Gardens. Quite close stood
forest-clad Pine Hill, and from there the eye glanced instinctively over to Flag-staff, a
group of mountains about whose bleak and unresponsive peaks amorous white clouds
continually creep, and cling, and nestle in misty adoration.” |

The people of Dunedin value their extensive recreation reserves very highly, and
well they may, for the preservation of the Town Belt secures to the future inhabitants
breathing spaces within easy reach of every part of the city. The charming admixture |
of warehouse, dwelling and garden is what specially excites the admiration of Old
World visitors to New Zealand cities. The gardens adorned with trees richly evergreen,
surrounding the detached cottages that make up so large a part of these colonial centres,
add more to the urban beauty of which the land may boast than any pretensions to
architectural excellence, and give the cities a distinctive character which even to the

DESCRIPTIVE

SKE TCH

NEW

ZEALAND,

11gI

DUNEDIN,

MONUMENT,

CARGILL

THE

1192 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Australian visitor affords a pleasant change from the depressing monotony of the miles
of brick and mortar that line the streets in Sydney and in Melbourne.

On the whole, the cities of New Zealand are very well endowed with public
reserves, a fact that testifies to the foresight of the founders. But the public guardians
of these reserves have not always displayed: equal foresight. In Dunedin, a committee
had to take action in the Supreme Court to compel the removal from the Town Belt,
and other reserves, of structures which, with the consent of the governing body, had
been illegally erected upon them to the exclusion of the public, for whose recreation the
reserves had been set apart. One difficulty that arose in connection with the management
of New Zealand public domains was the raising of funds to maintain cricket grounds, and
to grant the use of public recreation reserves for matches at which a charge could be
made, This matter was finally settled by Parliament passing an Act empowering the
governing body to authorize a charge on not more than ten days in any one year—due
notice being given by advertisement; and certain ‘public holidays,, upon which it is
presumed the reserves may be in special request for purposes of general recreation, are
absolutely exempted from choice as days upon which a charge may be made. This Act
has worked very well. Reyenue to maintain cricket grounds is also sometimes obtained
by allotting wickets at a fixed charge to the various clubs on Saturday afternoons. By
these means suitable provision has been made for cultivating the English national sport
without detriment to the public interests, although there are also well-kept practice
grounds in the possession of private clubs.

Descending the rest of the hill, by way of Rattray Street, we soon reach the site
of St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, when once more the Town Hall comes into
immediate view, and the sight of it reminds us that the elective Corporation to which
the burgesses entrust the management of the civic affairs, undertakes a wide range of
duties. In addition to fulfilling the regular and normal functions of municipal govern-
ment, the Dunedin City Council supplies both gas and water to the citizens, looks
after the public baths, and maintains a paid fire-brigade; while the precautions against
the ravages of fire are rendered still more effectual by the existence of alarm-bells,
besides sixteen electric fire-signal boxes in various parts of the city. There are two
separate sources of water-supply, so that the probable needs of the future have been
studied and provided for in good time. The older supply is drawn from the head
sources of the Water of Leith. :

From the northern end of Great King Street, the road follows the windings of the
shallow Leith to Woodhaugh, notable for its mill and paper-works. Turning off at this
point up a small lateral valley, the visitor soon makes the Reservoirs, forming a series of
placid-looking lakes, confined within angular limits, faced with powerful masonry. In
order to penetrate to the Water-fall, one must return to the main road and plod along
up the valley for two miles farther, when Nicol’s Creek opens out to the left. A slip-
pery scramble along its fern-lined banks brings the tourist at last into the presence of
a glorious little cascade. The newer and larger reservoir is situated on the banks of —
the Silver-stream, this second water-works scheme having been successfully completed in
1882. Dunedin also. possesses its clubs, its Benevolent Institution, its Industrial School, a

strong volunteer force—embracing artillery, naval, cavalry, engineer and rifle corps—

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1193

its Telephone Exchange, several foot-ball and cricket clubs, lawn tennis, curling and bowling
clubs, its Choral Society, and similar institutions, The Lunatic Asylum is situated at Sea-
cliff, eighteen miles out of Dunedin, and is said to be the finest of the kind in
the colony. The magnitude and variety of the manufacturing industries of Dunedin
attest the energy and
enterprise of the citi-
zens. At one of the
engineering — establish-
ments, that of Messrs.
Kincaird, M‘Queen &
Co., several iron steam-
ships have been built,
one of two hundred
tons; and a_ monster
dredge, capable of rais-
ing hard clay from a
depth of thirty feet at
the rate of a hundred
tons an hour, was built
to the order of the
Otago Harbour Board.
Thirteen dredges have
been turned out from
this establishment.
The firm recently con-
structed a complete
plant for the manufac-
ture of Bessemer steel, —
which has been com-
menced by Messrs.

Smellie Brothers, at

Burnside. In another

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOSEPH’S,

of the foundries of
Dunedin (that of the Messrs. Burt), a speciality is made of manufactures of copper, brass
and lead; about one hundred and fifty men and boys are constantly employed at these
works. The making of lead pipes and chandeliers, electric bells, and various descriptions of
electro-plated goods, affords occupation for a large number of hands and an extensive plant.

To Otago is due the credit of establishing the first completely successful woollen
mill, the Mosgiel Factory, which was started in 1871, in consequence of a bonus of
one thousand five hundred pounds offered by the Provincial Government of that day.
iA complete plant was imported from Scotland by Mr. A. J. Burns, to whose indomitable
energy, the success of the enterprise is.due. Skilled workmen accompanied the machinery
to the colony. The Company have now a capital of fifty-six thousand pounds; they

have accumulated a reserve fund of nineteen thousand pounds, and written twenty-seven

11094 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

thousand pounds off their plant account, besides paying yearly dividends of from six to ten
per cent. They have spent eighty thousand pounds on plant and buildings, and employ
four hundred hands. This very successful factory, which has established a reputation for
its manufactures all over Australasia, has been the pioneer of many other woollen-mills.
In fact, all the chief centres of population, moved by a spirit of emulation, have followed
the example of Dunedin. In Otago, besides the Mosgiel factory, there is a woollen-
mill at Oamaru, and a worsted and woollen mill at Roslyn. The latter, which is owned
by Messrs. Ross and Glendenning, employs between four hundred and five hundred
hands, and uses up wool exceeding the produce of a hundred and twenty thousand
sheep. The manufacture of clothing has given rise to another mammoth factory in
Dunedin, Messrs. Hallenstein Brothers’ establishment, which has twenty-six branches in
all parts of the colony, being the largest of its kind in New Zealand. The business of
manufacturing chemists has been developed by the New Zealand Drug Company, whose
head-quarters are at Dunedin, The community has Mready laid the substantial founda-
tions of manufacturing prosperity, and the great smoke-stacks which may be seen rising
in various parts of the city are monster ‘signal-posts reared by industrial energy—which
even now excite in the mind of the beholder visions of a future Birmingham or Sheffield,
rivalling their Old World prototypes—arising on a site where forty years ago stood
the primeval forest. ;

The tourist who desires. to visit the famous lakes of the Otago District must take
the southern train from Dunedin, and journeying some six or seven miles out and crossing
the broad and fertile Taieri Plain, which abounds with the signs of agricultural operations
and of advancing settlement, he will note to the right low hills devoid of timber, with the
Taieri River meandering towards its outlet near the ocean beach; while, stretching far
away to the left, a rolling prairie, bounded on the horizon by ranges of hills, spreads
before his eye, and in the middle distance lie the townships of Mosgiel and Outram,
nine miles apart, and connected by a branch line of: railway. Mosgiel is noteworthy as
being the head-quarters of the Mosgiel Woollen Company, whose mills of brick and
cement are equipped with the most improved machinery, and lit up with the electric-
light. Sixteen miles farther on through this bountiful valley, an ample sheet of water,
marged in parts with sedges affording promise of game to the sportsman, breaks upon the
view, and Lake Waiholo is reached, and here the train stops in order that passengers
may obtain refreshments. This Lake is a favourite resort for sportsmen in the shooting
season. Ten miles more, and the train makes the cheerful and attractive little township
of Milton, with its potteries, lime-kilns and flour and oatmeal mills, as well as coal-
mines. It is said that the. first white-ware manufactured south of the Line was turned
out of these potteries, and its oatmeal is certainly to be met with in ‘every town of the
colony. Two miles beyond Milton; a branch line strikes off to the south-west, and
terminates at Lawrence, the centre of the gold-mining district of Tuapeka. Twelve miles
farther along the main line, and the traveller arrives at Stirling, whence a branch line
penetrates to the Kaitangata coal-mines. From Stirling the route passes by a massive
bridge across the Clutha, the largest river in the South Island, and draws up at the
township of Balclutha, A long stretch of forty-seven miles lies between this place and
Gore, a town in the district of Southland, formerly a separate province. Thence the

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1195

PLAIN.

TAIERI

THE

HARVESTING ON

1196 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

journey is made by way of the Southland Plains, past the town of Mataura to Inver-
cargill, the capital of Southland, and distant one hundred and thirty-nine miles from Dunedin.

Invercargill is the most southerly town of all the Australias, and the manner in
which it has been laid out indicates that those who projected the settlement were
possessed with the idea that they were laying down the frame-work of a metropolitan
city. In fact, we are given to understand that Invercargill was intended to be the
capital of the colony, and had that intention been realized there is not the slightest
doubt that it would have been quite a model metropolis, so far as design and archi-
tectural skill could compass that end. It is laid out in splendid rectangular blocks, and

its magnificent streets are the widest in the colony. Instead of being cramped for room,

THE BLUFF.

the town has far more space than it can utilize for many years to come, and once
outside the immediate business centres one feels quite solitary in these ample arteries with |
their comparatively few buildings. The principal streets, Dee, Tay and Esk, are graced
with many handsome structures built of stone, and the planting of trees alongside the
footpaths adds greatly to the effect of some of the thoroughfares. The city is built
upon a plain, and is bounded on one side by the estuary of the New River, and on
the’ other three by public reserves and gardens, forming, as it were, a complete line of
circumvallation, But the town is rapidly extending beyond these limits, which, in course
of time, will doubtless be found thrust into the midst of the business quarters. To the
north lies the extensive reserve known as the Invercargill Public Park, of an area
sufficient for a population a dozen times larger than that settled in this district.
Part of the reserve is used as a _ race-course. Invercargill is lit with gas, possesses am
semi-artesian water-supply, boasts a tram-service, and, besides being connected by rail
with Dunedin, has branch lines radiating to Kingston, on Lake Wakatipu ; to Seward
Bush, Riverton, Orepuki and Nightcaps, and the shorter line to “The Bluff,” which

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1197

is its port, and the last point of departure for steamers bound to Melbourne. “The
Bluff” is situated at the mouth of the New River, seventeen miles south of Invercargill ;
it is a rather bleak little place, and does not give the visitor from over-sea a favourable

first impression of New Zealand.

THe Oraco Lakes.

From Invercargill the tourist may visit that very remarkable country to which is
applied the vague and general designation of “The Lake District,” and which comprises
a chain of twelve lakes extending from the neighbourhood of Preservation Inlet, in the
extreme south-west, to the head-waters of the River Rangitata, in the province of
Canterbury. They are divided into five groups, of which the northern, or Canterbury

; group, consisting of Tekapo, Pukaki and Ohau, has

already received descriptive attention. Pouteriteri,

Hakapoua and Hauroto are the principal of the two
southern groups, while Monawai, Manapouri and Te
Anau, which are drained by the Waiau River, form

the south-western group. There remains the central

DEE STREET, INVERCARGILL.

group, consisting of Wakatipu, Hawea and Wanaka, all drained by the Clutha River.
The traveller's attention may be advantageously confined to the south-western and central
groups, with more especial attention devoted to the latter. The first stage of the railway
journey from Invercargill to Kingston, on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, may be said to
end at “ The Elbow,” otherwise known as Lumsden, a township situated on the Oreti
River, fifty miles north-west of Invercargill. It is the custom with most tourists to go
right through to Kingston, but those who wish to make the acquaintance of Manapouri
and Te Anau must diverge at “The Elbow” from the beaten track.

Hiring horses at “The Elbow,” the distance between it and Takitimos may be

traversed the same day, provided that Invercargill has been left by the morning train.
“From the Takitimos Hotel it is only a short ride of about ten miles to the shores of
Manapouri, and five more up the valley of the Waiau to Te Anau. Manapouri covers
an area of some fifty square miles, and is so cut up into bays, gulfs and arms, that

it is said to be almost impossible to exactly determine its length and breadth. It is

1198 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

nearly surrounded by mountains, the only open space being half-a-mile on its eastern
side, where Surprise Cove marks the exit of the Waiau. From the eminence of View
Hill, at this point, a delightful prospect is to be obtained. ‘“ No more charming scene
could be imagined—the mountains sweep round in the shape of an amphitheatre, stepping
back from the water's edge in tier after tier of beautifully wooded terraces. On the
left,~the Hunter Mountains run up~ some six thousand feet; on the right, the white
towers of the Spire Peaks, seven thousand five hundred and eighty-seven feet, look down
over the snowy heads of the Cathedral Peaks and the lower summits of the Kepler
Ranges, while far away, between the west and north arms, Leaning Peak and Steep
Peak watch the Lake and guard the pass to the west coast sounds. These mountains
are covered with timber, and ridged all round above with snow, and below them in
sylvan beauty, Manapouri wanders in and out in the most promiscuous manner among
the jutting heads.” ,

Te Anau, a few miles farther on, is the largest lake in New Zealand, measuring
about thirty-eight miles in length, varying in breadth from one to six miles, and
covering an area of one hundred and thirty-two square miles. Excepting twenty-eight
miles of a shingly and scrubby flat on its eastern side, Te Anau is encompassed by
‘‘densely-wooded mountains, and the green sheen of the forest, crowned with the
gleaming snow above, makes up a picture which for extent and loveliness is unsurpassed.”
Making the best of our way back to “The Elbow,” we resume the train, and are soon
transported over the remaining thirty-seven miles to Kingston, lying at the southern end
of Lake Wakatipu. Here a smart little steamer awaits the arrival of passengers to
convey them right on to Queenstown, which, if we compare Lake Wakatipu to the
letter “S,” occupies the bend half-way between Kingston and the head of the Lake.
Wakatipu is fifty-two miles long, from one to three miles broad, and it covers an area
of about one hundred and fourteen miles. It lies one thousand and seventy feet above
sea-level, and its depth varies from one thousand one hundred and seventy to one thou-
sand two hundred and forty feet. The bottom of the Lake, therefore, is below sea-level.
The scenery between the two places is very striking. Towering ranges appear to hem
one in upon every side on leaving Kingston. To the left lie the foremost peaks of the
Eyre Mountains, and opposite Queenstown the Walter and Cecil Peaks thrust their lofty —
summits right through the clouds floating in the atmosphere. To the right extends the
impressive range of the Hector Mountains, starting with ‘The Devil's Stair-case” and
swelling up into the Remarkables, whose highest peak is Double Cone, seven thousand
six hundred and eighty-eight feet high.

Queenstown is a most picturesque little centre, bulwarked at its back and sides by
towering and sombre mountains, and smiled or frowned upon in front by the ample
waters of the Lake, just as the prevailing mood happens to be tranquil or stormy. The
place contains a town hall, a garrison hall, an atheneum, a free library, a Dominican
convent and school, a State school, churches, banks and other buildings. There is also
a public park, while the Esplanade affords a pleasant walk around the margin of the
bay. The visitor may likewise walk or ride te the suburb of Frankton, the Shotover
Gorge, the Hospital, and the Kawarau Falls, or drive to the mining settlement of
Arrowtown’ by way of the Shotover and Lake Hayes—a lovely sheet of water about a

DESCRIFTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1199

LAKE WAKATIPU.,

AND

QUEENSTOWN

1200 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

mile in each direction—returning thence by way of Miller's Flat. The best excursion from
Queenstown is unquestionably that to the summit of Ben Lomond, and if the tourist
be an expert Alpine climber, he will doubtless feel inclined to ascend its neighbour,
Mount Bowen, as well. <A_ bridle-track leads from the hotel to “‘ The Saddle,” from
which may be seen, to the right and left respectively, Mount Bowen and Ben Lomond.
The former is the easier of ascent, but the view from the other peak is far preferable.
A little beyond “The Saddle,” the mountaineer must tether his horse, and divest himself
of all superfluous clothing in order the more comfortably to clamber up the steep side
of the colossal giant. A moderately athletic person will gain the summit in about three-
quarters of an hour, and once there a most extensive panorama amply rewards his exer-
tions. ‘Turning his face to the east, his eye will catch Frankton and the long range
of the Hector Mountains. The forward peaks of the Range, with their jagged edges,
we know at a glance. They are the Remarkables, which seem to haunt us every-where.

At their base sweeps round the Kawarau River, which a little way down is joined by
the Shotover, then by the Arrow, and hurries on through the Carrick Ranges with its
mass of dirty waters to meet and contaminate the Clutha at Cromwell. On the left
bank of the River are spread out the wide plains of the Arrow. Lake Hayes glasses
itself in the midst, surrounded with green fields, and flanked on the far horizon» by the
. Crown Terraces rich with their ripening wheat and corn. Travelling northwards, the eye
rests on the southern peaks of the Harris Mountains and the long stretches of the —
Richardson Ranges. Nothing can be more magnificent than the view in this direction,
At the foot of Ben Lomond, westward from the Shotover Valley, there are multitudes
of low round hills covered with bracken, and gradually increasing in height as they
increase in distance. They lie in sloping ridges, ‘rounded by old glaciers into long dark
billowy swellings, like the backs of plunging dolphins.’ In the ravines there are dense
timber-forests, and here and there birch, pine and manuka climb their sides, like
scattered armies, in broad green battalions, and at last, in the far horizon, the high
summits crown themselves—peak after peak—in one long glory of eternal snow. Farther
westward, at the head of the Lake, lie the Forbes Mountains, and on its remoter side
the Humboldt and Thompson Mountains.” Just at the foot of Ben Lomond, like a
mirror set among the hills, nestles the little Moke Lake, with its copper-mine. c
Another very attractive exeursion is the twenty-mile drive, through the Shotover
Valley to Skipper’s, where a lovely water-fall may be seen, and where also one obtains
a very good idea of the progress and magnitude of gold-mining operations in this part
of the colony. The Rev. W. S. Green says :—‘ Wakatipu is amazingly beautiful ; the
only lake in Europe which can surpass it is Lucerne; but to see no more of Wakatipu_
than what can be seen by a trip to Queenstown and back is to see Lucerne and omit
the Bay of Uri.” From Queenstown the head of Lake Wakatipu may be reached by
two routes, of which the one that proceeds by land along the eastern shore will be
chosen only by those who are fond of ‘roughing it.” The other and shorter route is by
steamer. There are no less than seven peaks over eight thousand feet high, while the 2
snow-line of the district may be drawn at a little over seven thousand feet. The forest-
line reaches three thousand five hundred feet above sea-level. ‘ Rounding Pigeon Island,
the grandest scenery of Wakatipu opens full upon our view; a little behind us on our left,

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1201

the Greenstone
River, which flows
in and out through
a beautiful little
lakelet-—Rere Lake
—cuts its way by the
southern base of the
Ailsa and Humboldt

Mountains into the

Lake. Facing the
THE KAWERA VALLEY

head of the Lake
the scenery is varied and magnificent. On the right,

the Richardson Mountains—bare and desolate looking

—weary the eye. But on the left the contrast is

complete. The Humboldt Ranges gleam green in the

1202 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

sunlight. Immense forests of timber clothe their sides down to the very water's edge, and
climb away upwards until they reach the region of perpetual snow. Bald Peak and Mount
Bonpland, eight thousand one hundred and two feet, look down upon us from their
white thrones. Right in front, at the head of the Lake, the Forbes Mountains send
down Mount Alfred like a wedge between the Humboldt and Richardson Ranges ;
while far away behind, Cosmos Peak (eight thousand feet), and Mount Earnslaw (nine
thousand one hundred and sixty-five feet) and Mount Anstead, lift their white gleaming
heads into the azure heavens.”

Our immediate destination is Glenorchy, from which point there is a number of |
tempting excursions to be made, if one has but ‘time to spare—to Paradise Flat, v7
the Diamond Lakes; to Mounts Alfred and Judah; to Mount Earnslaw and Lennox
Falls; to Kinlock and up the Dart River to the Route Burn; to Lake Harris, Hollyford
Valley and Martin’s Bay; and to the Rere Lake. That to Mount Earnslaw and the
Lennox Falls should not be missed, whatever may defeat one’s intentions regarding the
others. There are two routes to the glaciers of Mount Earnslaw. One runs for eight
miles up the Rees Valley to the first spur of the Mountain. This was the route
followed by Mr. Green, when he unsuccessfully attempted the ascent in 1882, The other
involves a ride of twenty-five miles up the same Valley, whence the track for eight
miles farther skirts the base of the Richardson Mountains. Upwards of twelve miles
more, and “a wide open plateau is reached, bounded on the left and in front by high
forest-clad mountains, and crowned on the summit with everlasting snow. The one on
the left is Earnslaw; those away in the front are Mount Anstead and Mount Tyndal.”
A short ride beyond this point, and we are on the saddle of the Mountain. Writing
of his trip, Mr. Green says that after mounting to a height of two thousand feet, his
party “turned round a_ shoulder to the left and came into view of Earnslaw, its
summit- standing out clear against the starlit sky, its snows just faintly illumined by the
first rays of dawn. Deep down in the gorge before us its great glacier lost itself to.
view in the gloom of night, but the sound of the torrent was distinctly audible, its
roar now swelling, now dying away with the rise and fall of the gentle breeze. . . le
The trough-shaped ravine before us was more Swiss-like than any valley. we had seen
in New Zealand; the icy slopes of Earnslaw towered at its farther end; its sides were
clothed with fine forests of black and white birch, and the glacier torrent in its bottom
found an exit towards Diamond Lake through a deep cleft near to which we had com:
menced our ascent. . . As yet the sky to the northward and eastward was clear, ig
the view over the mountain peaks towards Mount Aspiring was very fine. Immedia
at our feet the ridge fell away in precipices to the Rees River, which all but mono-
polized the narrow bottom of the deep defile over two thousand feet below MB 5, the

only signs of human life being at one spot where some men had conducted a water-course
along the opposite hill-side, towards a gold-working in a quartz-reef, which was faintly
visible in the depths below.” .

It is only two miles from the base of Earnslaw to the Lennox Falls, named after
Lord Walter Lennox, in commemoration of his visit to them. There are three falls,
and to one of them has been given the quaint title of “The Widow's Tear,” for the
reason that it vanishes six weeks after the snow begins to melt on the sides of the

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH :.OF NEW ZEALAND. 120
|
:
j
f THE ASCENT OF BEN LOMOND,

1204 AUSTRALASIA JLLUSTRATED.

mountain whence its waters spring. The height of the Falls ranges from one hundred
to three hundred feet, and their breadth from fifteen to forty feet. Two other lakes
of great interest that should be visited before quitting this strangely romantic region, are
Wanaka and Hawea, the former of which is, in some respects, the most fascinating of
all the lakes. The route to Wanaka is by way of Arrowtown to Pembroke, some fifty-
nine miles, passing on the road either Cardrona or Cromwell, both mining townships.
Pembroke consists of a few houses standing on the shore of Wanaka, but it is the
point from which the steamer starts to make its weekly tour of the Lake. The chief
points to be visited are Glendhur, the Matukituki Valley and Mount Aspiring—one of
the four highest peaks, and probably the most extensive snow mountain, in Australasia,
except Mount Cook—Mounts Iron and Grandview, Brown’s Bay, ahd the head of the
Clutha River. But the trip, par excellence, is that by steamer round the Lake. “ From
the shore of Lake Wanaka,” says Mr. N. Blair, C.E., “it is possible to see about thirty
named and measured peaks, from four thousand to nearly ten thousand feet high, and a
countless number that have been neither named nor measured.” The height of Mount
Aspiring is nine thousand nine hundred and forty feet. Lake Hawea is only about six
miles distant from Pembroke, and there is a hotel near its shores. It is the smallest of
these lakes, being about fifteen miles long, three miles broad, and of a _ general
depth varying from nine hundred to one thousand two hundred feet, or as low as four y
hundred and fifty feet near the head. The finest scenery in this enchanting neighbour-

hood is at its head.

Tue West Coast Sounps.

Since 1887, when the Union Steam-ship Company first projected a holiday trip to
the Sounds, on the western coast of Otago, it has been continued as an annual fixture,
and of late years so highly has the excursion risen in repute that it has been found
necessary to make two trips annually at an interval of a few weeks apart. One of the
finest steam-ships of the Company sails from Dunedin for the Sounds during the month
of January, and for those who desire to be thrilled, delighted and impressed by the
sublime, lovely and majestic in Nature, no better opportunity will present itself. For a
distance of one hundred and ten miles, the western coast of Otago consists of towering —
precipitous mountains, thickly clad with foliage of the most vivid verdure, carrying their
perpendicular fronts right out into the depths of the ocean, and with their iron-bound
sides penetrated by numerous fiords and sounds, which would seem to have been
laboriously chiselled out of the impenetrable adamant by a race of Titans, by the side
of whom those of the Grecian myth must sink into the proportions of pigmies. :

The scenery of this west coast is absolutely unique, and incomparably grand. To
imagine that the base of the frowning heights is submerged with a sheer descent into
the ocean without throwing out any submarine slopes that can be grappled by
a vessel's anchor, are a chain of half-submerged Himalayas, and that the deep and
narrow fissures on their sides, expanding after many a tortuous passage into lovely
sounds, mark the upper limits of beautiful and sequestered vales ‘now sunk far down
beneath the wave, is not to give unbridled rein to a fantastic conceit, but to realize
what geologists assert to be actually the case. They may differ as to whether the

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF

1206 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

process of subsidence is still going on or not, but they are agreed that it has taken
place, with the result we have mentioned. So great is the depth of these land-locked
lakes which slumber in perfect stillness, that soundings can rarely be obtained under
eighty or one hundred fathoms. The woody islets which gem their bosom partake of
the inaccessible steepness of the shores. They appear to be, and most probably are, the
peaks of submerged mountains. Cascades and water-falls course down the fortress-like
sides of the craggy shore, some with the noise of dashing torrents; others winding
through the dense bush-like strands of gossamer, and dissipating their mist of spray-foam as
they plunge over the lip of some fearful abyss. The rich and profuse vegetation is
yet another feature the beauty of which cannot be exaggerated. It is here alone that the
torrid and the frigid zones join hands, and semi-tropical vegetation may be found close
to the eternal snows.

There are thirteen of these sounds between the parallels of forty-four and forty-six
degrees south latitude, and they penetrate inland for distances ranging from six to
twenty miles. The most southerly of the series is Preservation Inlet, and. then follow ;
in regular order as we proceed north, Chalky or Dark Cloud Inlet, Dusky Sound,
Breaksea Sound, Dagg’s Sound, Doubtful Inlet, Thompson Sound, Nancy Sound, George
Sound, Bligh Sound, and then, most famous for its scenery, Milford Sound.

Milford Sound is the most northerly of the series, and if the traveller has been
startled and bewildered by what he has already seen, he will be now perfectly amazed
and profoundly impressed. It is here that the sublimity of Nature attains its climax.
Although the eye detects no break in the iron-bound coast, we are close to the portals
of a sound which takes rank as one of the greatest wonders of the world. In the
words of the official report of the survey:—“The mountains by which it is surrounded
are, with the exception of Mount Cook, the highest on the coast, and its narrow
entrance, apparently still more contracted by the stupendous cliffs which rise perpendicular
as a wall from the water’s edge to a height of several thousand feet, invests Milford
Sound with a character of solemnity and grandeur which description can barely realize.”
After passing Anita Bay, we steam straight for what appears to be a mere fissure in
the gigantic embattled phalanx of cloud-piercing mountains, with Mitre Peak, three thou-
sand five hundred and sixty feet, on one side, and Pembroke Peak, six thousand seven —
hundred and ten feet, on the other, standing forward, as captains of the host, to
dispute our petty intrusion. We are at last within the funnel-shaped entrance to the
Sound, and _ passing within the adamantine portals at its inner end—only a quarter of
a mile wide—we might, with but a slight effort of the mind, imagine ourselves in the
mysterious under-world.

7 Here surely we have cut ourselves off for ever from the commonplace affairs of
every-day life, and are swiftly, and, so to speak, profanely entering a region of weird
solemnity, and sombre and awful impressiveness. How vast and imposingly sublime is
the scale on which everything is reared! Mountains rising sheer from the unfathomable
depths of this silent sea, soaring upward beyond the clouds that invest, as it were, with
fleecy zones the enormous bulk of their waists; forest vegetation of perennial verdure
clothing their lower limbs, and magnificent water-falls angrily foaming down their rude
flanks. Our wonder and awe deepen and intensify as we proceed upon our way. The

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND.

ijl

THE WATER-FALL NEAR SKIPPER’S.

1208 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

lofty pitch of the Stirling Fall is right before us. We mark its waters issuing free
from the dizzy escarpment of a mountain, and then, uniting in loving embrace for the
final plunge, hurling themselves in unbroken volume four hundred feet through space, to

the surface of the Sound, which

throws them back in fierce recoil of

foam and shimmering spray. Under
ia the frowning lee of Mount Kimber-
ley, looking down upon us from his
precipitous height of two thousand
five hundred feet, and turning the
tail of his couchant sentinel, “The
Lion Rock,” we pass slowly into
Harrison Cove, and find ourselves
‘at the immediate base of Pembroke
Peak. Its glacier-laden sides
tower upward, and upward,
until the wearied vision can
penetrate no farther, and

the mind is fain to conjure

up the counterfeit presentment of the
solitary Peak that pierces far above the
cloud-line into the ever-radiant sun-
shine. A deep and winding valley
trends its sinuous way from the side
of the Mountain to the head of the
cove. On every side giddy heights
and eternal glaciers confront the eye.
Opposite Pembroke Peak, the
magnificent form of Mitre Peak rears
itself into that strange double summit
THE WILD-FLOWERS OF NEW ZEALAND. which suggests the episcopal insignia,

It and its neighbours, the saddle-

backed Llawrenny Peaks and Mount Phillips, gaze down upon a dome-shaped moun-
tain of metallic aspect on the other shore, and upon snow-crested peaks on every
hand. Right in front, and forming the head of the Sound, stands Sheerdown Hill,

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 1209

THE ENTRANCE TO MILFORD SOUND, ON THE WEST COAST,

1210 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

lifting its snowy head four thousand feet above the sea, and parting with its immense
proportions the wooded valleys through which the rivers Cleddau and Arthur career to
the sea. It is fit associate for the neighbouring peaks of the Barren Ranges, which rise
to an altitude of five thousand one hundred and twenty-five feet, and from one of whose
lower ridges the lovely Bowen Falls precipitate themselves into the Sound. No known
cascade in this marvellous region can compare with them. Springing clear ‘of a rocky
ledge on the mountain side, the stream alights, at a distance of seventy feet, upon a
craggy projection, and thence with redoubled violence plunges downward in one broad
sheet through a sheer descent of four hundred and seventy feet, churning up the waters
at its base into a tornado of foam and spray. The hoarse murmur of the falling torrent
is the only sound that breaks the heavy slumberous stillness of this solemn place. As
we recede once more from the Falls, even this dies away, and an awful silence succeeds.
Still another water-fall has more recently been discovered, and named after the discoverer
the Sutherland Falls; wonderful tales have been told’ of its height and volume, but an
official report has not yet been offered on the subject.
And here we terminate our description of a country whose magnificent scenery will
for ages to come evoke panegyrics from writers, and incite artists to attempt the
impossible feat of reproducing Nature in all her grandeur and loveliness; a country
whose invigorating climate, splendid position, generous soil and boundless resources indi- .
cate that it is destined to be the home of a free, powerful and enlightened nation, to
which may with justice be applied the Latin motto, “ Vares acguirit eundo.”

SUVA, ON NAVITILEVU ISLAND, THE CAPITAL OF THE FIJIS.

Notre RR AUSTRALASIA.

NEW GUINEA.

EW GWINEA has an area of three hundred and six thousand square miles. It

is about one thousand four hundred and ninety miles long, and four hundred and

thirty broad, in its widest part. It is separated from Australia by Torres Straits, which

are only eighty miles across. The shallowness of the water shows that at some time

if the world’s history it was united to Australia, the average depth being only eight
or nine fathoms, while the greatest does not exceed twenty fathoms.

The form of New Guinea is very irregular. It possesses a north-western and a
south-western peninsula, with a large central mass. The first appearance of the Island
from almost every point of approach, is that of a bold mountainous country. The
Charles Louis is the highest range on the Island, attaining a height of nearly seventeen
thousand feet. The Owen Stanley Range, with the picturesque Mountain of the same
name, and Mount Yule, are fine landmarks, visible far out to sea. The mountains of
the north-west peninsula are: Mount Arfak, ten thousand feet. high, and a ridge some
one thousand two hundred feet high, at the head of the MacCluer Inlet; while the
whole of the peninsula south of the Inlet seems to be a mass.of mountains. New
Guinea has a coast-line of about four thousand four hundred miles, comprisihg innumer-
able bays and inlets. Towards the north-west end, the Island is almost cut in two by

1212 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

the deep MacCluer Inlet. Another indentation to the south almost entirely insulates
the great district of Onin. There are many good harbours in various parts of these
extensive coasts. In the Dutch Territory, on the southern side, are many harbours
known to the Malay traders, who for the last two hundred years have traded along the
coast. On the north are Dorey Harbour,
Humboldt Bay, Astrolabe Bay, Huon Gulf,
Collingwood Bay and Goodenough Bay.
On the south-east coast is a succession
of good harbours, and the numerous islands
- off the coast afford good shelter and good
-anchorage. The rivers are very numerous,
especially on the south-east coast, and bring
down enormous quantities of fresh water,
which retain their freshness many miles
out at sea. With the exception of the
Fly, the navigability of these rivers has
not been tested beyond a few miles. Travel
in the interior of New Guinea is rough
and difficult. No easy-chair geographer
will ever explore the hills and valleys of
this tropical Island. Of the great centre

of the Island nothing really is known,
A WOMAN FROM THE SOUTH CAPE, NEW GurNEa, but the north-west part and the south-

east peninsula present some of the most
difficult travel in the world. The scenery in many places is romantically picturesque and
exceedingly grand, consisting of mountain ridges richly clothed with luxuriant vegetation.

The first European visitors to Néw Guinea were the Portuguese, in 1521. It was
probably named by Ortis de Retes in 1545, who so called it “from its resemblance
to the Guinea Coast, and from the similarity of the curly-headed black natives to the
denizens of tropical Africa.” A letter written by Luiz Vaez de Torres, in 1606, was
found in the Spanish archives at Manila, on its capture by the British in 1762, in
which he describes his voyage to the New Guinea Coast, and speaks of having takén
possession of his discoveries for the King of Spain. De Bougainville visited the coast
in 1768; F/.M.S. Pandora touched there in 1792, and two of the East India Company’s
vessels followed in 1793. Forrest, of the same service, came in 1774, Captain Bligh in
1792, D’Urville in 18273, and in 1828 the coast from one hundred and _ thirty-two
degrees forty-five minutes to one hundred and forty-one east, on the south side, was
proclaimed Dutch territory. In 1827, a small Dutch settlement was formed at Triton
Bay, but it was soon abandoned.

New Guinea is one of the few remaining countries of the world practically unex-
plored. The centre of the Island is still a great ¢erra incognita. All that explorers
have hitherto done has touched only the outer fringe of this interesting country. About
the year 1824, the French naturalist, Sesson, visited New Guinea in the surveying ship
Cogurlle, but he did not stay long, and made but small collections. In 1858, Mr. Alfred

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1213

R. Wallace, F.R.G.S., author of the ‘“ Malay Archipelago,” and other works, realized a
long cherished wish, and landed on the north coast of New Guinea. He lived at Dorey
for three months and a half, and was the first European who ventured to live alone
and unprotected among the, natives of New Guinea. He had some Malay servants, and
large collections of insects and birds were made through them, but Mr. Wallace himself
was prevented by sickness from travelling or collecting much. In 1861, he sent an
assistant, Mr. Charles Allen, to Sorong on the north-west extremity, whence he
penetrated fifteen or twenty miles into the interior. Dr. N. de Miklouho Maclay, the
Russian savant and scientist, landed at Astrolabe Bay in 1871, and lived in that neigh-
bourhood altogether four years. He was an enthusiastic ethnologist, and chose to live
among the natives that he might become acquainted with their habits, and thoroughly
study the people themselves. In the north-west peninsula, the only travellers who have
penetrated at all into the interior are Signor D’Albertis, Dr. Beccari, Von Rosenberg
and Dr. A. B. Meyer. The Arfak Mountains have proved the most fruitful field to
the explorer and naturalist. In 1872, Signor D’Albertis penetrated some twenty miles
inland to a village called Hatem.
He lived here, at an elevation of
three thousand five hundred feet,
fora month, and made a very large
and valuable collection of insects,
birds and plants of this mountain
region. Dr. A. B. Meyer was a
most successful traveller and ex-
plorer. He is one of the exceed-
ingly few men who have actually
crossed New Guinea. He succeeded
in doing this at the head of Mac-
Cluer Inlet, the narrowest part of
the Island. He had to cross a
mountain range two thousand feet
high, and was four days on his
journey, although the actual distance
on the chart is not more than

forty miles. He explored the whole

* .
A PORT MORESBY NEW GUINEAN,

coast-line of. Geelvink Bay, and »

many of its islands, and after crossing to the southern side went to Dorey, and from
there ascended the Arfak Mountains to a height of six thousand feet. Dr. Beccari, two
years later, ascended the same Mountain to a height of six thousand seven hundred
feet. He lived a month on the Mountain, and made very large collections in botany
and zoology. He travelled over a large area, visiting several mountains east. of Sorong,
and explored several places on the coast, and all the islands in Geelvink Bay. More
recently, the south-east peninsula has occupied the largest share of attention from
travellers and naturalists. Signor D’Albertis took up his quarters at Yule Island, in

1875, and made several excursions upon the main-land opposite. He made very large

1214 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

collections, especially of birds, many of which were first obtained and named by him.
In the meantime, the missionary steamer, EU/engowan, under the command of Captain J.
Runcie, had ascended the Baxter and Fly Rivers. Signor D’Albertis was a passenger on
board the Ev/engowan, as guest of the missionary, Mr. Macfarlane, when she ascended
the Fly. The success of that voyage inspired him with the resolve to go still farther
up that noble River, and explore thoroughly the country through which it passed, He
obtained the loan of a steam-launch, the eva, from the New South Wales Government,
and in her he made two voyages, steaming over four hundred miles—in a direct line,
about two hundred and twenty miles—but failed to reach high land. It is doubtful,
however, whether it was the main stream that they explored. Signor D’Albertis was
not able to land often, nor yet to penetrate far from the banks of the River. ‘The
missionaries of the London Missionary Society, Messrs. Macfarlane, Chalmers and Lawes,
have made many journeys and voyages on the coast since 1872, the accounts of which
have from time to time been published. In 1875, \Mr. Lawes visited the inland tribe
of Koiari at Munikahila, about twenty miles from Port Moresby, and was accompanied
by Mr. Octavius Stone, who resided three months at Port Moresby, in the Mission
compound. Mr. Stone had Mr. Lawrence Hargrave with him, and also two good
collectors, Messrs. Petterd and Broadbent, who were originally on the staff of the Hon.
W. Macleay in the Chevert. The collection of birds made by these gentlemen for Mr.
Stone was the largest that had ever been sent from the south-east coast. About the
same time, Dr. James, an American, settled at Yule Island. Before he had been long
there he was murdered, with Charles Thorngren, on his vessel, the J/ayrz, by the natives
of Paitana, in Hall Sound. An exploring voyage was made along the coast, from
Port Moresby to Milne Bay, in the steamer /V/engowan, by Messrs. Lawes and Macfar-
lane, in April, 1876, and many new harbours and rivers were discovered. Early in the
following year, Mr. Lawes discovered the large river which falls into Hood Bay, and ~
named it the Kemp-Welch. Mr. Chalmers, at various times in 1878 and 1879, made
long journeys into the mountain region inland of Redscar Bay, Port Moresby and Hood
Bay. The farthest point reached by him was nine degrees two minutes south latitude,
and one hundred and forty-seven degrees forty-two minutes east longitude. No traveller
has opened up such large areas of previously unknown country, and no one has so
thoroughly won ‘the confidence of the people. ‘ Zamate,” the name by which Mr,
Chalmers is known to the natives, is every-where a pass-word of safety and good-will.
Some account of his travels will be found in the two books written by him, “ Work
and Adventure in New Guinea” and “ Pioneering in New Guinea.” In 1883, Captain
Armit arrived at Port Moresby, as representative of the Argus newspaper, accompanied
by an American geologist, Professor Denton; he travelled in a north-easterly direction
about sixty-five miles from Port ‘Moresby, but was compelled by sickness to return,
Professor Denton having died on the journey. About the same time, Mr. Ernest Morrison,
of the Age newspaper, explored in a north-westerly direction, but after two months’ hard
travel, was attacked by the natives, and compelled, wounded and_half-starved, to return
to Port Moresby. Mr. A. Goldie is well-known on the south-east ‘coast as a traveller
and explorer during the seven years from 1876. Mr. Charles Hunstein and Mr. George
Belford have journeyed much _ in the interior, but have given no account of their

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1215

discoveries. An expedition fitted out by the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia,
in 1885, led by Captain Everill, ascended and explored one arm of the Fly River.
They named the branch of this stream that they had traversed the Strickland River, in

honour of the President of the New South

Wales branch of the Society. The Fly

River was ascended and explored by the
Administrator and party in January, 1890.
They reached a point six hundred and ten
miles from the mouth, in south latitude five
degrees twenty-five minutes, and east longi-
tude one hundred and forty-one degrees fifty-
three minutes, close to the German boun-
dary, and at the foot of a mountain range
one thousand five hundred or two thou-
sand feet high, which was named Mount
Donaldson. Between this Mountain and the
more distant Victor Emanuel Range was
the bold western end of a steep rugged
range of about five thou-
sand. feet high. This
was named Mount Blu-
cher. There are three
bifurcations of the River,
the first at two hundred
miles from its mouth
into the Fly and the
Strickland, the second at
four hundred and sixty
miles from its mouth in-
to the Fly and the Alice,
the third about five hun-
dred and forty miles
from its mouth into the
Fly and the Palmer.
The last two are equal
in size, and the one fol-
lowed by Sir William he
named the Palmer, sup-
posing the other to be
the main stream. The
first real grass was seen
nearly four hundred
miles from the mouth,

THE HOUSE OF A NEW GUINEA CHIEF. and the last cocoa-nut

1216 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

four hundred and fourteen miles from the entrance. It was estimated that the River sent
down a volume of water at thirty miles from tidal influence sufficient to supply the present
population of the globe with one hundred and twenty gallons of water every twenty-four
hours. The expedition explored the coast from the Fly River to the Dutch boundary,
and examined the Kawa Kuss-a River. The Mai Kuss-a and Wassi Kuss-a were found to
be arms of the sea and not rivers. A new river was discovered falling into Heath Bay
and named the Morehead. It was ascended for one hundred and twenty miles, and is
reported to be better suited for navigation than any river met with in the Possession.
Mr. H. O. Forbes, author of “Wanderings of a Naturalist in the Malay Archi-
pelago,” came to New Guinea in 1885, and made large botanical and ethnological
collections. He resided at Sogeri, in the Astrolabe Range, and mapped the whole of
the country between it and Port Moresby. He penetrated to the base of Mount Owen
Stanley, some days’ journey farther than any previous traveller. In 1887, Messrs. Burns,
Philp and Co., sent on a tour of exploration their steamer Victory, under the leadership
of Mr. T. Bevan. . They ascended: what was previously known as the Aird River, and
made some important discoveries. In the same year the Victorian branch of the
Australasian Society sent Mr. W. R. Cuthbertson to New~Guinea, and he ascended
Mount Obree, of the Owen Stanley Range, reaching a height of eight thousand feet,
a much higher altitude than had been attained by previous explorers, but thick rainy
weather prevented his ascertaining with certainty that he had reached the summit.
Mount Owen Stanley, the highest mountain of the Range of that name, was
ascended by Sir William MacGregor in June, 1889, and re-named by him Mount Victoria.
Sir William left Port Moresby on the 20th of April, and ascended and explored the
Vanapa River. Having satisfied himself that it was possible to conduct an expedition

of sufficient magnitude up the Vanapa River and find a way into the interior, he sent

one of his officers to Port Moresby for stores and native carriers. On the 17th of ©

May, the re-organized party for the ascent of the Mountain started from the camp on
the Vanapa River, and on the 11th of June Sir William MacGregor stood on the top
of Mount Owen Stanley. Forty-two persons started from camp, but six only really
reached the summit. The three Europeans who accompanied the Administrator remained
in camp at an altitude of nine thousand feet, and most of the native carriers also
remained there. The reduced party consisted of Sir William, Mr. George Belford, a
half-caste Samoan, two Polynesians and ‘six Papuans. The height of the highest peak
of Mount Victoria was made at thirteen thousand one hundred and twenty-one feet,
which is very. near the estimated height (thirteen thousand two hundred and five feet),

given on the Admiralty charts. Sir William MacGregor and his companions camped two —

nights on the Mountain’s top, and traversed the whole length of the summit from south-
east to north-west. No trees were. found on the Mountain within one thousand five
hundred feet of the summit, and but few bushes within one thousand feet. The sky was
blue and cloudless. In the early morning the ground was white with frost, and icicles
were seen, an inch in diameter, and seven or eight inches long. In the middle of the
day when the sun was shining the thermometer rose to seventy degrees. Several
varieties of daisies, buttercups, forget-me-nots, etc, were found, and among the few birds
seen was a lark. From the top of the Mountain the north coast could be discerned.

Ss
we

INSULAR AUSTRALASTA. I

Between the Mountain and the north coast is a large, area of comparatively flat country,
and there seemed to be more population than on the south side. A large number of

mountains and peaks were named by the discoverer, the next highest to Mount Victoria

‘PORT MORESBY, NEW GUINEA.

being Mount Albert Edward, twelve thousand five hundred feet. Rivers could be seen,

but it was impossible to note which way they ran, as the country was low and_ nearly

1218 ; AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

flat round the base of the large mountains. The Vanapa River drains the whole of the
south side of the Owen Stanley Range.

On the 3rd of April, 1883, Mr. H. M. Chester, Police Magistrate resident at
Thursday Island, arrived at Port Moresby in the Government schooner Pear/ to proclaim
the annexation to the British Empire of the half of the Island unclaimed by the
Dutch. He had been sent by Sir Thomas Mcllwraith, the Premier of Queensland, on
behalf of his Government. On the following day a proclamation was read taking posses-
sion of “that portion of New Guinea, and the islands and islets adjacent thereto, lying
between the one hundred and forty-first and the one hundred and fifty-fifth meridians of
east longitude, in the name and behalf of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria,
her heirs, and successors.” The British flag was then hoisted and saluted by the two
small guns on the /earl. This annexation not being accepted or recognized by the
Imperial Government did not take effect, and so became void. It led, however, to a
strong expression of public opinion in Australia on ‘behalf of annexation.

On the 2nd of November, 1884, Commodore Erskine, A.D.C., arrived at Port
Moresby in 7.47.8. Nelson. Most of the squadron of the Australian station was already
there, and others followed. On the 6th of November an imposing function was held on ~
shore, when the Commodore proclaimed, in the name and with the authority of Her
Majesty the Queen, a Protectorate over ‘‘all that portion of the southern shores of
New Guinea commencing from the boundary of that portion of the country claimed by
the Government of the Netherlands on the one hundred and forty-first meridian of east
longitude to East Cape, with all islands adjacent thereto south of East Cape to
Kosmann Island inclusive, together with the islands in Goschen Straits, and also the
D’Entrecasteaux Group and smaller islands adjacent.”

In December* the area of the Protectorate was extended by //.A7.S. Raven and
H.M.S. Dart visiting the north-east coast as far as Huon Gulf, and hoisting the
British flag. Captain Ross of the Ravex, and Captain Bridge in the Dart, proclaiming
an extension of the Protectorate from. East Cape to Huon Gulf. The Islands of Rook
and Long were also included in the protected territory. After all these functions had
taken place, and the ceremony of hoisting the flag at so many places had been completed,
it was with surprise that the announcement was received in the Press that the German.
Government laid claim to an area nearly equal in extent to that claimed by Great
Britain. By an arrangement made by the British and German Imperial Governments,
the territory on the north-east coast, lying between Mitre Rock on the eighth parallel |
of latitude to the Dutch boundary, was proclaimed a German Possession. The boundary
inland is from where the one hundred and forty-seventh degree of east longitude cuts
the eighth parallel of south latitude, thence in a_ straight north-westerly line to the
intersection of the sixth parallel of: latitude and the one hundred and forty-fourth degree
of east longitude, thence to the point where the fifth parallel cuts the Dutch boundary ~
on the one hundred and forty-first meridian of east longitude. By this division British
New Guinea has an area of eighty-six thousand three hundred and eighty-two square
miles, and German New Guinea one of sixty-eight thousand eight hundred and_ three
square miles, leaving about fifteen thousand square miles for Dutch New Guinea.

Soon after the proclamation of the Protectorate, Sir Peter Scratchley, R.E., K.C.M.G.,

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1219

was appointed Special Commissioner, and arrived in New Guinea on the 28th. of
August, 1885. He died of fever on board the steamer Governor Blackall on the 2nd
of December, 1885. Early in the following year, the Hon. John Douglas, C.M.G.,
Government Resident at Thursday Island, was appointed Special Commissioner for the
Protected Territory. During this time it had

a become evident that a Protectorate which as-
sumed no authority over the natives was
unsatisfactory, and quite insufficient for pur-
Des “ poses of Government. The Australian Govern-
ments of New South Wales, Victoria and

Ps Queensland having guaranteed the sum of

abilities fifteen thousand pounds per annum for the

Oe expenses of Government in New Guinea for
“yf sa period of ten years, the Imperial Government
assumed the sovereignty over
British New Guinea. On
the 4th of September, 1888,
z % the sovereignty was _ pro-
; % ; claimed by Sir William Mac
Bah. a Gregor, M.D., K.C.M.G.,
| | who had been appointed Ad-

ministrator of the new Pos-
session. Captain Day H.
Bosanquet, R.N., AILS.
Opal, administered the oaths
of office, the Royal Standard
was hoisted and saluted by
the guns of the Ofa/, and
British New Guinea became
a British possession. The
Government of the Posses-

sion is vested in the hands

of the Administrator, assisted

by a Legislative Council, to consist of not less than two,

or more than five, Members appointed by the Crown.

The Administrator has to correspond with the Governor

A NEW GUINEA: TREE-HOUSE. of Queensland, and to receive instructions from him “ for

guidance in the discharge of his office.” All minutes

of the Executive Council- have to be sent to the Governor of Queensland twice a
year, for transmission to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

The seat of Government is at Port Moresby, where there is a small Government
House. The Chief Judicial Officer, Government Secretary, Collector of Customs, Post
and Port Master have offices at Port Moresby. There is a Resident Magistrate at
Samarai, near China Straits, and also at Mabu Dauan, near the Fly River. A Native

1220 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Regulation Board controls aboriginal affairs, under the sanction and with the approval
of the Administrator and the Legislative Council. ;
The flora and fauna of New Guinea consist of both Australian and Indo-Malayan
types. The flora of the same level on the different parts of New Guinea which have
been visited, seems to be nearly the same. Much interest attaches to the exploration
of the higher altitudes, on account of the new forms of vegetable life which may be
found there. Near the south-east coast the ecalyftd are the distinguishing feature of
the open forest country, while the sides of the hills skirting the coast are covered with
coarse grass, gum-trees and cycas palms. Mangroves of various kinds are found in great
abundance, especially in the creeks and round the protected bays. In the Gulf of Papua
the sago-palm is very plentiful, and tons of sago are every year prepared by the
natives. The forests are very numerous, and in them all tropical vegetation luxuriates ;
beautiful creepers interlace and intertwine about the gigantic trees; magnificent crotons
and variegated dracene adding a pleasing variety to the scene. Graceful palms wave
their feathery plumes, and the noble banyan stretches far its grateful shade. Ferns and
orchids have here their home, while a carpet of lovely moss refreshes and delights the
eye. On the mountain ranges the vegetation is equally rich and beautiful. Edible
fruit-trees are not numerous. The wild mango is, however, plentiful. The bread-fruit,
chestnut, ‘and rose apple are widely distributed, while many smaller fruits are eagerly
sought by the natives. At the east end of New Guinea, and also at Astrolabe Bay,
are found species of Bassta. That at the east end has been named. by Baron von
Mueller, Bassta Erskineana, in honour of. Captain Erskine, who, as Commodore of the
Australian Squadron, visited the south-east coast in AH.4/.S. Nelson, and proclaimed at

various places the British Protectorate. The native gardens produce /avo, yams, sugar-

cane and bananas. Sweet potatoes, maize, cassava, pumpkins, melons, pine-apples, oranges, —

lemons and the /afaw, have been introduced by the missionaries. A good cucumber is
indigenous in some parts. Cocoa-nuts are plentiful .on the coast, and where the soil is
good, the areca palm flourishes, and is much sought after for its fruit, the areca or
betel nut. Wild nutmegs are common in some districts. Turmeric, ginger, and the fzper
mythisticum (the kava of the South Seas) are also found. Tobacco is indigenous on the
south-east coast, and was smoked by the natives before the advent of white men. The
Australian character of the fauna is strongly marked. The wallaby, cuscus, bandicoot
and echidna, with other marsupials are found in all parts of New Guinea that have
been visited. No placental mammal is found larger than the wild pig, which is of a
peculiar species. It has also been domesticated, but is now in many places on the
coast crossed with a foreign pig introduced by white men. A dog resembling the dingo

is indigenous, but it is only found in domestication. It does not bark, and to compensate

for this, howls hideously. Flying phalangers of various kinds abound in the forests, and |

flying-foxes are very numerous every-where. Snakes and lizards are in great variety.
Two or three species of the former are venomous, and held in great fear by the
natives. The avz-fauna is particularly rich and interesting, and comprises both Australian
and Indo-Malayan types. No country in the world possesses so many beautiful and
gorgeously plumaged species. About twenty species of birds of paradise have now been
discovered, and an immense variety of kingfishers, parrots and pigeons, including some

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1221
of the most beautiful and remarkable of their respective families. Nearly four hundred
species of land birds have already been described. The laughing-jackass and the magpie are
as numerous as in Australia. -Instead of the emu, New Guinea has the cassowary.
Cockatoos, parrots and parrakeets are very numerous. Pigeons are well represented,
headed by the king of pigeons, the magnificent gowra, or crowned pigeon, of which
several species are known,
Brush-turkeys and the
jungle-fowl make their
mounds in every forest,
and the interesting bower
of the fawn-coloured bow-
er-bird is frequently seen.
But the characteristic bird
of New Guinea is the
bird of paradise. Every
species of this lovely bird
has a beauty peculiarly
its own. From the little
king bird to the magnifi-
cent epimachus all are
exquisitely coloured, and
their skins and plumes
are highly prized by Eu-
ropeans, and even by the
natives themselves,

New Guinea has a
large population, although
for its area, very small
when compared with
more civilized nations.
The people are split up
into an immense number

of tribes, each of which

is isolated and separate

from its neighbour.

A NEW GUINEA GIRL CARRYING WATER.

Great diversity of opinion

prevails among ethnologists respecting the Papuan race. Scarcely any two descriptions of
the supposed typical Papuan agree in their details. People familiar with these races by
association, however, have difficulty in accepting any~-of the current theories as correct.
The natives in the west and north-west part of the Island have doubtless a considerable
Malayan admixture. The Malay fraus visit the north-west coast regularly, going with
one monsoon and returning with the other. The visitors live with Papuan wives during
their stay. The captains of these vessels are sometimes Chinamen, which accounts for

the fact of a very distinctive Chinese element being frequently met with. The mountain

1222 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

tribes in the north-west, such as those in the Arfak Mountains, have much in common
with those inhabiting the south-east ranges, and are probably one and the same race,
In the south-east peninsula a light-coloured race is found on the coast, resembling strongly
the Polynesians of New Zealand, Tahiti and Samoa. A darker coloured people is
found on the coast of the Gulf of Papua, and the two races meet in the Maiva
District, to the east of Cape Possession. West of it are the dark tribes, east of it the
lighter coloured race. The inland tribes inhabiting the mountains differ in many respects
from those on the coast. They are smaller in stature, darker in colour, and more
hairy. Their hands and feet are remarkably. small. They are looked down upon by the
coast tribes as an inferior race, bat are feared by them for their supposed supernatural
power. This points to the probability of their being the true indigenes of the soil,
while those on. the coast are probably settlers, and have driven the darker race inland.
A remnant of an inland tribe, called the Koitapu, is living now on the coast in the same
villages as the Motu tribe. They intermarry with the Motuans, but still preserve their
separateness. Comparatively little or nothing is known of the characteristics, manners
and customs of the natives of any part of New Guinea excepting those of the south-
east district. The natives of that portion comprised within the south-east peninsula are
not a tall race. On the coast they average about five feet seven inches. Neither are
they coarse in figure; they aré muscular and agile, but not obese. They are generally
upright; a round-shouldered man is rarely seen. There is considerable variety in features
and in hair. . Three distinct kinds of hair are common: 1. Straight, smooth hair; this is not
stiff enough to stand out in the large mass which the New Guineans so favour: 2.
Frizzy; this is the commonest; it stands out in a great wavy mass, and is much
admired by all the natives: 3. Woolly; this is not so woolly as the negro’s hair, but
is very thick, and most intractable with an English comb. The same difference may be
seen in nose and lips. Some have thick lips, and widely dilated nostrils, while others have ~
almost a European nose and lips. Wallace speaks of a hooked nose as one of the
characteristics of the Papuan race. This kind of nose is often seen on the south-east
coast. The universal custom of piercing the seftwm of the nose, and wearing a piece
of stick or stone through it from childhood, no doubt tends to draw down the tip,
and helps to give the nose that peculiar appearance which has so often been the ~
subject of comment. Very few of the men of the coast tribes have any hair on their
faces, but among the hill tribes beards are quite common, The eyes are dark and bright.
The cheek-bones are often prominent, but the facial angle is not acute.

There is not much in the way of New Guinea costume to describe. Some tribes.
in the Gulf of Papua wear nothing at all, but eastward all wear something. A narrow
belt or string, worn as a “T” bandage, is all that the men about Port Moresby wear.
They consider, however, that they -are well dressed, and speak with great contempt of
the nudity of those to the west who do not wear the string. The narrow belt worn
at the dances, and in full dress, is made from the bark of the paper mulberry beaten
out, and then ‘painted with turmeric “and lamp-black. At Orangerie Bay, and to the
east, the men wear an elaborate covering, something like bathing drawers, made of
pandanus leaves sewn together, The women wear a kind of petticoat of grass, or fine
palm-leaf, shredded out and plaited into a string, which is tied round the waist just

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1223

above the hips. Some are quite white, while others are very prettily variegated. In
mourning the petticoat is worn very long and with the ends untrimmed. Many of the
tribes, too, wear netted garments in mourning made of fine string. Collarettes, vests,
and even footless stockings are knotted on and remain till they rot away. Certainly
the most striking ornament a New Guinean wears is the nose stick. These are generally
made of. strips of white’ shell (Tridacna gigans), ground down and polished. These are
of all lengths and sizes, each tribe having its own fashion of nasal ornamentation.
Every child has his or her nose pierced when about six years old, but beyond a short
piece of stick many wear nothing through it. An unpierced nose is a reproach, for in
spirit-land no unpierced nose can enter the Papuan heaven. Ear-rings, or rather ear
ornaments, of every size and shape are worn; some made of tortoise-shell are light and
pretty. Thirty or forty of these may be worn in one ear without unduly weighing it
down, but some are of enormous size, stretching the lobe of the ear to a dreadful
extent. A waist-belt of bark, or plaited fibre, is worn by some tribes, and so tightly
drawn as to prevent their stooping. Feather ornaments are highly prized by some.
At Kabadi, in Redscar Bay, a frame fifteen feet high is dressed with feathers and worn
at the back, tied at the waist and neck. Most grotesque antics are made by the wearers
as they dance, or rather jump about, with these structures towering above their heads.
Birds of paradise (Paradisea Raggiana) plumes are worn by almost all the natives in
their dances. Tattooing is practised by many of the tribes. At Port Moresby, and
-among the Motu tribe, the women are profusely tattooed, both bodies and faces. At
Maiva the pattern is quite different, and the faces look hidedus with straight lines
marked all’ over them. At South Cape the designs on the face are very elaborate.
The men are only slightly tattooed, and with them it is rather a mark of honour than
a personal adornment. They are not entitled to this distinguishing badge until they
have killed some one, or have taken part in the killing of some one. The tattooing is
effected by means of lamp-black made from burnt resin, mixed with water, and painted
on the skin in the desired pattern. The whole of this is then gone over and punctured
with a thorn, driven in with a mallet. It is often done a second time to ensure the
pattern showing brightly and distinctly.

It is the stone age still in New Guinea, and all the weapons in use are made of
stone or wood. Bows and arrows are used in the Gulf of Papua, and to the west, the
arrows being tipped with ebony, bamboo, and sometimes with human or cassowary bone.
They are not poisoned in the district east of the Aird River, but are said to be so
in the district west of it. Clubs of various kinds and shapes are used. The most
formidable is the stone club, which is made in the interior, but used by almost all the
tribes on the coast. They are of different shapes, the most common being a plain flat

_ disc, about six inches in diameter, through the centre of which a hole is drilled, and a

handle about four feet long inserted. The top is generally ornamented with feathers.
Stone clubs of other shapes are also made. Some are of the. shape, and about the size,

of a cassowary’s egg; others again are star-shaped, and some have two or four projec-
tions with small ones between. The latter are very accurately made, and are very

E- formidable weapons. Wooden clubs of various shapes are also used. Some at the east
end of New Guinea are very heavy and nicely shaped, with a carved handle or hilt

1224 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

like a sword. But the common weapon, and the one most depended on east of Yule
Island, is the spear. One of the first and most popular games of the little boys is
throwing a spear at a rolling cocoa-nut husk. They soon acquire remarkable skill in
poising and throwing the spear. It is their only weapon in wallaby hunting; each man
takes a handful of light little spears, and a piece of boar's tusk or broken bottle with
which to scrape and re-point them, For fighting purposes the spears are long and
heavy, made of a mountain palm, and the point more or less elaborately carved. Some
of the spears obtained at Orangerie Bay and District are very fine specimens of primitive
art. Daggers made of cassowary bone are also used, but these imply closer warfare
than a native likes. At Hood Point and Bay a peculiar weapon is used which may
best be described as a man-catcher. It consists of a. loop of cane, lashed in a handle
made up of three or four pieces of cane six or seven feet long, which also hold a small
spear in the neck of the loop. The loop is thrown over the head of an escaping
enemy, and then the spear point’ is jerked into his neck from behind. Shields of
different shapes and patterns are used by all the natives. All the weapons are carefully
ornamented, and greater taste and skill is manifested by the New Guineans in the pre-
paration of their weapons than in anything else.

In studying the houses of New Guinea it must be remembered that the people are
still in the stone age, and that all their houses are built with the tools it affords. No
tool of metal is used, and no iron nail is to be found in any house, from foundation
to ridge-pole. In the western part of the Island the houses are very long, capable of
accommodating a number of families. A house near the. Fly River was found to measure
five hundred and twenty feet long by thirty feet wide. Mr. Chalmers visited one in the
Elema District which was one hundred and sixty feet long. It had a large peaked
portico thirty feet wide, supported by posts eighty feet high. From this high front it
tapered and narrowed away to the end, one hundred and sixty feet distant. The same
kind of house, many hundred feet long, is found in Borneo and also in Assam. These

great houses disappear to the east of Cape Possession, or exist only in a modified form,

as sacred houses in which the men seclude themselves for a certain time every year.
The Malay practice of building on piles is common all over New Guinea, even on the
hills) This is the characteristic of the New Guinea house, the piles varying from six to —
twenty feet in height. There is a necessity for this in the coast villages, as they stand
mostly in the water; many of them, as Kaile, Kapakapa and Tupuselaia, in the Port
Moresby District, and Hula at Hood Point, are always surrounded by deep water.
Others, as at Port. Moresby, are just below low-water mark, the fronts of the houses
jutting on the street and always dry. The only reason the people can give for this
is that their fathers did so; but the probable reason for their fathers doing so is that
they were settlers, and being afraid of the inland tribes, built their houses so that they
might escape in their canoes if attacked. In all the Koiari and mountain villages are
tree-houses, from thirty to sixty feet high, sometimes two or three in one tree. They
are not built among the thick branches, but all is cleared away beneath them and a
suitable fork or arrangement of limbs being chosen, a platform of saplings is lashed
across and the house built on it. These houses are reached by ladders made of vines
and creepers, and in times of alarm are drawn up by the occupants after them. All

INSULAR AUSTRALASTA. 12

LS)
a

the houses are built of wood, and thatched either with grass or palm-leaves. The
shape of the roof varies in the different districts, but all have a high pitch. None of
the houses possess anything that can be called furniture, a log or two of wood, to
serve as pillows, and a few mats being all. Every house has a made fire-place in the
centre, and generally a fire burning by day and _ night.

The canoes are of great variety. They are made out of a log, which is hollowed

by fire and rude stone adzes. The small canoes are used for fishing inside the reef, the

A NEW GUINEA DEAD-HOUSE.

large ones being for trade purposes, and used singly as well as double. All are propelled
by mat sails. New Guineans will never paddle if they can help it, preferring to wait a
long time for wind to save them the trouble. At the east end of New Guinea they
build large canoes very much like whale-boats, and can sail with them as close to the
wind as we can with our vessels. They are profusely ornamented, and the decorations
and carvings are really graceful and artistic. Tons of sago are brought every year from
the Gulf to Port Moresby in huge square-shaped vessels. These are made of eight, ten,
and even twelve and fourteen great canoes firmly lashed together; they are then decked
over with saplings, bulwarks made all round, and a house built at each end; a crab-claw-
shaped sail is hoisted, and with a fair wind these unwieldy craft make good progress
and safe voyages.

The coast tribes cook their food by boiling in earthenware pots. This is the ordinary
mode of cooking. Fish, meat, vegetables and fruit are all boiled. The inland tribes
cook with hot stones as the South Sea Islanders do, but they also boil in pots. All

Natives broil or roast when they are travelling, or do not wish to prepare a regular

1226 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

meal. The youngest children will cook on the hot ashes any little snack they may get.
There is another mode of cooking meat, such as joints of wallaby, by drying over a
small fire. This mode is resorted to when they wish to keep the meat longer than usual,
as in preparing for a feast, etc. The coast natives are generally nice and cleanly in
cooking and eating their food, a characteristic which is not so marked inland.

The diseases of the people are not numerous, but the climate is to strangers very
unhealthy. The natives themselves suffer from fever, though it is not severe. The
disease that follows every-where in the white man’s wake is unknown in New Guinea.
Their most serious and troublesome diseases are ulcers of various kinds. Many children
die from these. A form of leprosy is met with. A very unpleasant skin disease, which
covers the whole body with a kind of ring-worm, is travelling along the coast from ~
the east. It is exceedingly loathsome to white men, but the natives do not seem to
regard it seriously. Small-pox was epidemic about 1864, and carried off thousands. It
came from the west and travelled eastward, but has) never appeared since that time.
Colds, coughs and opthalmia are often epidemic. The natives have no medical treatment
for any disease. As it is supposed to be a bewitchment of some kind, they have resort
to medicine men and women, who levy enormous fees. They perform incantations over
the disease, suck the affected part, and pretend to draw stones, string and rubbish from
the place. In the case of an epidemic, the whole village turns out at night to drive it
away. They beat tom-toms, throw fire-sticks, shout and yell, and go from one end of
the village to the other, driving the evil spirit before them.

Among the coast tribes of the south-east peninsula, a wife is looked upon as a
valuable possession, and is therefore paid for. Much more is paid for a wife than for
anything else, and a woman is proud, not of the dowry she has brought her husband,
but of the price he has paid for her. There are no marriage rites anywhere beyond
the exchange of presents of food and the payment for the wife. Polygamy is common
in some parts, but rare in others. At Port Moresby very few men have more than
one wife. Dancing is every-where popular, and the children have many games and
amusements. The only musical instruments are drums and tom-toms, pandean pipes, jew’s-
harps and conch-shell trumpets. The methods of burial vary among the different tribes.
At Port Moresby the dead are buried, but in the case of a chief, or much loved man
or woman, the body is not covered in with earth; instead a light covering of mats or boards
is laid on it, and an enclosure made around the grave, inside of which the principal
mourners sleep. In the Koiari District, and among the hill tribes generally, the honoured
dead are not buried, but laid out in state in the house, while the relatives live in the
same house. After decomposition has far advanced, the body is put on a platform of
sticks in the sun, a fire is lighted, and the body soon dries up. After the bones fall
apart, they are collected, tied up in a bundle, and hung up in the house where the
dead man or woman formerly lived. In the Saroa and Rigo District burial is not prac-
tised. To bury the body of a deceased relative in the earth is very repugnant to them.

Superstition reigns over New Guinea, and the people are in ‘bondage to medicine |
men and sorcerers who live on the credulity and ignorance of the people. “Here and
there, as at Hood Bay, there is sometimes a ceremony which seems to recognize a

Supreme Being who has power to make the earth fruitful, and holds life and death in~

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1227

his hands, but its original meaning is almost lost. The signification of the rites is
forgotten and gone, but every-where there is a strong belief in the deathlessness of the
soul. The spirits of the departed go away into Hades, which is sometimes ocean space,
and sometimes the mountain tops. A recent death is said to bring the spirits about in
crowds. They are much feared for their supposed power for mischief and causing mis-
fortune. The native idea of right and wrong is very vague and confused. The greatest
sin to the native mind is the violation of the ¢ado0, a something made sacred.

The languages and dialects are almost innumerable. Every few miles of coast brings
one to a people speaking a different dialect to those left a few hours before. The
present knowledge of the languages spoken is so imperfect that it is impossible to draw
any inference from them. A grammar and dictionary of the language spoken by the
Motu tribe in the Port Moresby District have been prepared and printed. The grammar
of the language is, no doubt, largely Melanesian, while the vocabulary is largely Poly-
nesian. Every syllable is an open syllable, no two consonants ever standing. together.
The language is much more agglutinative than any of the Polynesian dialects. Sir
William MacGregor has printed vocabularies in ten different dialects. The words were
collected by him in his official tours in different parts of the Possession.

The manufactures are only such as the wants of an uncivilized people necessitate.
They consist principally of the manufacture of ornaments, such as armlets, nose-sticks
and necklaces; and weapons, such as spears and clubs. Over these they spend much
time, and display a good deal of ingenuity. The tools are rude and simple, consisting
only of such as the stone age produces. They are pieces of obsidian; a large flat
grinding-stone; a drill, with a flint point worked with a circular piece of wood fitted
on the stem, and kept in motion by an endless string, and stone hatchets of various
kinds. The women of the Motu tribe, of Orangerie Bay, and some other districts, make
large quantities of pottery, which is carried far and wide for barter. Water chatties,
cooking-pots, bowls and dishes are made of very good shapes. The women use no
wheel or mechanical appliance in shaping them. They hold a smooth stone on the
inside of the pot, and work on the outside with a large wooden spatula. They use salt
water for mixing the clay. After the vessels “have been shaped and are finished, they
are dried in the sun, and afterwards baked in a wood fire. They are rather fragile,
but with the careful handling they receive from the natives last a very long while. .
Forrest’s description of pottery-making, as seen by him at Dorey in 1775, is correct of
the south-east coast in 1890. The women also make a netted bag similar to one used
by some of the aborigines of Australia. They are beautifully made, and are of many
different sizes. Some are very artistically coloured in a variety of patterns, and the
large ones are used by the women to carry all their burdens. They put the band of the
bag across the head, between the forehead and the crown, so that the bag hangs down the
4 ~ back and throws all the weight on the neck. “The ‘bags also serve as hammocks and
4 cradles for the babies. The womens’ dresses are the special manufacture of some villages.
The belles and matrons of New Guinea are as pleased with a new petticoat, and as
critical of its qualites, as their fair sisters of civilization are of their more elaborate
costumes. The men make spears, some of which are elaborately carved; clubs of
- different kinds, the stone ones being made only by the inland tribes; and bows and

1228 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

arrows, although these are not used east of Port Moresby. Nets of various kinds are
made by the men, who use a mesh and needle like those of Europeans, but do not
hold the needle in the same way. They are made all sizes, from a small hair net to
the heavy dugong or kangaroo net. At the east end of New Guinea the natives show
great taste in carving. Everything upon which a design can be cut is ornamented by
a graceful and pretty device. The figure-heads of their canoes, the tops of their paddles,
the floats of their nets, the gourds for holding lime, the spatulas used for the lime, and
most other suitable articles are all beautifully carved.

The products of New Guinea available for a foreign market are very few. It is
only in the west of the Island that an export trade is maintained with the civilized
world. A considerable commerce has been
carried on by the Dutch for some years past,
principally with the islands off the main-land,
and is worth about twenty thousand pounds per
annum. The exports are sago, nutmegs, massoz
bark, bird-skins, trepang, tortoise and pearl shell.
But on the south-east peninsula. the products
of the land are few and small. A considerable
quantity of trepang is gathered by European
and Chinese fishermen on the outlying reefs.
Pearl-shell is obtained off the east end of the
Island. Large quantities of cocoa-nuts are found
at Maiva, Hood Bay, and the east end of New
Guinea. Copra might be prepared, but the cocoa-

nuts are too valuable to the natives to admit

DR. SIR WILLIAM MACGREGOR,

of large quantities being exported. Cedar, and
a similar wood called at Hood Bay madlava,
abounds in some districts. Ebony and sandal-wood are both indigenous, but do not
seem to be plentiful on the coast. The sago-palm flourishes in New Guinea at
many places. The natives prepare large quantities for barter with other districts, but
it has not been found worth exporting to a foreign market. Tobacco is grown for
home use, and for trade with other places, but is now being superseded by the
foreign tobacco. In the Gulf of Papua, and as far east as Port Moresby, the
natives smoked before the arrival of white men. New Guinea is probably rich in
minerals, but none have been utilized, and only a few really discovered. Various tradi-
tions of gold have been current for many years. In 1877, the first specimens of gold-
bearing quartz were found, but not in sufficient quantities to pay. Since that time
several parties have prospected in ‘various directions, but without much success. In Sep-
tember, 1888, gold was discovered at Sud Est Island in the Louisiade Archipelago, and
subsequently at Rossel Island and St. Aignan’s. The finds were alluvial, and a number
of miners came from North Queensland to work them, the largest number at any one time
was probably seven hundred, but the gold was soon exhausted, and at date (1891) only
eighty men remain. The total amount of gold reported at the Customs from these

New Guinea gold-fields from discovery to June, 1890, was seven thousand three hundred

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1229

and twenty ounces, valued at twenty-six thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven pounds,
but this is a good deal less than the’ amount actually obtained. The existence of other
minerals has not been proved. Until a competent geologist visits the country and reports
on its formation, with a view to practical mining operations, the mineral products of
New Guinea will be conjectural only.

The earliest missionary work among the natives of New Guinea was probably that
of the Lutheran Church, which had missionaries at Dorey some years before Mr. Wallace
visited it in 1861. A Roman Catholic mission was begun on Woodlark Island, in
the Louisiade Group, but the members died, the Bishop removed to Rook Island,
where he succumbed to fever, leaving but little result. Sir Wm. MacGregor in 1890
found some natives who remembered them, and who crossed themselves and knew a few
_ French phrases. In 1872, the London Missionary Society began work on some of the
Islands in the Fly River District, and also on the main-land at Redscar Bay, a large
number of South Sea Island missionaries, under the superintendance of a few Europeans,
have been engaged in teaching and preaching. Sixty stations are now (in 1891) occupied
on the south-east coast from the Fly River to East Cape, and a considerable number
of natives have embraced Christianity and made some progress in education and
civilization. A Roman Catholic mission was begun in 1885 at Yule Island, by brethren
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They have extended their mission to the Saint Joseph |
River District, in which they have several stations. The Wesleyan Board of Missions
‘are taking up the islands lying off the east end of New Guinea, in connection with a
station on the main-land at Bentley Bay. The Australian Anglican Mission is beginning
. operations on the north-east coast from Cape Ducie, to the German boundary at
Mitre Rock. In German New Guinea several Protestant missionaries from Germany
are settled among the natives.

THE NEW BRITAIN GROUP.

HE New Britain Group is generally considered to include the two large islands of

New Britain and New Ireland, the small group called the Duke of York Group,
Renew Hanover, Sandwich, Gerrit, Denys, St. John’s, Sir Charles Hardy’s and Fischer ©
__ Islands, and the Kaan Group, with a number of outlying islets. Of the whole Group
. but little was known before the year 1875. Up to that time no white man had been
able to live on the main Island, nor was there any trustworthy information obtainable
ther about the place or the people. Some traders from the firm of Messrs. Godeffroy
id Sons had resided for a few weeks on the island of Matupit, in Blanche Bay, but
ey came into collision with the natives, and were compelled to fly and abandon the

after shooting some of the natives in making their escape. New Britain is separated
the north-east coast of New Guinea by Rook Island, and a deep-sea channel about
miles wide. Dampier’s Straits is the name given to the channel through which that
itor sailed, in the year 1700, and thus proved that New Britain was a_ separate
and not a part of New Guinea. Dampier calls the Group by the one name of New
n, and thought indeed that it was only one main island; but Carteret, in 1767,

1230 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

miles in width, which he named St. George's Channel. Dampier describes the island as
“generally high mountainous land mixed with large valleys, which, as well as the
mountains, appeared very fertile, and in most places that we saw the trees are very
large, tall and thick.” This short description may be taken as a fairly accurate one.
The west coast generally consists of a mountain range rising in most places abruptly
from the beach, with very few shores or fringing reefs. These ranges have jagged and
broken peaks, and are intersected by deep gullies or ravines, which seem to terminate
in many instances far inland, at the centre of the range, at the base of steep peaks
on which the marks of land-slips are plainly visible. The mountains are all well wooded,
and the whole of the coast-line is well watered by numerous small streams and rivers,
the beds of most of them showing that in the rainy season large bodies of water find
their. way down them to the sea. On the eastern side the ranges do not rise so
abruptly from the coast; the soil is often of a stiff, clayey nature, and comparatively
large tracts of open thickly-grassed country may be ‘seen. There are no volcanoes on
New Ireland, but they abound on New Britain and its outlying islands. The ejected
matter consists almost entirely of pumice, no lava stream having been so far observed.

Though by some people the honour of the discovery of New Britain has been given
to the Spaniards, there is no account obtainable of any such discovery. After Magelhaens
in 1519, the principal attempts to explore the then unknown Pacific appear to have been
made by Cortes. His first little fleet of four vessels was burnt in the dock-yard before
completion. In 1529, he received the appointment of Captain-General of New Spain and
of the coasts of the South Seas, but his enterprises seem to have been wholly confined
to the shores of the Pacific, and especially in the Gulf of California.

In 1564, Lope Garcia de Castro, who was the Viceroy in Peru, sent out two
ships to find out the land from which Solomon caused gold and ivory to be brought
to Jerusalem. His nephew, Alvaro Mendafia de Neyra, then twenty-six years old, was
in command. .Hernando Gallego was pilot; Pedro de Ortego was in command of the
troops, and Pedro Fernandez de Quiros was one of the officers. The expedition sailed
from Callao in 1567, and eighty days afterwards discovered the Solomon Group. On
Mendafia’s second voyage, in 1595, he discovered Santa Cruz and died there. De Quiros
and Torres also visited the Solomons and the New Hebrides, and sighted Australia and ©
New Guinea; but the earliest distinct notice of the discovery of any of the New
Britain’ Islands is to be found in the account of Le Maire and Schouten’s Voyages
in Dalrymple’s “ Collection.”

The temperature ranges from ninety degrees to seventy degrees, very rarely falling
so low as seventy-four; the average temperature all the year round is about eighty
degrees. The atmosphere is very humid, and the dew-fall very great. The effects of this
damp enervating heat are soon apparent; and most of the foreign residents suffer, sooner
or later, from attacks of intermittent fever. It has, however, been found that in the case
of those who have a strong vigorous constitution which enables them to withstand the
prostrating effects of the first few years, the attacks of fever become much less frequent,
and some indeed enjoy almost perfect immunity from them. The natives assert that
the monsoons were formerly much more violent than they are now; both the natives

and the white men in Eastern Polynesia assert the same of the trade-winds there. From

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1231,
December to May the weather is often very squally, and the north-west monsoon prevails.
During these months the rain-fall is exceptionally heavy, a fall of four inches in as
.many hours has been very frequently recorded, and the annual total would probably not
be below one hundred and twenty inches. The south-east monsoon blows very strongly
from June to October, when a few weeks of variable weather precede the setting in of
the north-west monsoon, The tides are very irregular, and seem to be much affected by
the prevailing wind and currents. A change of wind is on some days sufficient to
counteract almost entirely the usual ebb of the tide. There is only one tide in the
twenty-four hours. The flood-tide in the channel between New Ireland and the Duke of
York Island sets to the north along the coast of the latter, and the ebb to the
south. During the whole of the north-west monsoon, or
from the end of November to the end of April, the cur-
rent sets strongly to the south-east. During some of these
months, especially January and February, it is often very
strong indeed, and the channel between the
Duke of York Group and New Ireland is
covered with trees, which, from the number
and size of the barnacles adhering to them,
and the quantities of crustacea and fishes in
and about them, must have been a long time
in the water. The current changes during
the south-east monsoon, setting north-west
in that season.

The life and manners of the aborigines
may be best described by individualizing a
type, who shall, for our present purpose, be
known as 7o Ling, or its feminine equivalent,
Ne Ling—words in the New Britain dialect
signifying “such-a-one.” For the land of Zo
Ling’s birth, then, there is no native name.
Both on New Britain and New Ireland the
land is divided into districts, which often
receive their names from a river or moun-
tain. New Ireland is called Tombara on

the charts, and navigators no doubt under-

stood the natives to give that as the name

THE “DUK DUK,” NEW BRITAIN GROUP.

of the land to which they pointed when
asking the question, but the word simply means the south-east trade-wind, or the quarter
from which it blows. There is no unity among the people, and there could scarcely be
a general name for a land split up into districts, the people of which have no connection
with each other, and speak what are practically different languages. Zo Ling’s home

was in a village, the like of which may be found any day in every district of the
approached by narrow

Group. In a clear patch of ground in the heart of a dense scrub
_tracks from all sides, some of which lead down to the beach, and others to huts of

1232 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

neighbouring families—may be seen a collection of rude dwellings built of bamboos or flexible
rods. All of these are low, but. not of uniform shape. Some have reeded sides, the
ends of which rise into two small turrets; in others the roof descends to the ground, —
and has only one gable open’ which acts as door-way and chimney in one. Some of
these houses are large, especially on New Ireland and New Britain, where there are
large separate club-houses for the unmarried boys; but on Duke of York Island, where
To Ling was born, the houses are small, and in many cases afford room only for the
husband to lie down on one side of a small fire, and the wife on the other, with the
child or children stowed away in odd corners, and often in most uncomfortable positions.
The other houses are a boat-house, which is often the best house in the village, the -
Duk Duk house, into which no woman, nor uninitiated man or boy, dare go, and a
Malira, or spell-house. Outside the houses are planted the croton, co/eus and dracena
plants, which testify to the instinctive appreciation of the beautiful. If the houses are
small, the furniture is, of course, in proportion. Géing through the narrow door-way a
visitor would probably strike his head against an alarm rattle, made by suspending
loosely a dog’s tooth, or something of the kind, in a hollow shell or gourd. This is
often put up at night that the sleeping inmates may be aroused should anyone seek to
enter the hut. Inside the hut would be seen portions of some old canoe split up .and
laid on the floor at the sides of the house to make a sleeping bunk, mattrass and
blanket all in one for the inmates. In the other gable-end of the house there would be a
few yams, ¢aro or bananas, some baskets of the Zamap nut, a few cocoa-nuts, some
diwara or native money, spears and tomahawks; of course, some lime and _betel-nuts
for chewing, and a fishing net or nets. From the roof would be suspended a wooden
hook with string attached, and passing through a wooden disc, or something of the
kind, to prevent the rats from going down the string to attack the food-basket suspended
on the hook. Zo Zzug’s parents are undoubtedly Papuans, though they know nothing»
of the name. It is extremely likely that there was originally one great race occupying
these different groups, as far west at least as Borneo, and probably upon the main-land on
the side of Siam and on the Malacca Peninsula, and perhaps as far as Burmah. The
traces of these people are found in all the different groups, from the black races found
in New Zealand by the original Maori settlers, and derisively called by them “black -
kumara” (sweet potato), to Western Malaysia, and also on the main-land. In Malaysia
this pre-Malayan race was modified by admixture with the Turanian races of the main-
land of Asia, and thus constituted the present Eastern Polynesian race, which still
retains so much of its old Papuan element. After this it is likely that the emigration
eastward set in, probably caused, as Fornander states, by the encroachments of Malay
and Hindu immigration. Zo Zeng, is an undoubted Papuan of the black or sooty-brown
colour, with frizzly hair, growing generally in thick short matted curls and daubed with
coloured clay or with lime. He, with most of his people, has a fair amount of beard,
and is of a lanky form, and not so tall or so well formed as the Eastern Polynesians.
The language which he speaks is full and expressive, and, unlike that of his fellows in
the Eastern group, is full of closed syllables. The dialects are nearly as numerous as
the tribes themselves, almost every district, even on the same island, having one of its

own, which is often unintelligible to the people living only a very few miles away.

INSULAR AUSTRALASTA. 1233

In New Britain, as among all -pure Papuan races” in the same stage of development,
descent is always reckoned through the mother. These class-relations are very strictly
observed. Every man and woman from date of birth belongs to one of two classes,
called respectively Prkalaba and Maramara, and as descent is reckoned through the
mother, it necessarily follows that the children of every /kalaba woman are also all
Pikalaba, both male and female. All. lands, fruit-bearing trees, fishing-stones, etc., are
included in one or other of these divisions. No /rkalaba or Maramara man can marry
a woman of the same class as himself: this would be regarded as incest, though there
was no actual relationship between them. It follows as one effect of this, that there
can be no hereditary chieftainship. The man who has the most muscle, the most money,
and consequently can buy the most powerful bewitching spells, comes to the front by
the operation of the law of natural selection. Zo Zzng’s mother we will suppose to be
a Maramara, his father must therefore be a Prkalaba; but Zo Ling, taking his mother’s
class, is Maramara. Now when his father the chief dies, Zo Ling may take his place
if he is a strong powerful man, or is feared and respected by the people for his money-
power; but it does not necessarily follow, for he inherits nothing from his father. All
‘the land, and most of the money being Prkalaba, belongs to his father’s class and not
his own, The origin of this custom is no-doubt to be found as dating from the time
of a much more primitive stage of civilization than that to which they have now
attained, low as this may appear to be. No particular ceremonies are observed at birth.
To Ling is not troubled with many clothes. He gets a warm banana leaf for the first
- day, and pure sunshine and dirt afterwards. He is fed first with the expressed juice of
the kernel of the cocoa-nut, or with some sweet potato, and afterwards his mother looks
after him. The father has the sole right of giving him his first name, which, however,
he will change later on for another as he passes out of boyhood.
. As life goes on, and Zo Ling is passing from youth to manhood, the custom of
these Islands requires that he be initiated into some of the secret societies of his people,
and so be prepared to take his full position in the tribe. One of the most important
a of these strange organizations is the Dwk Duk. Supposing he were near the chief's
a enclosure, he would hear suddenly, and at uncertain times, the peculiar cry of the Duk
; Duk from or near the sacred ground, and at once the chief or some of his men would
4 _ answer it by the same cry, and by giving some peculiar taps on the wooden drum.
The cry is repeated again, and again, as the figure comes nearer and nearer, and the
beating of the drum in answer is as often repeated. At length a strange figure dances
. which Zo Zeng, and all other uninitiated lads, men and women, are supposed to
selieve to be a spirit from the bush, and of which they must be afraid. This figure
s a high conical mask, or head-dress, made of wicker-work, highly painted and decorated
vith streamers and feathers. Its shape is like a large candle-extinguisher, and it comes
far enough to cover the shoulders. Below this are suspended large thick leaf
in separate rings, which rustle much as the figure dances; and all the accom-
ents are calculated to impress a native with some degree of fear and awe. The
Duk often carries a human skull in one of its hands, and it has the privilege of
‘ing or stoning anyone who may come near it, or whom it may be able to lay hold
‘The ceremonies of initiation are tedious and painful as well as expensive. Prayers

1234 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

are offered to the old dead Past Masters, then permission is asked and payments made
to them. The boys are taken out into the bush to look for Duk Duk, and are
befooled in every possible way; the whole ending by their being shown little by little
that the so-called spirit is only a man like themselves. They are now ¢ena mana, or
Masters in the order; and then all set to work to prepare a new lot of Duk Duk_to
befool others with, and to get money for themselves. There are many other ceremonies
which Zo ZLzng may pass through. He may for instance become an /zzat, the members
of which are taken into the bush when young, and are there fed with pork, shark,
turtle, etc., and then, after their initiation, are never again allowed to eat any of those.
articles. Then there are also some interesting ceremonies observed when the lads obtain
new names, about the time of their reaching the age of puberty; and others also which
are performed for the purpose of their being taken possession of by the wood spirits,
who, they think, will then reveal to them new dances and new bewitching spells. In this
latter ceremony they drink decoctions of leaves which appear to intoxicate or poison
them until they become violently excited, and in many instances partly deranged.

To Ling has often to incur more trouble and expense in gratifying his wish for a
‘wife than is the case with most people in more civilized countries. He does not usually
propose to Me Leng directly, but prefers to get some of his companions to ascertain if
he is likely to have a fair chance of success. We suppose that Zo Lzmg has got his
sister to help him, and finding that Me Lzxg is willing, they become engaged, and are
then weéat. And now commences a long series of negotiations about payment. He gets
a basket and puts into it anything and everything he can muster to take as a present
to his dear Me Ling. There would be in this basket a few fathoms of dwara (the
native name for shell-money), some beads, a bit of tobacco, a pipe, shell armlets, pearl-
shell, cuscus teeth, a bit of red cloth, and anything else he may be able to procure,
and happy is the lad when he can slyly get this 4a-wa-ograt into the hands of his
loved one. The practical character of the people shows itself in the understood rule
that the girl must not use any of these gifts until after the marriage; and much
as Ne Ling might like a smoke, she must leave Zo Lzng’s tobacco and pipe untouched
for the present. Gifts are given and repaid by the families; money is borrowed and
repaid with interest to the chief at ten per cent. from each party, thus giving the wily e
old fellow, who is often the match-maker also, about twenty per cent. on his outlay.
These customs vary somewhat on the main-land of New Britain. For instance, when a
lad proposes and is accepted, he clears out into the bush for weeks, as if thoroughly
ashamed of himself, and is not seen again in the village until the negotiations are
completed, and even when these are disposed of, the young couple cry in public and
pretend to be very sorry for their folly. It ought also to be mentioned that as soon
as Ne Ling and he are married, Zo Lzmg and his mother-in-law become xzmuan to
each other, and dare never again call each other. by name, or have any avoidable
intercourse together. Polygamy is common, but no authentic instances are known of
cases of polyandry. . ine

To Ling makes a good husband and father from his own point of view. He _ helps
in the plantation work, though he generally lets the woman carry the burdens home, he
himself marching by her side, or just behind her with a spear and a tomahawk. When

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 12:

we
uw

his wife wants a fire he has usually to make it for her, and this he easily does by
rubbing a small piece of stick very rapidly along a shallow groove in a much larger
piece of wood. The woman cooks generally in the ordinary native oven, as they make
no pottery in New Britain, but when she is away, or unwell, Zo Leng will get dinner
for himself rather than go without any. He generally picks up a little of anything he
can get for breakfast, and is always ready for anything which may come in his way
during the day, but the principal meal is about 4 p.m., and consists ordinarily of yams,
taro or bananas, perhaps cooked with an oily nut or cocoa-nut juice, and occasionally
fish or grubs. They all chew the betel-nut, and say that it is most effectual in warding
off the feeling of hunger. When not in the plantation, Zo Lzxmg would generally be
found either in the
Duk Duk enclosure
gossiping, fishing,
mending a net, mak-
ing a fish-trap, en-
gaged in a dance, or
idling aimlessly about
the beach. There is
much quiet love ex-
isting between 7o
Ling and his wife,
though it would be
very improper for
him to show any of
this in public. Going
away on a long jour-
ney he will kiss his
relative, but not his
wife, and so also on
returning. He would

never dream of kis- »

sing her, or of mani-

A NEW BRITAIN CANNIBAL FAMILY.

"yo!

festing any particular
interest in her, but they love each other, and if she has no locket to wear with a lock of
To Ling’s hair, she will often wear one of the teeth which may have come out, and she
will treasure it when he has gone as lovingly as we do the mementoes of our loved ones.

If Zo Ling gets sick every doctor of note will be called in and be paid for by
his wife and her friends. The doctor, whose principal function is not to cure disease,
but to annul the powers of the charms and witchcraft which have certainly caused it,
will pray over the sick man, rub him with lime, and finish up by blowing lime upon
him, and away from him. Or he may perhaps say the prayers over a banana which
To Ling must eat, and so get the full benefit of the prayers; or he may say them
over a cup of cocoa-nut water which he must drink for the same purpose. If, however,

they wish to give a hot bath, they do this most effectually. A hole is dug and hot

1236 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

stones put in, which are laid upon and also covered over with green leaves. The patient
is then seated upon this, and closely packed with a kind of cloth made from the bark
of the bread-fruit tree. A cup of cold water is then poured down upon the hot stones,
and Zo Ling is held down by force in the full volume of the escaping steam. J

To Ling’s dress cannot be described, simply because he has none, but he often
wears a small branch of some croton, or a few dracena leaves, when dressed for a.
dance. The women on Meoko, strange to say, wear a fringe of dried banana leaf, and
the New Ireland women also wear two short tufts of flax fibre, but on the Duke of
York Island the women as well as the men are absolutely. nude. The weapons are
easily described. First, -and most generally used, is the spear. These are made of the
wood of the areca or other palm, and are generally carried in bundles of five; they
are rarely barbed, but are sometimes pointed with the bone of a cassowary. On New
Ireland the throwing end is balanced with a human leg-bone, generally that of some
enemy who has been killed and eaten by the owner.’ On New Britain the same practice
obtains, and a cassowary bone is also used for the same purpose. A large bunch of
beautifully arranged parrot feathers is also used as an adornment for the spear. Clubs
of various shapes are used, some of which have round stone heads. From the days of
his boyhood Zo Lzmg would be accustomed to the use of the sling, and he would
rarely travel far from home without a number of selected pebbles in his little basket.
The bow and arrow is not known among them as a weapon, though the boys use it -
as a toy; and shields are also so used. .

To Ling would never be called upon ‘as in the Eastern Polynesian groups to
furnish his share of great feasts, without any hope or expectation of payment.’ His ~
people have very few great feasts, and when a chief does kill a pig and invite his
friends, they all have to pay far more than the value of that which they receive.
Cannibalism can scarcely be considered as a social custom, but it certainly is undoubtedly
very common amongst them. There is a good deal of fear felt by many about it, and
To Ling would eat his first piece of human flesh very secretly and very quickly. They
will not eat food which has been brought in the same canoe with a dead body. When
one was being cut up for cooking they would keep their mouths shut, and would also
close the doors of their huts for fear the spirit of the dead man would enter into
them or their houses.

The money differs somewhat in the different islands, but the proportionate value is
well known. The principal money is called adzwara, and consists of small shells of the
cassis species strung on split vines. Taking a fathom of this as a standard of value, it
would be equal to a piece measured between the breasts, say nine inches of the smaller
money used on New Ireland. Every article, whether imported or otherwise, is valued
by its equivalent in déwara, and words exist, not only ‘for buying and selling, but for
lending, borrowing, pawning and redeeming the’ pledge, as also terms for interest, and
selling at a sacrifice. A chief will often lend his. shell-money at ten per cent. interest.

The people are not much troubled with foreign complications. They are in constant
feud with their neighbours in the next district. They have no common interest, and no
national life. Every little district is occupied with its own affairs, and the people will

readily join others who may have a grudge against their neighbours if they think there

INSULAR. AUSTRALASIA. . 1237

is anything to be made out. of the quarrel. When a war is decided upon, notice is
often sent to the other town to meet them on the boundary. A few spears are inter-
changed, and if anyone is hurt on either side it is generally sufficient for that day.
After hostilities are fairly begun, they simply wait for some opportunity to waylay and
attack each other. Peace-making is a much more interesting matter. The first proposals
are generally made by a neutral party. If both parties consent, they exchange plants of
a certain kind of dvacena, which are then planted on their respective lands. They meet
in force, challenge each other, and some of the leaders, after pretending to fight, stop
opposite to each other, and by a sudden twist break off the points of their spears,
which are held under the heel for that purpose. Hostages are interchanged, and _prepa-
rations made on both sides for a feast. The number of those killed on either side are
counted, and payment exchanged for each in diwara. The food brought by both parties
is mixed in one heap, and all eat together. They have no fear of treachery whilst this
peace-making is being carried on.
And now we may suppose that Zo Nee has well nigh lived his life. His religious
ideas have been faint and indistinct, and yet he has the intuitive perception of good and
bad, of right and wrong, as he has also the consciousness of inferiority to some higher
power, ‘the instinct of worship, and the feeling after God if haply he may find Him.
His idea of wrong-doing is to be mean, to thieve, to commit adultery or incest, to
fight without just cause, to murder, to accuse falsely, and to quarrel. If Zo Leng,
when feeling that death is near, desires to see again the old familiar places where he
has lived his life, his friends take him to look for the last time at the beach on
which he played when a lad, along the once accustomed paths, to his plantation, back
again to the tareyu, or sacred ground, where he was first initiated into the Duk Duk
_ mysteries, then to the boundary ground where he had so often fought, and then home
again to die. His death is announced to all the village by the piteous wailings of
relatives and friends. After death he is washed and oiled and painted, as though he
were to take part in some great feast or ceremony. All his relatives and friends who
wish to honour him bring their coils of money, beads, and other valuables, and place them
before him, or by his side. They do this, no doubt, that he may take it all with him
= to the spirit-land, and so be a wealthy man there. It is, of course, only the spirit of
the property which he can take with him, and so long as they retain the substance
; they are quite satisfied that he should take the remainder. As each man _ takes back
his property again, he breaks off a little from each article, and burns it in the fire
_ which is always kept burning near the corpse, and the friends have to pay for the
a compliment. As to where Zo Ling has gone, and especially as to whether he stays
there all the time or not, his friends are not clear in their views. For some time after
“death the spirit is supposed tobe somewhere about the place where he lived, though
he must also have been to matana nion (spirit-land) for a visit at all events. Their
ideas about this land, however, are very confused, as they will also tell us that the
ts live in the caves and rocks, that the good ones have plenty of good things to
and are happy, that the bad ones have to eat filth, and are miserable. They had
vague idea of a Superior Being, xara-?-tara-dat, which is Nara, who made us all, or
( _ who made us all. They have also traditions of the Creation, which was the

1238 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.
work of a woman, who was afterwards aided by her two sons; but their religion is
principally spirit-worship and fear.

The Wesleyan Missionary- Society began mission work in the year 1875. Since
that time the Mission has been carried on by fresh supplies of Fijian, Tongan and
Samoan native agents, under the constant supervision of European missionaries. The
missionaries and teachers have all suffered much from the unhealthiness of the climate,
and several of them have died; but the most critical time in the Mission history was
when an ordained Fijian minister and three Fijian teachers were barbgrously murdered
inland of Blanche Bay in New Britain, by the very men who had invited them to visit
them, and assured them of their safety in so doing. This catastrophe threatened the
destruction of the Mission, and the murder of the European traders with the remaining
teachers and their families. The natives were thoroughly demoralized by the success of
their attempt, and undoubtedly intended to add all other foreign residents to the list of
victims. A determined stand was, however, made by’ the missionary, the few white resi-
dents, and the teachers, aided by a large number of friendly natives who were them-
selves grievously insulted and injured by the murder of their teachers. The skulls and
and bones of the murdered men were obtained in the houses from which the natives
had fled on the approach of the expedition which was formed; the huts of the ,people
were burnt by the friendly natives, and some of the murderers were killed. The towns
implicated in the affair at once made submission, and confessed to the wrong which they
had committed, a reconciliation was effected, and in two or three days the matter was
ended. The natives fully admitted the guilt of their, action, and highly appreciated the
leniency with which they were treated. There is little doubt that great ultimate good
has resulted from that painful incident. The towns implicated are all on the most
friendly terms with the missionaries and the traders, and both parties reside among them
in perfect safety. The returns from the district for the year 1890, show that forty-one
churches have been built by the natives, of whom five thousand one hundred and sixty-
six are attendants on public worship. There are thirty-nine day and Sabbath schools,
with an attendance of one thousand two hundred and _ forty-eight, many of whom can
now read and write fluently, and are well acquainted with the first rules of arithmetic.
There are six hundred and fifty-seven church members, thirty-six of whom are employed —
as lay preachers and teachers, and one hundred and ninety-two on trial for membership.
The Mission staff at present consists of two European missionaries and their wives, with
thirty-nine native teachers from the Fijian, Samoan and Tongan Groups. The _ influence
of the Mission is principally felt in the northern extremity of New Britain, the Duke of
York Group, and the west coast of New Ireland where the stations are situated.

In the early part of 1880, an attempt to colonize New Ireland was made by a
French expedition sent by the Marquis de Rays, under the command of Captain

McLaughlin. They landed first at Port Praslin, but soon removed to a small bay, —

which they called Likilikii They were landed from the ship Chandernagore with a con-
siderable quantity of stores, but the vessel sailed away very suddenly, leaving the leader
of the expedition, and without having landed some of the most essential articles. The
colonists were soon attacked by the prevailing fever, and as they were without medicine,
they suffered very severely. Many of them were also afflicted with dysentery and

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1239

ulcerous sores. They soon became disorganized, and nothing but work absolutely neces-
sary for safety or shelter was attempted. Several attempts were made to get to the
Mission Station at Port Hunter; and at length a party of three men succeeded in
reaching the house of the teacher at New Ireland, who brought them across to the
Mission Station. A relief party was at once organized, which found the colonists in a
state of great misery and suffering, and in a short time about forty-five of the people
were landed at the Mission Station. The resources of the establishment were most

severely taxed by this large influx, especially as most of them were sick and required

SHELLING A NATIVE VILLAGE IN THE SOUTH SEAS.

great attention. Seven of them died on the Station, a few engaged themselves as
traders, and the remainder were taken back to New Ireland, and thence to Sydney.
Several other vessels containing large numbers of Italians and persons of other nationali-
ties followed, 2 but no permanent settlement was made, and the wild bush has again
taken possession of the few plots of land which were cleared by the luckless colonists
of these unfortunate expeditions. The principal trading stations now existing in the
New Britain Group are those of Messrs. Hernsheim and Co. on Matupit, Mrs. Forsaith
on Ralaun, and the German South Sea Land and Plantation Company, whose head
station is on Meoko, in the Duke of York Group. Large quantities of copra, tortoise-
shell and other South Sea Island products are collected and exported from the Group,

but no trustworthy statistics can at present be obtained.

THE SOLOMON GROUP.

j HIS fine Group lies between five degrees and ten degrees fifty-three minutes south

latitude, and one hundred and fifty-four degrees thirty minutes and one hundred
and sixty-two degrees twenty-eight minutes east longitude. It consists of a double chain
of islands extending for over six hundred miles, most of which are yet imperfectly
surveyed, whilst the interior is very little known. The principal islands in the south
chain are Santa Anna, San Christoval, Guadalcanar, Savo, Russell Island and the Short-

1240 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

land Group. In the northern Group are Ulaua, Malayta, Florida, Isabel, Choiseul,
Bougainville and Bouka. Most of the islands. are mountainous, and all are thickly
wooded. In Bougainville, the mountains are ten thousand feet high, and in Guadalcanar
they attain an elevation of eight thousand feet. An active voleano exists on Bougain-
ville. These islands were discovered by Alvaro de Mendafia in the year 1567, but for
two hundred years after that they were lost to the world, and very many indeed
doubted their existence. Mendafia failed to find them again on his second voyage in
1595, and died at Santa Cruz. Fernandez de Quiros, who had been with him on his
first voyage, was chief pilot on this second expedition, and afterwards sailed in command
of another expedition in 1605, but he also failed. Roggewein, the Dutch navigator, was
also unsuccessful in 1722 in his search for this lost Group, which defeated the quest
of these adventurous mariners like the fabled Hy-Brasil of the early dreamers. Captain
Carteret in the Swadlow, sighted some of the Islands in 1767, but was not aware that
he had discovered the long-lost islands of Mendafia? In 1768, Bougainville, the French
navigator, discovered Choiseul, Bougainville and Bouka. Surville, in 1769, made several
discoveries in the Group, but failed to identify the Islands as those originally discovered
by Mendafia, and in 1788, Lieutenant Shortland sailed along the south side of the
Group, and named several islands, headlands and mountains, but it was reserved for the
-patient investigation of geographers, notably M. Buache, in 1781, and M. Fleurieu, in.
1790, to prove the identity of the discoveries of Bougainville, Surville, Shortland and.
_ others, with the Solomon Islands of Mendafia. The after voyagers who added to the
knowledge supplied by the first discoverers were Lieutenant Ball in the Supply, in —
1790; Captain Bower in the Aemarle, in 1791; Captain Manning in the ship P2éé,
in 1792; and Admiral d’Entrecasteaux in the same year. During the first half of the
present century, in addition perhaps to an occasional whaler or trading ship, the
principal visitors were Captain Morrell in the Margaret Oakley, in 1834; Dumont
d'Urville in 1838; Sir Edward Belcher in A.AZ.S. Sulphur, in 1840; and Mr. Boyd in
the yacht Wanderer, in 1851. ‘Mr. Boyd was killed at Wanderer Bay, in Guadalcanar.
In 1847, Monseigneur Espalle, a French Roman Catholic bishop, was landed on Isabel,
but was killed by the natives, as were also three French missionaries on the Island
of San Christoval in the same year. ; a i. wi, ae
The importance of this group to Australia in the not very distant future can scarcely
be exaggerated. Many of the islands are very large and contain extensive tracts of
very fertile lands. On the north-west end of the Island of Guadalcanar there are large
plains of well-watered lands, stretching far inland to the base of the lofty range in the
centre of the Island. This land would unquestionably be very suitable for the growth
of the sugar-cane, or any other tropical productions. The Island is reported also to be
very rich in minerals, but as it has never yet been explored this is at present very
little more than conjecture. Copper, however, has long been known to exist on San
Christoval. The appearance of the Group on the charts gives little idea of the large
number of islands and islets of which it is composed. A traveller coasting along the
shores of San Christoval, then entering Marau Sound on Guadaleanar, then voyaging up
the north side of that splendid Island, leaving the large Island of Malayta and the
Florida Group to the right, sailing through the Russell, Rubeana (New Georgia), Villa

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1241

Lavella, Treasury, Shortland, and other Groups, would pass by a pretty large number of
i beautiful islands of ever varying shape and size, many of them quite uninhabited, and
yet he would then have seen only a small part of the great Solomon Group, The
extent and beauty of many of the islands in the Russell and Rubeana Groups can only
be appreciated by those who, in some small steamer or sailing vessel, have traversed
| > the deep, still, land-locked water-ways which separate these lovely islands. There are few
places which present to the eye so many attractions to the explorer or to the yachtsman
as this little known but most beautiful Group. The large islands have all a high moun-

tain range in the interior, which is generally nearer to the south side than to the

, Cle

A NATIVE DANCE BY SOLOMON ISLANDERS.
From a Sketch by Mr. T. C Kerry.

northern one, so that the land is steeper and more broken on the southern side. The
island is generally densely wooded from the very lap of the sea to the top of
the range. On the south side the mountains often rise abruptly from the beach, with
jagged and broken summits, and intersected with deep gullies and ravines which seem
to terminate in many instances inland at the base of steep peaks, on the sides of
which land-slips are plainly visible. Many small streams and rivers will be found, the
large beds of which show that a great volume of water must find its way down them
in the rainy season. On the northern side the land is generally more sloping, and often
comparatively flat near the coast, whilst the thick brush is often broken by large tracts
of open country covered with thick coarse grass. The climate is very enervating and

unhealthy, especially during the rainy season. It is probable, however, that after the

1242 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.
system becomes acclimatized comparatively good health may be enjoyed with ordinary
care. At all events, some of the traders resident in the Group have been able to remain
there for a considerable number of years. The rain-fall is very heavy, and few vessels
will get through the Group, especially during the north-west monsoon, without ex-
periencing some of the drenching rain-storms which are so characteristic of these Islands.
The annual rain-fall on the coast is about one hundred and fifty inches, and on the higher
lands of the large Island it is probably at least double that amount. The range of
temperature is not great, being only about twenty degrees. The maximum is not more
than ninety-eight degrees, but seldom, if ever, lower than seventy degrees. The mean
temperature for the year will be about eighty-one degrees or eighty-two degrees. The
south-east trade-winds are fairly regular from May to November. During the intervening
months the north-west winds prevail, and are often accompanied by very severe squalls
and much rain, but there are no hurricanes as in the eastern groups. It may be
noticed that the general opinion .of old residents and sailors here, as in Eastern Poly-
nesia also, is that the trade-winds are not at all so regular now as they were observed
to be some years ago. ;

The formation of most of the Islands, so far as is known, is light-gray coralline

limestone, overlying, in many places, a base of old volcanic rock. The whole region seems

to be one of upheaval, and a close observation of some of the features of the Islands —

recently made by Dr. Guppy, of A.JZ.S. Lark, have apparently confirmed those made
by Dr. Murray, of AM7.S. Challenger, and others, which go far to disprove the general
applicability of the theory of Darwin as to the process by which coral, islands have been
formed. On Treasury Island the coral is found encrusted upon a volcanic peak which
has been raised more than a thousand feet, and at Santa Anna the rim of the atoll
has been raised some hundreds of feet above the present sea-level. The same forma-
tions are also to be found in the large islands of New Britain and New Ireland. The
only true chalk yet found south of the Equator has been met with in the latter of
these islands. It is cut out of the hill-sides inland, and far above the present
level of the sea.

The people are of the sub-Papuan race, but vary a good deal in appearance in the

different islands. The general characteristics, however, are: average height of men, five —

feet four inches, the women being about five feet; colour, a sooty-brownish black ; hair
tufted generally, but sometimes crispy; projecting brows with deeply sunk eyes, short
nose depressed at root, thickish lips, and a receding chin. The men are bright and
intelligent, learn to speak English readily, and when away from home make good

workers. The women have pleasing features when young, but soon lose their good looks —

as they grow older. The chiefs have no absolute power as in Eastern Polynesia, nor
is the title hereditary. A son does not necessarily succeed his father as chief. If he
has plenty of money, and possesses many bewitching spells, and is also a brave or
cunning warrior, he will succeed to the position, but not otherwise. Gorai, of the Short-
land Group, is perhaps the only chief in the Solomons whose power or influence is like
that possessed by an Eastern Polynesian chief. Cannibalism is practised amongst most
of the tribes. The origin of the custom cannot be attributed to the scarcity of animal

food.. The natives eat the bodies of their enemies principally because they thus gratify

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA.

1243

their feelings of revenge, or proclaim their victory.

In many cases also they thus

discharge an obligation which they owe to the spirit of. some one or more of their

A SOLOMON ISLANDER.

friends who may have been killed by members of the tribe to which the victim belonged.

Bodies are also eaten when a new Zamdbu House is finished.

The houses are well built

1244 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

of bamboo, cocoa-nut or areca palm, and are about twenty-five or thirty feet in length,
by a breadth of fifteen or thirty feet, and about eight or ten feet in height. In some
villages the houses are built on piles, and so raised about six feet from the ground.
The Zaméu House, however, is the largest and most important house in the village.
It is generally about sixty feet in length, and twenty or twenty-five feet wide. Women
are forbidden to enter it, the war-canoes are kept there, and skulls of ordinary men
and the dead bodies of chiefs are also placed in it. It is always ornamented and carved
with representations of sharks, canoes, human: and other figures, and sometimes a fancy
carving is made of the demi-god himself.

Head-hunting is the principal cause of the raids which are periodically made upon
the large islands. Isabel has suffered more than others from this cause, and some
horrible stories are told of the outrages which are committed on these occasions. The
custom has its. origin, doubtless, in much the same reason as that which makes a
North American Indian estimated by the. number of scalps hanging at his girdle. A
man in the Solomons is praised and feared in proportion to the number of heads that
adorn his house. It is also another instance of the wide-spread Papuan ‘custom that
_ requires human sacrifices on great occasions, such as the building of a house or the launch-
ing of a canoe, in order to propitiate the spiritual powers and to make the house strong,
or the canoe successful. The custom of human sacrifices -was very prevalent in Fiji in
the olden days. In Isabel Island, where the natives have suffered most from the visits
of the head-hunters, the need of protecting themselves from these raids has caused them —
to build tree-houses. One of the best descriptions of a house of this ‘kind, is that given
by the Reverend Mr. Penny. He says, “The tree in which the house was built -
must have been one hundred and fifty feet high. The lower branches had been cut
away, leaving a bare straight stem below the platform on which the house was _ built,
eighty feet from the ground. It was reached by a ladder.” He was much surprised at
the skill and neatness which the construction of the house displayed. The floor—smooth,
flat, and perfectly clean—was made of split bamboos closely plaited; these had been
laid on a layer of soft bark which again rested on the wood-work of the platform. The
side walls were made of bamboos firmly lashed together, and the roof was _ thatched
with the leaves of the sago-palm. A heap of sand on which to make a fire was kept
in its place by a ruck of stones, and yams and water were stored in the house. The
interior measured thirty feet, by fifteen feet wide. Forty people had once taken refuge
there. When an enemy appears the women and children go up into these houses, where
they are followed by the men if they have to flee from a superior force. Then they
throw down large stones on the heads of the enemy. A _ large pile of these stones is
always kept in readiness for defence on the platform outside.

The clothing of the natives is of very scanty description, The men generally wear
only the small “T” bandage, and the women fringes of flax, which vary in length and —
quantity in the different islands. In many of the villages, however, the print or calico
waist-cloth is now used. Their ornaments consist of armlets made of plaited grass or _
fern tissue, which are often neatly plaited in different colours and patterns; shell armlets
of different sizes, which are also used as money; necklaces made of the teeth of dogs,

porpoises, fruit-eating bats and phalangers; frontlets of cowrie shells, and almost anything

INSULAR AUSTRALASTA. 1245

which can be worked up and worn as an ornament. The men generally appropriate
everything of this kind for themselves.

The money of the Group consists of the large and small shell armlets, and strings
made of pieces of shell ground down into very small rings, which are drilled and
threaded. Ten yards of this will purchase a wife in Florida.) The small money made
in New Ireland is not much larger than small beads. It is much valued in the eastern
islands of the Solomons. The weapons consist of bows and arrows, spears, clubs and
tomahawks, The arrows are made of reeds, with a fore-shaft of hard heavy palm-wood
inserted into the reed. During the attack upon the steam-ship Azpp/e, at Bougainville,
one of these arrows, which was shot from a canoe some distance from the ship, pierced
the steam-pipe, making a clean hole right through on both sides. The bows are from
six to seven feet in length. A small shield is also used for defensive purposes. Food
is plentiful, and consists of yams, aro, cocoa-nuts, bananas and other tropical fruit. A
fine nut, known for trading purposes by the name of the almond-nut, is much used, and
will doubtless be largely exported, as it produces a very fine clear oil. It is probably
a species of the Malay Canarium.

| The principal articles of export are copra, tortoise-shell, déche-de-mer and ivory-nuts.
_ Pearl-shell has been found, but not in sufficient quantities to employ professional divers
for any considerable period. The principal trade is carried on by vessels trading from
_ Sydney and Fiji. The Melanesian Mission occupies stations in some of the eastern
islands, principally Florida) The Group has not been annexed by any of the Great
Powers, but there is an agreement between Germany and Great Britain that in the
; western part German influence shall predominate, whilst the eastern islands of the
Solomon Archipelago: shall be subject to the supervision of English official authority, and
thus practically constitute the British Possessions in this Group.

THE NEW HEBRIDES.

ace HIS group of islands, thirty in number, is situated between fourteen degrees twenty
, minutes to twenty degrees sixteen ~ minutes south latitude, and one hundred and
ty-five degrees forty minutes to one hundred and seventy degrees thirty minutes east
tude, almost directly between Fiji and Northern Queensland. The Islands extend
four hundred miles from south-south-east to north-north-west. In 1606 they were
ered by the Spanish navigator, De Quiros, who thought that he had found the
ner: Continent. He sighted the most northerly island, and anchored in a large
in the north-west. Circumstances prevented him from making further exploration,
he landed, fixed the site of a city to be called “New Jerusalem,” and named the
Tierra Austrialia del Espiritu Santo.” Bougainville, in 1768, proved the Continent
Quiros to be an island, and discovered several others. But it was reserved to
at English navigator, Captain Cook, to discover the remaining islands of the
in 1774, when on his: second voyage to Polynesia. He spent forty-six days in
through the Islands, to most of which he gave the names, chiefly from native
which they bear on the maps, and he called the whole Group the New
s He gave a very accurate description of the Islands and of the natives in his

1246 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. |

“Voyages.” Little was added to the geography of the New Hebrides till Captain
Belcher, in //.4Z.S. Sulphur, sailed among them in 1840, and Captain (afterwards
Admiral) Erskine, in 1849, discovered Havannah Harbour. Captain Denham, in /A7.AZS.
Herald, made a surveying cruise in 1833-4, of which the charted results proved of great
value to succeeding voyagers.

The New Hebrides are volcanic islands, though situated between two of the largest
coral groups. Volcanoes must have existed on almost all, as several show burnt-out
craters, and all have volcanic rock. There are still three active volcanoes. Sailing from
the south, the volcano on Tanna is a conspicuous object, with its pillar of cloud by
day and its pillar of fire by night. It is the light-house to mariners. In the north,
the conical Island of Lopevi and the mountainous Island of Ambrym have active_
volcanoes.» The line of volcanic action is exactly in the direction of the Group, and
extends towards Banks Islands. There are fringing reefs of coral on most of the Islands,
but no extensive surrounding reef, as the heat from volcanic action is destructive to
the coral zoéphyte.. The volcanic soil is rich and deep, and yields excellent crops of
tropical fruits. The yams of Tanna are said to be among the largest in the Pacific.

There are several excellent harbours in the New Hebrides. In Aneityum there is
the harbour of Anelgauhat, which has been surveyed by Her Majesty’s ships, and of
which a chart has been published. Dillon’s Bay, in the north-west of Eromanga, is a
safe anchorage. Fila Harbour, in Efate, affords large accommodation, and’on the north
is Havannah Harbour, a fine sheet of deep water seven miles long and two or three
miles broad, almost land-locked by two islands which protect it. The entrance winds
between high verdure-clad cliffs, while, farther up, the land lies in densely-wooded flats
over which the inland mountains loom in the distance. Its great drawback as a harbour
is its extraordinary depth, most of it being about fifty fathoms deep, so that there is
practically no anchorage except close in shore. Mallicollo has a good port, and in
Espiritu Santo- is St. Philip's Bay, already described. The land rises to a great height
on most of the Islands, and mountain ranges, wooded to their peaks, run through them,
separated by vales of great beauty and fertility. :

The natives of the New Hebrides are Papuan of a low type, with woolly hair.
They present a striking contrast to the natives of Eastern Polynesia both in colour and
in hair. They are coffee-coloured. Their manners and customs differ little from those of
other Papuans, and even of other Polynesians. They were cannibals, and constantly
fighting with each other until the missionary operations introduced more humane and
pacific life among them. The population has long been rapidly declining by reason of
their barbarous practices, their narrow limits of inter-marriage, by disease and deportations
by the labour trade. Few children are born, and women are only sixty per cent. to
the men. Though the estimate is’ conjectural, it is believed that there are not quite
one hundred thousand in the whole Group.

The physique of the natives is small, but it improves in advancing towards the
north, where also is seen a marked progress in barbaric art, alike in canoes, huts and
unglazed pottery. In a few places, as in Futuna, Aniwa and in Fila Harbour, there
are evident affinities to more Eastern races—with this peculiarity, that the marks now

are more in the survival of Eastern forms of speech there than in physical difference.

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA.

1247

There is no part of the world where there are so many languages within so small an

area, or among so few people.

There are at least twenty distinct forms of speech,

though the Efatese language has various dialects in six or seven contiguous islands. On

some islands two, and even
three differing tongues have
been found. The words are
hard, long and full of con-
_ sonants. Every syllable does
not end in a vowel as in the
Maori language. There are
four numbers, single, dual,
trinal and plural, and a double
we, called by grammarians “ we
inclusive,” and “ we exclusive.”
Perhaps the labours of modern
philologists may disclose a
common origin of this polyglot
speech. Many students of com-
parative grammar are now at
work, and means are provided
for them in the forty Mela-
nesian tongues lately published
by the Rev. Dr. Codrington,
‘and twelve more added by
missionaries in the New
Hebrides. The verbs are some-
thing like the Hebrew in their
moods, as Bishop Paterson
pointed out some time ago.
The natives reckon by fives,
and find it difficult to go
beyond the number of fingers
and toes.

The seasons on the New
Hebrides may be divided into
wet and dry, as is common
in tropical lands. The wet
season lasts from December to
April, when the sun is vertical
and rains are abundant. The
hydrometer then indicates a
perfectly saturated atmosphere.
The dry season extends over

eight months, when rain is

AN
WN; 4
tie! 4

HEBRIDES.

NEW

From a Sketch by Lieutenant Field, H.M.S. “Nelson.”

HAVANNAH HARBOUR,

1248 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

less frequent. The climate is not healthy, and induces fever and ague, though this is not
so much felt by natives as by foreigners, European and Polynesian. Care has therefore
to be taken to select heights for residences. The natives suffer from elephantiasis and skin
diseases, from phthisis and from rheumatism. Foreign diseases, introduced by sailors, have
occasionally made great havoc among them—as well as leading to the massacre of foreigners,
and retaliation for the outrages thus caused inflicted on themselves by ships of war.

The most southerly island is Aneityum, which is. mountainous and wooded, with
ravines of verdure and beauty. Kauri pine and other good timbers grow in the interior,
and at one time sandal-wood was plentiful. Fifty years ago the people were fierce
cannibals, always engaged in fighting, and every woman was strangled on the death of
her husband. ‘The climate,” says Mr. Brenchly in his “Cruise of the Cwragoa,” ‘is
humid, in general agreeable, and to those that are careful, not unhealthy. The ther-
mometer has never fallen below fifty-eight degrees, seldom below sixty-two degrees, while
it has never risen above ninety-two degrees, and seldom exceeds eighty-nine in the
shade.” The same careful observer says. that there are no venomous reptiles on the
Island, but there are some large snakes. Many whales visit the coast in the winter
season, and whalers had for a time establishments on the Island. The population is
now scarcely one thousand. Tanna, fifty miles north-west, is a fine island, diversified
with hill and dale, and with a table-land toward the north, It is thirty miles long by
nine to twelve broad. The most conspicuous object is Yasur, the volcano, six hundred
feet high, with a crater about two hundred feet deep, and very wide, so that its stones
thrown up generally fall back into the fire. There is a large deposit of sulphur, which
may be valuable to commerce. The natives of Tanna are of a dark coffee colour,
slender, but firm and active. They have been found excellent workers in Queensland
and Fiji, for which places many have left their homes. The population is thus
diminished, and scarcely reaches five thousand. In this Island earthquakes are frequently
felt, and have within the last twenty: years nearly blocked up the formerly good harbour
of Port Resolution, by the elevation of the rock.

The island of Eromanga is seventy-five miles in circumference, and shaped like
a triangle. It has mountains and elevated tablelands. It was formerly noted for its
sandal-wood, which “was almost entirely destroyed by traders for export to China. This
formed a matter of constant irritation to the natives, and many lives, both of white
men and black, perished in the trade. The population is now not more ,than two
thousand five hundred. The island of Efate, or Sandwich, is also about seventy-five
miles in circumference, and diversified in scenery. Its terraced lawns, as they rose before
the eye of Captain Cook, on approaching them from the north, seemed full of beauty.
This Island is also fertile, and has been the chief centre of European settlement. Malli-
collo, to the north, is sixty miles‘long and one hundred and sixty in circumference. It
has hilly ranges running north and south, thickly covered with timber. In the centre of
the Group is a cluster of smaller islands, which Captain Cook called “The Shepherd
Isles,” after his distinguished friend, Dr. Thomas Shepherd, the Professor of Astronomy
at Cambridge. The Island of Api, to the north-west of these, is triangular, with its
base towards the north-east. It is rich and fertile, and one of the finest in the Group.

Ambrym is sixty miles in circumference and nearly square. Its central elevation is three

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1249

- thousand five hundred feet, and the mountains are grand and picturesque. The volcano
is active, and clouds of dust fall many miles at sea around. Aoba to the north is
mountainous, -with fine water-falls and beautiful scenery. The same may be said of
Maiwo, Bougainville discovered it at day-break in 1768, and gave it the name of Aurora.
The largest island of the Group is Espiritu Santo, which is seventy miles long by forty
in breadth. Its mountain ranges are magnificent, some of them being, it is said, five
thousand feet high. It is well-watered, and rich in vegetation. The natives are, perhaps,
the finest both in physique and in art, but they are inveterate cannibals.

Missionary operations began among the New Hebrides in 1839, when the apos-
tolic John Williams perished in his attempt to introduce teachers on Eromanga. In
1842, Messrs. Turner and Nisbet settled on, Tanna, but, after many hardships, had

to flee for their lives in an open boat. In 1848, the Rev. John Geddie settled on

A LABOUR VESSEL SHIPPING KANAKAS,

Aneityum, and in 1852 was joined by the Rev. John Inglis. In the course of twelve
years, the whole Island became Christian, with fifty schools, under as many teachers,
a large staff of elders and deacons, and the New Testament in print. In ten
years more the Old Testament was printed, and the Shorter Catechism, an abridged
“Pilgrim's Progress,” Hymns, and a vocabulary were published. The natives paid for the
printing of the Scriptures by contributions of arrowroot. In 1887, from this Island alone
five thousand pounds of arrowroot, refined as that of Bermuda, were sent to the market.
_ On Eromanga three missionaries perished by the violence of the people, but at length
the Rev. H. A. Robertson has the whole Island covered by a_net-work of teachers,
“natives of the Island’ and Christian converts, and he ministers in a church at Dillon's
erected to the memory .of the martyrs, where nearly two hundred are communicants.
Aiwa, a low coral island, with a small population, was evangelized by the labours of
the Rev. J. G. Paton. Efate is nearly Christianized, and many of the people have
been taught to read and writee On Nguna there is a large band of Christian people
who assemble in a neat church, On several of the other islands there are resident

1250 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

missionaries, and schools are in operation under two hundred native teachers. Transla-
tions of the Holy Scriptures, in whole or in part, have been made, and printed in ten
languages. The Mission is Presbyterian, and now has nearly twenty resident missionaries

in the Islands. The Melanesian Mission of the Anglican Church, which pioneered the

g
work on the northern islands, still operates on Aoba, Aragha and Maiwo on the north
coast, and Bishop Selwyn has had several young men from these Islands in his institu-
tion at Norfolk Island. Recently Roman Catholic missionaries have settled at Mallicollo and
other Islands in the
north-west of the
Group. They insist
on the natives learn-
ing French, The
other missionaries
do not, as a rule,
teach English, but
use the native
languages.

Trade first began
in sandal-wood.

The labour traffic

then swept the

Islands for recruits

IN THE HOLD OF A SOUTH SEA LABOUR VESSEL.

for the sugar plan-
tations in Fiji and Queensland. Settlers in some Islands attempted to introduce trade
among the Islanders, but till missionary work prospered they did not want clothes,

ged their produce for tobacco, guns and ammunition, fish-hooks, knives

and only exchang

and beads. The French New Hebrides Company has recently acquired extensive
tracts of land near convenient harbours, and has promoted a brisk trade in copra,
béche-de-mer and other things. The Company bought out most of the English
settlers. The colonists in New Caledonia then began to desire the annexation of the
Group by the French Government and the employment of convicts there. A_ amili-
tary post was actually set up near Havannah Harbour, under the excuse that the
French subjects who had settled there stood in need of protection. The natives,
however, did not like this, and Australian colonists, who had already objected to the
further sending of recidivistes to New Caledonia, many of whom escaped to the main-
land, strongly protested against the military occupation of. Havannah Harbour as a step
towards the eventual establishment of a permanent settlement on the part of the French.
Those interested also feared for the safety of the British Missions, and disapproved of
the violation of the existing agreement, by which the English Government and France

both agreed to abstain from establishing a dominion in these Islands. After long and

anxious diplomacy, the French and British Governments agreed to appoint a mixed
commission of naval officers to jointly administer justice and protect European interests,
and the French troops were in consequence withdrawn.

An Australasian New Hebrides Company has been recently formed for the purpose

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1251

of purchasing land, promoting settlement and trade in the Islands, and for, securing
British commercial interests. An agent of the Company is resident on the Group, A
saw-mill company has for some time been established on Aneityum, and has been doing
a-considerable amount of business. There are large forests of timber, especially on the
northern islands. The planters, both French and British, have found difficulty in hiring

labourers. While many Islanders have gone to

Queensland, few are willing to be hired in their own

places. The French settlers have introduced natives
from the Solomon Islands and other groups, but
regulations are wanting regarding such arrangements
on the part of British
subjects.

Life is now com-
paratively safe on these
Islands. Steam com-
munication has _ been
established with Aus-
tralia. The Govern-
ment of New South
Wales, with the ap-
proval of the Legisla-
ture, has given a sub-

A TRADING DEPOT IN THE SOUTH SEAS. sidy, not only to aid

the maintenance of a

monthly steam-service .between a port in the Islands and the colony, but also to assist in
keeping a steamer sailing throughout the Islands, and conveying passengers and trade to
meet the colonial line. This has been of great advantage to traders; and _ the
Presbyterian Mission has in consequence sold the schooner which conveyed stores every
half-year from the colonies to the missionaries, and cruised among the mission stations
"on the Islands. The contract with the Steam Navigation Company to do all the work
5 of the Mission has not involved much more outlay than was required to maintain the
schooner, while the communication between the colonies and the mission stations has
been made more frequent. The French colony of New Caledonia has also a steam
service between Noumea and the New Hebrides, while the Messageries Maritimes,
iP “subsidized by the French Government, have a steamer going monthly from Sydney to
Noumea. The Australasian United Steam Navigation Company, which has the colonial
~ Government subsidy, besides sending a steam-ship to the New Hebrides monthly o7é
Noumea and on to Fiji, has established fortnightly communication with Fiji, and has
also arranged to call at a port in the New Hebrides on. the return voyage. These
: - facilities for travel and for commerce have induced settlers to establish themselves on

the Group with the hope of security to property and life. Some serious difficulties have

an authorized registry of title deeds to land purchased from the natives. Several years
_ ago it was reported that the High Commissioner of the Western Pacific appointed by

AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

“
is)
ur

the British Crown would be authorized to register deeds of property acquired by British
subjects in the Islands over which his commission extended, especially as there was no
single chief who ruled even one island. This was, after consideration, forbidden by the
British Government. It was next expected that the Consul appointed to reside in the
New Hebrides, especially as he was a Deputy Commissioner, would register titles, but
even the Consul was unfortunately withdrawn. The British Consul at Noumea has, we
understand, some care of British interests in the New Hebrides; but it is not a satis-
factory arrangement; there ought to be one resident on the Islands. British subjects are
at a serious disadvantage, though the joint commission of French and British naval com-
manders has some authority to adjudicate in cases of disputed title. This was formerly
the case when British naval ships visited the Islands. But it is hoped that a registry
may be established. Another difficulty has arisen from the unequal action in trade of
the French and British Authorities. The French Government allows traffic with the
natives in fire-arms and intoxicating liquors. The British Government forbids both, The
sale of spirits to the natives ought to be prohibited by all civilized Governments to
their subjects trading in the South Seas. With regard to fire-arms the case is different.
Internecine warfare is growing less as European settlements spread, and as missionary
work takes effect. There is not so great a tendency now to attack traders or settlers,
as the visits of ships of war are more frequent. Besides, gun-shot wounds are probably
less to be dreaded than wounds from poisoned arrows, for it has recently been proved
that the arrows are dipped in some telluric poison, which causes ¢efanus. The Islanders
in the less civilized parts will not sell land except they get payment in muskets and
ammunition. Thus, while the French New Hebrides Company could purchase largely
because they could give muskets in exchange, the Australasian New Hebrides Company
and other British settlers were refused because they could not legally offer fire-arms as
purchase money. This has been very discouraging to British trade. The New Hebrides
Mission Synod adopted the following resolution with reference to the forementioned dif-
ficulties :—‘ This Synod, being of opinion that the time has now arrived when it would be
conducive to the civilization of the natives of the New Hebrides, especially of those who
have already embraced Christianity, that British subjects should be encouraged to settle
in this Group as traders and planters, and that the present laws affecting this Group
are so inadequate and unequal as to deter the most desirable class of colonists from
settling in. this Group, strongly urges that the Imperial Government be moved to
provide that British subjects in the New Hebrides may be enabled to obtain legal titles
to their lands, and also enabled lawfully to engage the natives of one island of this
Group to labour upon another. This Synod is further of opinion that the prohibition
of the sale of fire-arms and ammunition to natives of this Group, at present laid
exclusively upon British subjects, should either be rescinded or applied universally to the
subjects of all nationalities.” ;

The facilities and restrictions to trade ought to be equalized by the great countries
which are joint protectors of the Group. Representations have been made on the part of
traders and of missionaries to some of the Australian Governments on this subject. In
the colony of Victoria it has led to action, and both Houses of the Legislature and the

Melbourne Chamber of Commerce have passed resolutions on the subject. When the

_- ee ete eee

INSULAR AUSTRALASTA. 125

# i)
Ww

Federal Council assembled at Hobart, the chief interest of the meeting centred
in the debate on the resolution with reference to the New Hebrides, submitted
by the Attorney-General of Victoria. The Council was unanimous in agreeing to that
part of the resolutions which affected the restrictions on the traffic with the natives in
liquor and fire-arms. The proposed political federation of the Australasian colonies may
have to deal with this matter, if it be not settled by the mutual arrangement of

France and England. It is natural to expect that another difficulty will cause even

NATIVE DRUMS IN THE NEW HEBRIDES.

more interest, if not alarm. Indeed, it has been felt for some years that a great
danger menaces Australia from the deportation of the worst kind of convicts from
France to New Caledonia. Some of these when the terms of their sentences have expired,
and others when they make their escape, land upon Australian shores. It is well known
that hundreds have already found their way to the chief cities of Australia on the
eastern coast, and that some have committed crimes. A request has also been made by
French settlers in the New Hebrides to be allowed to hire convicts to labour on the
Islands. The French Senate actually passed a law authorizing the transportation of one
hundred thousand of the worst convicts to New Caledonia. When the great outcry
arose from the Australian colonies against this, it was not carried out. But subsequently
a law was passed authorizing the transportation of sixty thousand convicts without
specifying their destination; and in consequence of this it has been reported that the
French Supreme Colonial Council has recommended that colonizing and trading companies

should be allowed to employ convicts in the Pacific. This would endanger British

1254 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

interests alike in trade and in the missions on the Islands, and would be a source of
annoyance to all the colonies of Australia. A strong protest was at once raised against it
by the veteran missionary, the Rev. J. G. Paton, and the Press supported it in some measure:
The Sydney Morning Herald said that “ Whatever rights the French Government may
claim to exercise in New Caledonia, it can hardly claim a right to convey its criminals
to islands that are not French territory, and there practically to let them loose. The
British Government would at least be justified in strongly protesting against such a
proceeding as an unfriendly act. Experience has shown that notwithstanding all precau-
tions, escapes are made from New Caledonia to the colonies of Australia, and to
permit the employment of convicts on other islands where there is no penal establish-
ment and the same precautions should not be maintained, would be almost equivalent
to landing them there and giving them their discharge.”

The British colonies are deeply interested in this, apart from the claims which
discovery, survey and missionary operations on the Islands may give. The Islanders,
who prefer British protection, would be imperilled by the convict element among them,

and a great wrong would be inflicted on all the humanizing and religious agencies at

work among the natives. The free colonies of Australia would be seriously disturbed

by it. There is little doubt that the native population of the New Hebrides is rapidly
diminishing, and will soon cease to be. The Islands are fertile, and capable of producing
“many tropical fruits). As they are so contiguous to Australian shores they will attract

European settlers, and may soon become, like Fiji and New Caledonia, a European colony.

THE FIJIAN ISLANDS.
HE Fiji Group (properly Viti) lies between the fifteenth and twenty-first parallels

of south latitude, and longitude one hundred and seventy east to one hundred and
seventy-eight west, the meridian of Greenwich passing through Taviuni, in the middle of
the Group. It consists of more than two hundred islands, some of which are of consider-
able extent with a numerous population, while others are mere islets of sea-sand and

rock, many of them uninhabited, and visited only occasionally by the natives for fishing

or other purposes. The largest island is Navitilevu (Great Viti); the first syllable, za,

which is the definite article, showing that Viti was at one time a common noun, with
a meaning now lost beyond hope of recovery, which, if it could be recovered,* might tell
us something of great value. Navitilevu is about ninety miles long, by fifty in breadth,

and is—to quote a paper by Sir John Thurston—“ nearly as large as Jamaica, twice as

large as Trinidad, and six times as large as the Mauritius. Next in extent comes Vanua- —
levu (Great Land), one hundred miles long, but of no considerable breadth. The other

inhabited islands vary in size from large islands like Taviuni, Koro, Ngau, Kandavu,
Ovalau, and others, each with twenty or thirty native villages on it, down to the little
islet with its one village and its four or five, score of people. The entire land area of
the Group is greater than that of all the British West India Islands.”

A great barrier-reef, more or less broken, surrounds the Group to the eastward,
northward and westward, closing in with the land to the south-west of Navitilevu, and

leaving the southern quarter open. This barrier is broken by numerous passages; to

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1255
the eastward it consists merely of coral patches of greater or less extent, with or without
islands upon them, between which vessels from the eastward, coming in under a clear
sky, find easy” entrance, but the navigation in those parts is dangerous in thick weather.
In addition to the great barrier, nearly every island has an encircling reef of its ‘own,
many of which have commodious passages through them, and afford excellent harbours to
a vessel that gets on the right side of them, but they are very dangerous to the
mariner who is caught by bad weather on the wrong side. The general outline of the
Islands is bold and striking. They look like, what perhaps they are, the mountain-tops

of a sunken continent. Nowhere does Nature present a more beautiful picture than one

LEVUKA, THE ISLAND OF OVALAU, FIJI GROUP.

of the larger islands as approached from seaward on a sunny day. The bold back-
ground of wooded hills, with intervening valleys cut out by the numerous water-courses,

or torn out by volcanic cleavage, the fringe of palms on the beach, with the brown

roofs of the native villages peeping out of the green foliage, bordered by the narrow
strip of “ribbed sea-sand,” the still waters of the lagoon with their varied colours, and
the white ring of encircling surf, present a picture of marvellous beauty. But it is
always the same; the eye soon becomes satiated with it, and longs for the changing
loveliness of an English landscape. As a general rule, the soil is not of good quality
. “excepting on the river deltas, and the flats caused by the running streams; but scattered
throughout the Group there is a large area of fruitful soil capable of bearing in abun-
dance all sub-tropical products, and where good judgment is used in the selection of

plantation grounds, the soil responds liberally to the demands of the planter.

1256 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

The principal European settlements are at Levuka and Suva. Levuka is situated on
the eastern coast of Ovalau, a considerable island within the Navitilevu reef, while Suva
is built on a promontory between two extensive bays on the south coast of Navitilevu.
Levuka is the earlier settlement, but the seat of Government was removed to
Suva by Sir Arthur Gordon, and _ since
the removal Levuka has been dwindling
both in importance and in population.

The history of Fiji may be said to
begin in 1643, when Tasman passed through
the Group, though there is some evidence
that the old Spanish adventurers were there
before him. Captain Cook discovered Vatoa,
or Turtle Island, the easternmost island,
and ldid it down on his chart with his
usual accuracy. Bligh sailed through the
Group in his wonderful boat voyage after
the mutiny of the Bounty, and subsequently
a few shipwrecked or runaway sailors, and °
escaped convicts from Norfolk Island, man-
aged to establish themselves here and there

among the natives. But it was not until

Christianity began to make its way under

A FIJIAN MALE.

the influence of the Wesleyan missionaries
that anything like a considerable settlement took place. For many years vessels had been
trading to Fiji for sandal-wood, trepang and _tortoise-shell. Subsequently a few traders
established stations for the purchase of cocoa-nut oil; and in 1858 Mr. Frederick Hennings,
connected with the enterprising firm of Godeffroy, of Hamburg, came over from Samoa,
and began operations on a more extensive scale. Later on, the cotton famine, arising out
of the war in America, gave a great impetus to settlement, and a considerable number of .
gentlemen came from Australia to engage in cotton planting. At this time Thakambau,
who was in reality Wunzvalu, or war king of the Mbau matanztu, but who was styled
King of Fiji, was in difficulties with the United States Government, who claimed from
him some nine thousand pounds as compensation for injuries said to have been inflicted
many years before on certain American citizens. A company formed in Melbourne paid
off this claim, and Thakambau readily presented to them about two hundred thousand
acres of land, on much of which he durst not set his foot at that time without a
strong band of warriors at his back. A number of settlers came down under the
auspices of this company, and the’ stir made at the time attracted still further attention
to Fiji. Disputes arose with the natives, and the want of some regular form of Govern-
ment soon made itself felt. An absurd attempt was made to form a_ constitutional
Government, with the usual Parliamentary machinery; Thakambau was crowned King of
Fiji by a few irresponsible adventurers, and the Parliament began its talking business.
Affairs did not go smoothly, and when the legislators of the new Government under

“Thakambau Rex” had got things into inextricable confusion, Mr. John Bates Thurston

INSULAR. A USTRALASTA. 1257

was called by~the popular voice to the head of affairs. This remarkable man came to
Fiji in 1865 from Rotumah, where he had been shipwrecked while on a collecting expedi-
tion. Captain Cook, V.C., then H.B.M. Consul at Levuka, attached him to the consulate,
and, recognizing his great ability, recommended him as his successor. Mr. Thurston
received his appointment as Acting-Consul,
which he held for some time, and then re-
tired to a plantation of his own, where he
remained until he was called upon to take
charge of affairs under ‘“ Thakambau Rex.”
He continued at the head of the Govern-
ment until Fiji became a British Colony;
and the story of his difficulties there would
make a book well worth reading. It must
suffice here to say that, after long battling
with political and financial difficulties, he
saw that the only way out of them was
to call in the aid of the British Govern-
ment, and a formal offer of cession was
made by the chiefs through him. Commo-
dore Goodenough and Mr. Edgar Layard

‘were sent as Commissioners to inquire and

report, and finally, in September, 1874, the

A FIJIAN FEMALE.

British flag was formally hoisted by Sir
Hercules Robinson, Governor of New South Wales, who represented Her Majesty
on that occasion, and the group of islands known as the Fijis became a British colony.

Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon was appointed as the first Governor of the new colony,
and landed in Fiji on the 24th of June, 1875. After a time, Mr. Thurston was
made Colonial Secretary under him, and retained that position until he was raised to the
Governorship of the colony. No one has been more intimately connected with Fiji than
he, and to no one does a greater share of credit for its political and commercial develop-
ment belong. When Sir Arthur Gordon arrived in Fiji, the greater part of the preliminary
work had already been done. The formerly cannibal tribes had been won to Christianity
by the labours of the missionaries, and the strength of the hill tribes of Navitilevu,
who alone remained in their heathen state, had been broken by a sharp and decisive
war, which, by their murderous raids, they had compelled Mr. Thurston to carry on
against them. Sir Arthur’s work would have been much harder were it not for that
which Mr. Thurston and the missionaries had already done, and what he did himself
was made much easier by the fact that he had Mr. Thurston to help him to do it.
Sir Arthur Gordon was removed to the Governorship of New Zealand in 1880, and
was succeeded by pir William Des Vceux. He was followed’ by Sir Charles Mitchell,
who earned the respect of all classes of men during his brief stay in the Group; but
the great commercial depression, consequent on the fall in the price of sugar, made a
_ more economical arrangement imperatively necessary, and Sir John Bates Thurston,
_K.C.M.G., was appointed to the Governorship, his long experience and special knowledge

AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

qualifying him to take upon himself the control of the Colonial Secretary's office as well

as to hold the reins of
British New Guinea,

Gordon as chief medical

profession, his remark-
able power of organiza-
tion, and of infusing
his own indomitable
energy into the public
servants under him,
was too valuable to be
_confined to the medical

department. He held

Government.
MacGregor,

officer of

new colony.

Fiji owes much to the present Governor of
who came out with Sir Arthur

Although an enthusiast in his

a number of offices under
the Government, had the -
work of each done in the
best manner possible, and
in the midst of his multi-
farious occupations he
found time for scientific
research, hygienic
measures for the benefit
of the natives, and even
for teaching a number of
young Fijians how to
treat the forms of disease
which are most prevalent
in the Group, and to
deal efficiently with many
surgical cases. He did
so much useful work in
Fiji that even the
briefest historical record
should find place for his
name. Nothing beyond
a very slight reference
to the work of Christian
Missions in Fiji is pos-
sible here. The Wes-
leyan Mission was begun
in 1835, and before the
Group was annexed, all
the natives, with excep-
tion of the hill tribes
of Navitilevu, had aban-
doned heathenism;
schools were established

under native teachers in

every village, and almost

A NATIVE VILLAGE OF THE FIJI GROUP.

all the young people had
learned to read and write. A Catholic Mission also had been established for many years
under the care of a few French priests who were devoted to their work, and no name is

more respected in Fiji than that of good Pére Brehéret, the veteran missionary at Levuka.

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1259

The climate during eight or nine months of the year, from April to December,
excluding a part of November, is on the whole extremely pleasant. The heat is not
excessive, being tempered by the steady trade-winds. On the larger islands a cool land-
breeze generally sets in not long after sunset, and the thermometer never marks the

excessive heat which

it sometimes regis-
ters during the sum-
mer months in New
South Wales and
Victoria, while the
general temperature
is much lower than
that of those parts
of Queensland which
lie within the same
parallel of latitude.
The range of the
thermometer is re-
markably small, be-
ing from sixty de-
grees to eighty-seven
degrees in the shade,
with a mean of
seventy-seven de-
grees. The annual
rain-fall varies con-
siderably in different
parts of the Group,
but it may be rough-
ly estimated at about
ninety inches. The
climate is by no

means unhealthy,

though doubtless re-

A FIJIAN ‘MOUNTAIN CHIEF.

laxing, especially to
the female constitution. Children of white parents, born and reared in Fiji, appear to be
‘healthy enough; but they lack colour, and the early decay of even their milk-teeth,
observed in many cases, shows that something else is lacking. Intermittent fever, so
common in the groups farther north, was unknown in Fiji until imported specimens of
it began to appear. Low fever also, which has been prevalent of late years, especially
at Suva, is probably either an importation, or the result of the decay of vegetable
matter consequent on the extensive clearings. Dysentery and phthisis are thé most fatal
diseases among the natives; ophthalmia, elephantiasis and leprosy appear in all parts of

the Group. But though the natives seem to be especially liable to phthisis, the equable

1260 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

temperature has been found to be very favourable to sufferers from pulmonary disease
among our own countrymen, and consumptive patients have derived great benefit from a
residence in Fiji. The months of January, February and March form the most unpleasant
part of the year. These are_known as “the hurricane months,” and are generally wet,
muggy, and full of the dread of the impending storms. Men’s spirits rise with the
aneroid when the sun crosses the line in March,
for a hurricane has rarely been known in Fiji
after the vernal equinox. These storms begin
to blow from the eastward, work round to the
west, north about, and generally blow them-
selves out in fierce blasts from the south-west.
They are very destructive; and yet it is a
question whether they do not effect more good
than harm: They clear away much of the
excessive vegetation, and destroy a vast quan-.
tity of noxious insect life. After one of them
has -done its worst the air is full of ozone,
and has a wonderfully exhilarating effect; and,
though much injury is done to the growing
crops, it is observed that the next yield of the

fruit-bearing trees is always especially abundant;

while in the years that are free from hurri-

THE FIJIAN KING, THAKAMBAU. canes the crops are not so plentiful, and over-

whelming insect plagues occur. Still, on the

whole, the white resident who can afford it prefers to betake himself to other climes

during the rainy season, and then to. return and enjoy the blessings which follow the
hurricane after its violence has worked itself out, and its effects have passed away.

The native population of Fiji some seventeen or eighteen years ago was, in round
numbers, about one hundred and fifty thousand; but the plague of measles, brought by
British ships almost immediately after the annexation of the Group, swept away thirty-
five thousand of them, and their number is now estimated at. one hundred and fifteen
thousand. They are a people of good physique, and often with fine, open, intelligent
features. Their language is distinctly Melanesian as distinguished from the Polynesian
tongue, and yet in physique they are much superior to the ordinary Melanesian type.
Whether this fact is owing to their intercourse with the Tongans, and to the consequent
admixture of Polynesian blood through them, is an open question. It is, however, certain
that there is much of the Tongan strain in many parts of Fiji.

The Fijians are generally described as a frizzly-haired people, but this is a mistake.
The frizzled appearance of their hair is owing to the custom of dressing it with lime
or clay, which dries it up, and alters its colour to a reddish-brown; but the hair may
be seen in its natural state on the heads of children, and shows itself to be black with
a purplish tinge, and often with a wave or ripple, rather than a curl in it. The skin
of the Fijians varies in colour from a light brown to a full black, and is harsher than

that of their Polynesian neighbour. Sir John Thurston considers them to be “a branch

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1261

of the Oriental negro or Kalceonesian stock, having a close affinity to aboriginal races
still found in India, the jungles and heights of Ultra-India, Malaya, Luzon, Sumatra,
and as far east as Japan.” The hill tribes of Navitilevu, or Kaz Thole, as they were
called, may perhaps be taken as specimens of the purer Fijian race, who lived in fortified
villages (oro) surrounded by moat and mound and double stockade, the planting
grounds being generally as near as possible to the village. A number of these foro
made up what was called a matanztu, a term generally rendered, for the want of a better,
by the word “kingdom.” These oro were of unequal séatus. One of them, where the
chief clan dwelt, was called the oro-turanga (koro of chiefs), and the others owed more
or less tribute and ser-
vice to it. The clans in
some of the villages were
called MWéatz (Borderers),
These gave service in
war, for which they were
paid by feasts and _ pre-
sents. The people of the
other oro were nggali of
various grades, down to
the husbandmen, who
were called /ewe nz vale-
ni-kuro (people of the
house of pots, ze, the
cook-house), or, in one
instance at least, Zewe nz
kuro (contents of the
pot), a title which the
chiefs had power to verify
in actual fact if they

wanted a man for a feast

and could not convenient-

KING THAKAMBAU’S HOUSE.

ly get one elsewhere.

These matanitu were usually at deadly feud one with another. Their normal condition
was war, broken by occasional intervals of peace, and the boom of the big wooden war-
drum was always sounding somewhere or other in the Group. A cause of war was never
lacking, for the blood feud was a religious institution, and new occasions of offence
were continually occurring. Perhaps the most prolific cause of war was the jealousy
between the chiefs themselves, arising out of polygamy. Sons of a great chief, whose
mothers were marama (ladies of rank), being all qualified to succeed him, naturally looked
upon their half-brothers as rivals whom it would be well to get out of the way. Their
respective mothers taught them this lesson from their earliest boyhood, with a success
which is terribly shown in the fact that the language has a word for “ murderous
hate between brother and brother.” Their chief weapons were. the club and spear. The

bow and arrow also were used, but not to any great extent, excepting as a boy’s play-

1262 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

thing, or for shooting fish, The word for bow, xdakaz, is now used for gun, but the
common South Sea word which appears in other groups under its various forms of
vusu, wus, wus, us, is found in some parts of Fiji as vauthu. i
Society was organized on the patriarchal basis, descent and inheritance being through
the father in most of the tribes—though some of them, especially on the island of
Vanualevu, still adhered to the older rule of descent through the mother—for birth
was necessary to the s¢a¢us of a land-owning commoner, and illegitimacy was a_per-
manent disgrace. The bastard had no footing in the community excepting on sufferance.
The Fijians were an industrious people in their own way, which is not ours. They
were skilful agricul-
turalists, they built
comfortable houses,
made an excellent
pottery capable of
standing, fire when
used for cooking
purposes, and their
carpenters built sea-
going canoes before
they knew anything
about iron tools.
They also made a
useful cloth from the
bark of the paper- —

mulberry, on which

they painted and

KING THAKAMBAU’S CANOE.

printed from carved
wooden blocks patterns of considerable elegance. Their spears and clubs also showed
much taste and untiring patience in their manufacture and ornamentation. The women
were the potters and cloth-makers, and they made also serviceable fishing-nets, which they
used with great dexterity. A large strong net was .made by the men from cocoa-nut
fibre, which they plaited into an excellent three-strand sinnet. They likewise constructed
large weirs, in which ‘great quantities of fish were taken. The tribes kept up a system
of barter, one tribe exchanging with another commodities the making of which was their
hereditary occupation. Thus there were salt-making tribes who had no potters, and
potters who had no salt-makers. The notion of engaging in occupations which their
fathers did not follow does not seem to have occurred to them. Such an innovation
would have been deemed nothing léss than impious. The son had to do what his father
did, and exactly as his father did it. Departure from ancient custom would be an
offence against ancestors, and their wrath would be felt by the whole community. Land
was held on an enduring tenure, the title being vested in the tribe, though the various
plots were partitioned out among the ¢awsez or land-owners. Each generation had the
usufruct only, and the land could not be permanently alienated excepting by the collective

act of all the tribe. Under these circumstances, the heir—that is, posterity—was distinctly

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA, 1263

concerned, and was justly taken as a consenting party. In their heathen state the Fijians
were a religious people, their gods were ancestral, and they were assiduous in their cult.
In many of the tribes a certain clan called the médete, or priests, was the recognized
medium of communication with the gods, Every full-born male of the clan was a

mbete by birth, but some one of them would be chosen by the ancestral spirits as the

THE REWA RIVER, NAVITILEVU ISLAND.

mbete for the time being. Their choice was de-
clared by the man becoming inspired, a process
which threw him into strong convulsions, accom-
panied by physical phenomena horrible to witness. The chief articles of food were yams
(xdalo), elsewhere ¢aro (arum esculentum), bananas, sweet potatoes and sugar-cane. They
had also fruit-bearing trees in abundance, cocoa-nuts, bread-fruit, various kinds of chestnut,
and other fruits. Wild yams and edible roots were also plentiful in good seasons. Fish
was their principal addition to the vegetable diet; for though they had both fowls and
pigs when our own people first came into contact with them, these were delicacies not for
every-day consumption, and the native words for them show that they were not indige-
nous. The practice of cannibalism was universal in Fiji, as far as the males were con-
cerned. Women were not permitted to share in these feasts, at least it was not con-
sidered proper in them to partake, but many of them are said to have indulged their
appetite in secret. The prevalence of the custom has stamped its mark on the language,
which contains a considerable number of cannibal words.

The soil and climate of Fiji are suited to the cultivation of all sub-tropical products.
South Sea Island cotton of the finest quality in the world, and of a very high market
value, has been produced; the sugar-cane also grows luxuriantly, yielding juice of a

good density, and maize gives two crops in the year; the banana, which has proved

1264 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

itself a valuable article of export, is easily grown, and yields abundantly; tea and coffee
of excellent quality can be produced; the cocoa-nut and other oil-yielding* nuts flourish,
and Sir John Thurston, who has given the subject much attention, has demonstrated
that the most valuable spices can be cultivated. And yet, in spite of all its natural capa-
bilities, Fiji has not given a generous return to the investor. It must, however, be
taken into consideration that most of the settlers were men who brought very little

capital or practical experience for investment in

the new colony. But, on the other hand, few
men of those who were better qualified as
pioneer settlers have been able to make head-
way against the difficulties with which they
were beset, and neither to the worker nor to
the capitalist has Fiji proved a good investment.
Of all the difficulties, perhaps that of labour
is the greatest. The Fijians themselves neither
can nor will supply the wants of the settlers
as constant workmen. Their own requirements
are so few, and so easily satisfied, that they
have no motive for engaging in regular mono-
tonous work throughout the year. Moreover,
even if the able-bodied men were willing, there
are not enough of them to fulfill their tribal
obligations, and to supply the planters as well.

Sik. JOHN. “BATES SURE ee Labour, therefore, has to be imported either
from the other groups to the northward, as
far as New Guinea, or from India. This is a costly operation, and it will be perceived
that as a considerable amount of capital is required, Fiji is no place for men of small
means. Whether, as time goes on, it will remunerate the capitalist or not remains still
an undecided question.

It has been amply proved that excellent cotton, tea and coffee can be grown, but
then, excellence of quality does not do away with the fact that their growers have not
been able to make them pay. Some years ago sugar, at the price it was then bringing,
offered a certainty of a splendid profit, and. very large sums were invested in mills,
machinery and plantations, especially in the splendid sugar districts on the banks of the
Wailevu (Great Water), or “Rewa River.” But with the fall in the price of sugar the
broad margin of profit, the prospect of which presented itself as a temptation to the
capitalist, has dwindled down. Copra—the dried cocoa-nut—is a valuable article of export,
and can be produced to almost any extent. The returns are not so speedy as are those
of the sugar-cane, for the palm requires several years to come to full bearing, even
under the most favourable circumstances; but when a cocoa-nut plantation is once estab-
lished, it goes on yielding year after year with comparatively little outlay. Of minor
products the banana is an article of export of some value, though its perishable nature
makes the ventures in it somewhat hazardous, and the Australian market does not offer

room for any great extension of trade. Pea-nuts are easy of cultivation, and extremely

eres

‘ae

Panag Alri OR ia,

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1265
prolific. The coral reefs afford a considerable quantity of déche-de-mer, but the gathering
of it has been stopped by the Government in the interests’ of the natives. There is a
large quantity of good timber, some of it probably of considerable value, but it is not
likely to come into the market to any great extent, forest conservation being especially

needed in a country such as Fiji. One of the most remarkable of the native trees in

" ' 1

THE BACKA TREE, FIJI ISLANDS.

a iy
| bighe i"

the group is the splendid forest specimen known to the Fijians as the dacka tree,
which grows to an enormous height, and attains an extraordinary girth measurement.
Spice cultivation will probably be attempted if Sir John Thurston can prevail upon
qualified persons to take it up, but the losses which the cotton and sugar planters have

already sustained make our capitalists extremely shy of new investments. The losses

1266 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

that enterprising colonists have at various times experienced from this cause have led
to a certain feeling of diffidence in the possibilities of the country. Fiji is now at what
seems to be its lowest ebb, and any change will probably be a change for the better.
There can be no doubt that it is a country of splendid capabilities, but a heavy cloud
of commercial depression at present rests upon it. This will without doubt pass away in
due course; but whatever the future of the colony may be, the demand for native

labour must stand in the way of the formation of a large white population.

THE SAMOAN GROUP.

HIS large Group is situated between the parallels of thirteen degrees thirty minutes
and fourteen degrees thirty minutes south latitude, and one hundred and _sixty-
nine degrees thirty minutes and one hundred and seventy-two degrees ‘fifty minutes west
longitude. The principal islands, beginning from the ‘east, are the Manua Group, Tutuila,
Upolu, Manona, Apolima and Savaii (the largest), with a number of other small islands
and islets. Savaii is about one hundred and fifty miles in circumference. It is of
volcanic origin, and from the appearance of some of the craters inland it is probable
that, with the exception of the submarine explosion which occurred some few years ago
near Tutuila, the latest instances of active volcanic eruption were on this Island. The
interior of the Island is very rough and broken, and covered principally with scorze and
lava beds. There are only one or two small streams on the Island, but fresh water
can be obtained at most of the coast villages. The mountains are between four thou-
sand and five thousand feet in height, and can be seen from a considerable distance.
The harbour of Matautu is the only one at Savaii within which large vessels can anchor,
but it is very unsafe during the rainy season, being exposed to the full force of the
north-west winds. Upolu is the most beautiful and the most fertile island in the Group.
It is about one hundred and thirty miles in circumference, is well watered and . very
fertile. Apia, which is the principal port in the Group, is situated on the north coast
near the centre of this Island. Tutuila is forty miles to the eastward of Upolu, It is
about eighty miles in circumference, and contains the splendid port of Pango Pango,
which is one of the safest and best harbours in the Pacific, Manono, which is situated
between Savaii and Upolu, is a pleasant island, and has been called the garden of
Samoa. It was for many years the ruling power in the Group, and is still of consider-
able importance. The people of Manono acquired their supremacy principally from the fact
that they were the possessors of a powerful fleet, and had also the natural impregnable
fortress of Apolima to flee to in any time of great danger. All these islands of the
Group are very fertile indeed, and all tropical fruits can be grown here in abundance.
During the American War a great stimulus was given to the cultivation of cotton, and
large quantities of a very superior article were produced, but on the conclusion of the
war and the restoration of trade with America, it was found that the difficulty of ©
obtaining labour prevented the profitable production of the article at the prices which
have since ruled in Europe. There are some fine streams of water at Upolu, and at
Apia all vessels can water with comparative ease and expedition.

Samoa was originally discovered by the Dutch navigator Roggewein, in 1721. The

INSULAR AUSTRALASTA. 1267
French navigators, Bougainville and La Pérouse, also visited the Group in 1768 and 1787.
The name “Isles of the Navigators,” was given to them by Bougainville from seeing
the natives sailing far out at sea in the smart dolphin fishing-canoes, which carried a
large sail and were most cleverly managed. Some specimens of these fine canoes were
still in use a few years ago on the north coast of Savaii, but it is doubtful whether
there is one left at the present time. M. de Langlé, another officer, and ten of the
crew of La Pérouse’s expedition were killed by the natives of Tutuila at Massacre Bay.
There is, however, no doubt that this was the direct result of an outrage committed on

board the ship. One of the natives was shot and mortally wounded for some real or

APIA, UPOLU ISLAND, SAMOAN GROUP.

supposed act of pilfering, and when he was taken on shore, his friends there, actuated
_by revenge, attacked the men of the boat’s party who were on the beach at the time,
and killed them. This unfortunate affair, the real facts of which were not known for
some years, caused the natives to bear a very ill name, especially as La Pérouse’s
opinion that they were a set of barbarous assassins was in some measure confirmed by
a report of the visit of //.47.S. Pandora, in 1790. It is very certain, however, that both
these reports were incorrect, and that the natives were very far indeed from being the
ferocious savages they were long represented to be in the early navigators’ stories.

_ The Samoans belong to the pure eastern Polynesian race, and are kindred with the
Sandwich Islanders, Tahitans, Rarotongans, Maoris, and others. These people have
often been called the Malayo-Polynesian races, but the theory involved in this name
does not appear tenable. The probability is that the Polynesians proper are a_ separate
and distinct race from the Malayans, and the opinion held by Judge Fornander and
others that they were the original inhabitants of Malaysia, prior to the irruption of the
Malays from the main-land, is accepted by many as being more in accordance with the
facts than the theory originally held. The question of their affinity, or otherwise, with
the sub-Papuan or Melanesian races is one which is attracting the attention of anthro-
pologists at the present time, and on which, it is needless to state, very varying
Opinions are held. However, the extended knowledge of the languages, manners, and

customs of the Melanesian races, which has been gained of late years, has, in the opinion

1268 AUSTRALASIA, ILLUSTRATED.

of many, tended to prove that there is no insuperable obstacle to the assumption that
both the eastern and western Polynesian natives are descendants of one common. stock,
of which the Papuan is probably the oldest representative. The people are of a light
coffee colour, with wavy hair, and have pleasant features and manners. They ‘are in

general of large stature and well-formed, and are naturally a kind, friendly and very

A MAIL STEAMER AT TUTUILA.

hospitable people. The houses of the natives are of a bee-hive shape, and many of them
are exceedingly well constructed. The two sides and the semicircular ends are each made
separately, and can be easily detached, and removed in four pieces to another site. The
ribs and beams of the best houses are made from the wood of the bread-fruit tree,
and are very light and lasting. The sides of the houses are open during the day, but
are closed at night by blinds made from the plaited leaf of the cocoa-nut. The floor
is formed of small gravel, and is generally kept very clean. <A_ roll of mats, large
mosquito nets, a circular fire-place, a box or two of European manufacture in which
clothes are kept, a ava bowl and a lamp constitute the principal furniture and _ effects.
The carpenters form a regular guild, with rules and regulations, which, amongst other
things, prevent any carpenter from finishing or interfering with the work of any other
tradesman. The ordinary clothing of the people in former days was a leaf girdle made
from split dracena leaves and the native cloth or ¢affa. Beautifully marked and painted
pieces of this cloth were much used on festive occasions, and also formed a_consider-
able part of a dowry of a bride. It was, however, in the manufacture of mats that
the Samoans most excelled, and these are still the most valued of all their possessions.
The fine mat of Samoa was made of the leaves of a particular species of fandanus,
very finely scraped and carefully prepared. These mats were made by women, and often

occupied their spare time for years before they were finished. Some of the oldest and

dirtiest mats in the Group are still the most valuable, and are most carefully preserved.
They have names given to them which are well known, and their whole history is
familiar to their possessors and others. A mat which has been the principal one in the

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1269

dowry of a great lady, or which has been presented as a peace-offering at the conclu-
sion of a war, or on any other special occasion, has its value very much increased thereby,
and the fact is carefully recorded. These mats are trimmed with the red feathers of
the Fijian parrakeet, which for this reason was much prized by the Samoans, The
Tongans were always anxious to secure these mats, and some of the best specimens
are now to be found in that group. A shaggy white mat was also made from the
bark of a dwarf Azbzscus. This was generally worn by a bride at her marriage.

Polygamy was much practised by the chiefs, more especially as it was encouraged
by the heads of families and followers of these potentates, for the sake of the property
given with the lady and the attendant feasting. Very often the wife remained only for a
short time with her husband, and, except in cases of certain high chiefs, there was not
much notice taken of her if she chose another husband, after her own husband had
taken to himself another wife. Adultery, however, was often very severely punished.
Tattooing is practised, and until a young man is tattooed he is considered to be in
his minority. The whole of the lower part of the body, from the navel to the knees,
is covered with very elaborate and pretty designs. Some of the early navigators, who
saw the natives at a distance, reported that they wore breeches of some dark silken close-
fitting material. The operation is performed by professional tattooers by means of small
_ combs of different sizes, made from human_bone, which are dipped in lamp-black and water,
_ and struck into the skin
with a small mallet.
A modified form
of circumcision is prac-
- tised upon youths from
eight to ten years of
age. -~It has, however,
_. no religious signifi-
4 cance. The system of
? i” tabu was fully carried
— outin this Group. The
~ usual form observed in
making a grove of
_ cocoa-nuts for-bidden
4 was to tie a piece of
nutleaf round some of THE HARBOUR OF PANGO PANGO, TUTUILA.

trees. Sometimes

was plaited to represent a shark, and was really an imprecation to the effect that any
should be eaten by a shark when he went to swim. Other imprecations of-a like nature
their appropriate signs. Pigs were generally made ¢adu at a /ono, or meeting of the
or district, and no one could kill any of his own pigs -whilst this was in force.
e religion of the Samoans did not differ much from that ,of Tonga, which will be
ter described. Cannibalism has not been practised for many years, and the natives

1270 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

not unknown amongst them. The arms of the Samoans consisted of clubs and spears,
but of late years they have become possessed of the most approved rifles and guns,
with which their wars are now carried on. Wars were always frequent, and for many years
past there has been no settled peace in the Group. The principal food productions of
the Islands are cocoa-nuts, favo, yams, bread-fruit, bananas, and sweet potatoes. Pigs,
fowls and fish are very plentiful, and all tropi-
cal fruits can be grown in abundance. The
guava, orange, custard apple, pine-apple, mango,
etc., have been introduced and thrive well. The
Islands are comparatively healthy, though the
high temperature, averaging eighty degrees du-
ring the year, and the great moisture of the
atmosphere (are very enervating to most Euro-
peans. Elephantiasis is very prevalent, and few
escape its effects. The Group is subject to
severe hurricanes, which occur generally from
December to April. The most dangerous sea-

son is the first three months in each year.

The language of the Samoans is_ probably
more soft and musical than that of any other
THE SAMOAN KING, TAMASESE, Polynesian race. It has also, more than any
other dialect, a distinct vocabulary of words

which are always used in addressing superiors, and on other occasions of ceremony.
No one can properly speak Samoan who is not thoroughly conversant with the polite
form of words as well as the form used in ordinary intercourse. The rule is that a
person must always use the common word in speaking of himself, but the polite form
must always be used by another in addressing him, eg., gasegase (polite form) and
mat (ordinary) both mean sickness. Any person asking after the health of another,
would use the former word, gasegase, but the ‘one questioned would use the latter word in
reply. F?nagalo (polite form) and /ofo (ordinary) mean will or opinion. “What is
your finagalo about this?” would be the question ; ‘the reply would be, “My JZto is
so-and-so.” The names of many articles which it was not considered polite to mention,
were changed to something which was the direct opposite, ¢,g:, fire-wood was called ”
banana-stem; a knife was a nut-leaf; a pig was called fwsz, a cat, etc. When it was neces-
sary to use the word which was not considered polite, it was always prefaced by an
apologetic phrase. The Polynesian custom of changing the name of any object when the
name had been appropriated by a chief, was very common, eg., fea, the flying-fox,
becomes manulag?, or heaven bird or animal, in all the districts of which /e’a is the chief.
7alo is not used as the name of that vegetable in another district, because the chief
had taken the original name. 7 is not used in any form in another part of Savaii,
because Tui Fiti was one of the old sacred chiefs. 4
In the Government of the country the power of the chiefs predominated, but was
effectively controlled by the heads of families, and especially by the ¢v/afales, or orators.
There was no general Government for the whole Group. Regular meetings were held by

INSULAR AUSTRALASTIA. 127)

each village, at which all purely local affairs were decided. In addition to these there
were meetings held by a number of such villages forming a section of the district, and
others again where the whole of the district united to formulate laws, or to decide as
to their action upon any matter, political or otherwise, which might be brought under
their consideration. This decision was, however, never held to be binding by any village
or section which might be opposed to the
decision of the majority. The chiefs had great
power, but were always afraid to exercise it if
opposed by any number of influential orators,
even in their own towns. The idea of a king
and government exercising administrative power
over the whole of Samoa is one of modern
origin. The principal districts on Upolu and
Savaii, the two largest islands, were Atua,
Tuamasauga, Aana, Manona, Se fotislatat. Sa
leaula (de eu o ¢ane), Satupaitea and Palauli
(le ttu o fafine).

The history of the Samoan Group has

been a troublous one. About the time of the

introduction of Christianity, Manono was the
ruling power. Her influence, however, was some- THE SAMOAN KING, MALIETOA.

what weakened by the war which followed the

murder of Tamafainga, the Aztu, or spirit chief. It was also weakened by the war of
1847-50, but she still claimed the title of the Malo. About twenty years ago, the dis-
trict of Tuamasanga, in which the port of Apia is situated, formulated a system of laws
which were to be on the model of .English laws. Some ‘of the laws were offensive to
the natives from other districts, who had always looked upon the Tuamasanga as a con-
quered people, but the great insult was a fort and a flag-staff erected near Apia, which
were understood by the other natives as an assumption of superiority. Wars ensued, and
since that there have been only short periods of settled peace.

The Steinberger rule lasted from 1874 to 1876. In that year, Mr. G. W. Griffin
was appointed as United States Consul to Samoa, and it was principally owing to the
energetic manner in which he discharged the duties of his office that the ‘“Taimua and
Faipuli” Government sent the chief, Le Mamea, as ambassador to the United States
Government. A draft treaty was signed towards the close of 1877, and formally read
and exchanged on the 3rd of July, 1878. This treaty had afterwards a most important
effect on Samoan affairs, as it no doubt influenced very materially the subsequent action
of the American Government, and their very friendly relations with the Samoan people.
By the provisions of this treaty, the fine harbour of Pago Pago (Pango Pango) was
| ceded to the United States, and the Government of that country agreed to recognize
- the independence of Samoa, and to exercise its good offices for the settlement of any
dispute that might arise between Samoa and any other country in amity with’ the
_ United States. After this, the position and strength of the contending parties changed
again and again, the districts were split up and divided, and no stable government was

1272 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.
formed. Malietoa was for some time acknowledged as king, with Tamasese as vice-king,

but in 1887 Malietoa was forcibly deposed by the Germans and taken away as a prisoner
to the Cameroons, and afterwards to Germany. Tamasese was supported by Germany
as king, but did not succeed in establishing a strong government, and in 1888 Mataafa,
a high chief of Atua, joined with those who formed the Malietoa party, and was
formally recognized as king in opposition to Tamasese. During the hostilities which
followed, a large armed party from the German ships of war, which,was landed near
Vailele to support the Tamasese party, came into collision with the Mataafa men, and
’ The

fought their way to Vailele Station, and held it until relieved by their gun-boats, which

a severe engagement took place. Germans were greatly out-numbered, but

shelled the native villages. Two German officers and thirty-eight of the men were
killed in this affair.

On Saturday, the 16th of March, 1889, a most disastrous hurricane was experienced
in Samoa. The force of the cyclone was not unusually great, but, owing to the
unsettled state of. the country, there was the unusually large number of seven war-ships
in the port of Apia, which is notoriously unsafe during the hurricane months. For some
unexplained reason the warnings of the barometer, which fell below twenty-nine degrees,
were unheeded, and none of the ships left the port for the open sea. The sad conse-
quence was that the German war-ships der, Adler and Olga, and the American ships
Trenton (Admiral Kimberley), Vandalia and Nzpsie were all driven on shore, and about

stone’s

one hundred and fifty officers and men drowned in the heavy surf within a
throw of the land. The British war-ship Cad/zofe steamed out to sea against the full
force of the wind and sea, a feat which bore good testimony to the ceurage and skill
of Captain Kane and his officers and crew, and to the great steam-power and weatherly
qualities of the ship. As the Calhope was slowly forcing her way seaward, she very
narrowly escaped a collision with the American Admiral’s ship Zyrenton, which would
probably have been fatal to both ships. The officers and crew of the 77 venton cheered
most heartily as the Cad/ofe passed, in admiration of the splendid manner in which the
ship was handled, and to encourage the brave men in their fierce struggle with wind
and sea. This spontaneous compliment was highly appreciated by Captain Kane and his
crew, and affords another instance of the kindly feeling with which men, who are them-
selves brave, regard acts of bravery and determination in others. One of the most
interesting incidents in the events of that memorable day was the noble conduct of the
Samoans. About five hundred of them, under the leadership of their chiefs, rendered

great service in saving life, and though they were then at war with the Germans, they

made no distinction whatever as regards nationality, but were as ready to rescue their

drowning foes as they were to succour the Americans, to whose friendship they were so —

much indebted. The unsatisfactory state of the Group still continuing, a conference was
held at Berlin between the three Great Powers interested, and a Treaty was formally

signed on the 28th of June, 1889, under which the Government is at present carried
on. This Treaty declares the Samoan Islands neutral territory, where the subjects of

the three Signatory Powers (Great Britain, the United States and Germany) have equal
rights; it recognizes the independence of the Samoan Government .and the free rights
of the natives to choose their own king or chief, according to their own laws and

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA.

“I
.

customs. Neither of the Powers shall exercise separate control over the Islands or the

Government thereof. King Malietoa (who had been brought back from exile by Germany)

is to be recognized as king, and his successors, who may be duly elected according to

A SAMOAN PRINCESS,

Samoan custom. Provision is made for constituting a Supreme Court, and the appointing

of a Chief Justice, whose salary is to be paid by the Signatory Powers for the first

1274 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

year. The alienation of land by sale or mortgage is prohibited. All land claims by
aliens are to be settled by a commission of three persons, one to be named by each
of the Signatory Powers. These commissioners are to be assisted by an officer called
the Natives’ Advocate. The Port of Apia is to be constituted a municipal district,
import duties and taxes are to be levied, and the apportionment of the revenue is
defined. The sale of fire-arms and ammunition to natives is prohibited, and also the
selling or giving of any intoxicating drink to them, or to any South Sea Islander.
Under the treaty, M. Conrad de Cedercrantz was selected by the King of Sweden and
Norway as Chief Justice, and was duly appointed by the Signatory Powers. He arrived
in the Group in December, 1890, and was heartily welcomed by both whites and natives.
| Apia has for many years been the centre of German trading operations in the
Pacific, as it is for all practical purposes the capital of Samoa. Although a fairly large
commercial interest has its centre in this flourishing Group, the record of its transactions
has never been kept, and no accurate statistics can be obtained as to the exports and
imports. The principal article of export here, as in most ‘of the islands of the South
Seas, is copra, of which large quantities are produced in the Group, in addition to that
which is collected from adjacent aud distant islands. The population of the entire Group

is about thirty-five thousand, including about three hundred foreign residents.

TONGA, or THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS.

HIS Archipelago is situated between fifteen degrees and twenty-three degrees thirty

minutes south latitude, and one hundred and_ seventy-three degrees to one hundred
and seventy-seven degrees west longitude, these being.the boundaries fixed by proclama-
tion. It consists of three well-defined divisions, trending from north to south, which are
generally known as the Tonga, the Haabai and the Vavau Islands, and the Nuias and
Pylstaart Islands. Tongatabu, or Sacred Tonga, the largest island, is the present seat of
Government, and gives its name to the Group. The next island of importance in the
southern division is Eua, a fine island, which rises to the height of one thousand two
hundred feet; and has the only running streams which are to be found on these islands.
There are also several other islands in this division, known as Eueiki, Atata, Bagaimotu,
and a number of small islets. Haabai, the middle group, is separated from the nearest
island in Tonga by about forty miles of open sea. Tofua (active volcano), Kao (active
voleano in this generation, but now quiescent), Lifuka, Haano, Foa, Lofanga, Moungone,
Uiha, Fonoifua, Uoleva, Nomuka, MHaafeva, Tugua and Fotuhaa are the principal
islands in this division, Between Tonga and Haabai are two remarkable islands, called
Huga Tonga and Huga Haabai, which from their height and prominent position are always
mentioned by the early navigators. .Between Haabai and the northern division there is
another active volcanic island called Late. The northern group, called by the natives
Haafuluhao, is generally known by the name of its chief island, Vavau. It comprises
also Falevai, Bagaimotu, Huga, Niuababu, and a number of small islets. Farther to.
the north-east are the islands of Fonua-lei,~ Niua Tobutabu and Niua Foou, all of
which are comprised in the kingdom of Tonga. The Group was first discovered by |
Tasman in 1643. He sighted Eua, which Island he called Middleburgh, and Tongatabu,

-INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1275
which he named Amsterdam. He visited also the Haabai Croup in the same year.
Captain Cook, however, was the first to give a detailed account of the islands, He
first visited them in October 1773, then in June 1774, and again in 1777, when he
remained about three months. The natives have no traditionary account of Tasman, but
Captain Cook’s name is well known, and some relics of his expedition were long
preserved by the people. Between 1777 and 1791, the Group was visited by the
Princess, a Spanish frigate, and by the Pandora, the Bounty and the Providence, all British
ships. In 1792, Rear-Admiral d’Entrecasteaux called there with two French war-ships,

. NUKUALOFA, THE. CAPITAL OF TONGA.

the Recherche and the Lsférance. These visitors had frequent quarrels with the natives,
when several of-the French were wounded and some of the Tongans were killed. The
history of the succeeding years, previous to the establishment of the Mission, is that of
the numerous outrages committed by these so-called Friendly Islanders upon some _ of
the many visitors to the Group. The most prominent cases are those given by Captain
Dillon, in his narrative of the discovery of the fate of La Pérouse. Writing in 1827,
he mentions an attack on the Swfp/y whaler, about 1822; the capture of the American
ship Duke of Portland, and the massacre of all on board with the exception of one
~ woman (English) and three boys; the murder of Captain Pembleton and Mr. Boston, the
commander and supercargo of the American ship Uy7on; the capture of the Port-au-Prince
and the massacre of most of the crew, in 1806; and the fate of two whalers at Vavau. To
these may be added an affray in 1888 between the natives and the Dumont ad’ Urville.

The islands are very fertile, the soil being composed of rich black mould, consisting
chiefly of decomposed vegetable matter. The principal productions are yams, cocoa-nuts,
_ bananas, and sweet-potatoes. Zaro requires wet land, and so but little can be grown

in Tonga. Arrowroot, cassava, turmeric, wild ginger, and other tropical plants are

mango can.be grown in large quantities. Oranges and bananas are very fine and are
- largely exported. Horses, cattle and sheep have been introduced, and thrive well.
The political Constitution of Tonga in the olden days was that of a monarchical

1276 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

despotism, supported by an hereditary aristocracy. The different grades were the Hau
or families of the blood royal; the /Youezk, or chiefs; the J/uas, or gentry; the MMata- —
bules, or official attendants; and the Zwas, or common people. Professional employments
such as_ carpenters, fishermen, undertakers, doctors, etc., were strictly hereditary. Rank
was hereditary, and women sometimes held the reigns of Government in their own right.
The succession to the regal power was regulated by certain well-known laws, and did
not necessarily pass to the eldest or indeed to any son, the brother of the deceased
being generally considered as having the prior claim. The present king, George Tubou,
is one of the most remarkable men in the South Seas. He was first called 7aufaahau,
and was originally the king of the Haabai Group only. In 1833, he was nominated by
Zephaniah Finau Ulukalala (the FAzwow F772 of Mariner) when dying, as his successor,
and on the death of that ruler he was elected by the chiefs as king of Haafuluhao
(Vavau). He thus held the sovereignty over the two groups of Haabai and Vavau. At
this time, his father’s uncle, Josiah Tubou (Albaahae was. king of Tonga, and on his
death, in 1845, he also declared that King George of Haabai and Vavau should succeed
him, he being the rightful heir of Tuboutoa, the preceding king. To this the chiefs
agreed, and King George was unanimously chosen as Tuzkanokubolu and king of the
whole Group. The inaugural ceremony took place at Bagai in Hihifo, on the 4th of
December, 1845. He is now (1891) about ninety-three years of age. The supreme |
power was formerly held by the Zwz Tonga, who was, as the name implies, the king of
the whole group, and was also supposed to exercise divine rights and privileges. The
title and position are, however, now abolished. The present Assistant-Premier, Mr. Basil H. |
Thomson, and Mr. Alexander M. Campbell, Collector of Customs and Postmaster-General,
are the only European Members of the Government.

The customs of the Tongan people differed but little from those of the other
Eastern Polynesian peoples, except, perhaps, in the land tenure, and the high position
accorded to women. All lands were supposed to be the property of the king. The
great chiefs held them by hereditary right, but subject in all cases to the will of the
king, to whom they rendered military assistance. The people, through these chiefs, had
also to pay tribute. Servile homage was paid to all superiors, particularly to those of
very high rank. The etiquette to be observed when meeting a chief, or coming into-
his presence, was very clearly understood, and any breach of it was at once visited
with very summary punishment. No common man would dare to sit in a more elevated
place than the chief, or to come into his presence with a wreath round his head, or
with his hair wet, or even to remove anything from above where the chief was -sitting.
A commoner was expected to sit down at the road-side, and, if carrying a burden, to
lower it from his shoulders, and make a detour from the path whilst the chief was
passing. Many of the words and ‘salutations used in addressing chiefs were peculiar, and
could not be used to a commoner, The deliberative assemblies of the chiefs were
conducted with great ceremony, and according to the strict rules of procedure and
etiquette. Their weapons were simple, and consisted only of spears, javelins, clubs, bows

and arrows, and slings. They constructed strong and well-arranged fortifications, consisting

of powerful stockades defended by earth-works, and in besieging such places they well —
understood the method of approaching by trenches and pits. It was in attacking a

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 12

“I
“I

fortification of this kind at Bea, that Captain Croker, of W.B.A7.S. Favourite, was killed
in 1840. All prisoners taken in war became the Jéodu/as, or slaves, of the conquerors,
and were often treated with great cruelty. In times of peace the men were employed
in fishing, agriculture, house-building, and especially in voyaging. They were bold and
daring sailors, and in their large double-canoes often made voyages to Samoa, Fiji and
other places. Women in the Friendly Islands occupied a very exceptional position; they
did no field-work, and never even cooked the food of the family. Their chief work was
to make native cloth (the éaffa of Polynesia), baskets, bags, fans, etc. The Tongans
were very fond of dances, boxing and wrestling matches, and canoe races, and_ these
filled up most of their spare time. Many barbarous customs

were observed on the death of any great chief. The hair was

cut off, old and torn mats were worn, cuts, bruises and burns
were inflicted, and the amount of respect or
affection for the deceased was shown by the
pain and injury which was self-
imposed. Polygamy was common,
the number of a man’s wives de-
pending only upon his inclination
and his ability to keep them. The
aged people were well cared for,
and no cases of burying the old
and infirm alive, such as were com-
mon in Fiji, were ever known in
Tonga. Cannibalism no doubt ex-
isted in former days, as described
by Mariner in his valuable and
interesting book, but it was never

practised in Tonga to the same

THE STONE ARCH, NIUTOUA, TONGA,

extent as in other places.

The religion of the Tongans was similar to that of most of the Eastern Polynesian
races. The principal gods were Mauz, Hrkuleo, Tangaloa and Hemoana-uliult. Mau? is
said to have drawn up the Islands with a hook and line, and those which he did not
tread down and make smooth are still mountainous and rugged. We find in Tonga the
‘same legends about A7jzéji as in other groups. He it was who first obtained fire
from below, and, in order to preserve it, caused it to enter into certain trees, from
which it may be obtained by friction. MJauz it is who resides under the earth and
bears it upon his shoulder. When he nods there is an earthquake, and so the natives
used to stamp and shout to awaken him, lest in his troubled dream he should upset
the island altogether. A7kuleo is the god of spirits, and resides at Bulotu. The spirits
of chiefs and men of rank go there and do his will, but where the spirits of the
common people go is not certain. Sacrifices were offered to A/rku/eo when any sacrilege
Was committed, and the spirits of chiefs were regarded as intercessors with the gods,
and prayers were made to them. Zangaloa was the Tongan Jupiter, who sent forth
thunder and lightning; Hemoana-uliul? governed the sea. In Bulotu was to be found

AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

_
to
“I

the “Water of Life,” and also the ‘Speaking Tree,” which received all the commands of
the gods. The human soul existed after death, and possessed the same attributes as the
minor gods, but in a lesser degree. All evil was attributed to the malice of mischievous
gods. Circumcision was practised, the rite being ‘performed at about fourteen years of —
age. First-fruits were given with great ceremony to the sacred king, the 7a Tonga,
as is so well described by Captain Cook. Everyone and everything that touched a dead
body was regarded as unclean for a certain
number of days or weeks. Many animals were
regarded as the shrines of certain deities, and
the native who worshipped those gods never
ate those particular animals.

Near a village called Niutoua, in the east
end of Tonga, are three large and_ peculiar
stones. T Rese stones are called by the natives
Koe Haamoga 0 Mauz,— the burden of JZauz.”*
They are made of coralline limestone, and have
evidently been cut out of the solid reef, and
transported to the place where they now stand.
The two large perpendicular stones are four-
teen feet high above the ground, twelve feet

wide at the bottom, and nearly five feet thick.

The large stone on the top is mortised into
KING GEORGE OF TONGA. the perpendicular columns, and is not simply

laid upon the top as in most trilithons. This

top stone is sixteen feet in length, four feet eight inches wide, and about two
feet thick. No satisfactory explanation can be obtained from the natives as to the use
or meaning of these stones. They simply ascribe their position to supernatural agency.
It is very difficult to understand how such huge stones could be quarried and trans--
ported so far inland as they now stand, by a people with so few mechanical appliances
as the Tongans of late years possessed. The two most probable theories as to their
use appears to be that they either formed a gate-way into the old burial-place of the
sacred kings, the Tut Tongas, or that they were erected as a monument to some one
of them in-early times. Near to Mua are also some old burial-places of the 7zz Tongas,
which are very interesting relics of the olden days, These are built in three terraces,
on the top of which the grave was placed. The lower terrace in one of these burial-
places is one hundred and twenty-six feet in length, and ninety-three feet in width. One
of the stones built into this terrace measures fourteen feet in length, and two feet in
thickness. It stands three feet above the ground. A large corner stone in this lower
wall is worked fourteen feet on one face, six feet on the other face, and js two feet
in thickness. Another of these burial-places is about one hundred and seventy feet
square, and has one large stone in the lower terrace twenty-five feet six inches long,
and two feet in thickness, and is seven feet six inches high from the lowest ground level.
The great advance which Tonga has made of late years is due in no small measure

to the influence of the missionaries upon the people. The first attempt to introduce

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1279

Christianity into the Group was made in the year 1790, about twenty years after Captain
Cook’s last visit. Ten missionaries and mechanics were landed from the London Missionary
Society’s ship Duff in that year. In April, 1799, the 7uckanokubolu was murdered, and
war ensued, in which three of the missionaries—Dlessrs. Harper, Powell and Gaulton—and
an Englishman who lived with them were killed. The survivors, with one exception,
were removed to Sydney in the year 1800. The Rev. Walter Lawry, of the Wesleyan
Missionary Society, arrived at Tongatabu in August, 1822, but was obliged to leave on
account of domestic circumstances at the end of 1823. The Rev. John Thomas and
John Hutchinson, of the same Society, landed
in Tonga in June, 1826. The Rey. Nathaniel
Turner, the Rev. W. Cross and Mr. Weiss,
also of the Wesleyan Missionary Society,
arrived at Nukualofa in 1827, and found
two Tahitan teachers employed in that
locality. The Catholic missionaries have
also been labouring in the Group _ since
1842. The Tongans have for many years
been a professing Christian people. They
have a comparatively large literature sup-
plied by the missionaries. The educational
work is now under the direct charge of

the Government, and all children and young

people are compelled to attend school. The
Government and the Wesleyan Mission have THE .MISSION CHURCH AT NUKUALOFA,

each a training college for the higher educa-

tion of their agents. In the year 1873, the King granted to the people a Constitution
which is based on that of Great Britain. This Constitution abrogates the arbitrary
power. of the chiefs, gives equal rights to all, and secures freedom of worship and
liberty of conscience to all His Majesty's subjects. Treaties have been entered into
with Great Britain, Germany, and the United States, and coaling stations have been
_ granted to these Powers in the fine harbour of Vavau, which lies almost in the direct
line of traffic between Australia and America.

The people may be classed as Eastern Polynesians, and belong to the same race
as the Maoris, Samoans, and other kindred people. The present population of the
Group is about twenty-two thousand. Nukualofa is the capital and seat of Government.
_ The total number of foreign residents in the Group is about four hundred and thirty.
7 _ The principal buildings in Nukualofa are the King’s Palace, the Chapel Royal, the Govern-
ment Offices, and the Wesleyan, Free Church and Catholic Churches. There is a good
wharf built by the Government, at which steamers and vessels may be safely berthed
whilst discharging and loading cargo. The North German Lloyd's fine steamer Ludeck
calls at Nukualofa every month. Messrs. Donald and Edinborough’s steamer Aechmond runs
“regularly from Auckland to Tahiti, and makes Tonga the first and last port of call.
_ The Union Company's steamer Waznuz also runs every month to Tonga, Haabai and
~ Vavau, connecting with the Company's boats at New Zealand for Australia.

1280 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

During the year 1887 the total value of the import and export trade of Tonga to
and from other countries was five hundred and three thousand and four dollars. The
principal foreign “importers and exporters, according to nationality, were British and
German, the former being -represented by a sum of one hundred and forty-one thousand
six hundred and eighty-four dollars, and the latter by three hundred and forty-three
thousand and twenty-seven dollars. France was the next highest, with a value of one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-five dollars. The total customs revenue for the year
was twenty thousand seven hundred and seventy-four dollars. The total value of the
exports for the same year was two hundred and fifty-three thousand four hundred and
thirty-one dollars. This amount was made up as follows: produce of Tonga, one
hundred and fifty-seven thousand four hundred and forty-nine dollars; produce imported
for exportation, ninety thousand nine hundred and_ ninety-three dollars; and general
exports—manufactures of other countries—four thousand nine hundred and_ eighty-nine
dollars. The principal exports, the produce of Tonga, were: copra, two thousand six
hundred and forty-nine tons; wool, thirty thousand pounds; ava, nineteen thousand one
hundred and forty pounds; cotton, eleven thousand seven hundred and ninety pounds ;
fruit (green), nee hundred and ninety-five cases; bananas, eight thousand one hundred
and four bunches; oranges, four hundred and three thousand; fungus, eleven thousand
and forty-nine pounds; and forty-one horses.

The climate of Tonga is very cool and pleasant during the winter months; and
there is little doubt that as the Group becomes better known it will be a favourite
resort for invalids and others who'may wish to escape from the cold or damp climate
of the colonies during the currency of the winter season.

During the past few years some great changes have been. made in the Government
of Tonga, and affairs are entirely altered. Up to July, 1890, the Hon. S. W. Baker was”
Premier, and also united in his own person most of the important offices of the
Government, and thus possessed what was practically unlimited power. Many complaints
were made from time to time against Mr. Baker for the alleged arbitrary use which he
made of the great influence which he possessed over the mind of the King. He was
accused of being primarily responsible for the persecutions which were inflicted upon
those Tongans who remained faithful to the Wesleyan Church; for the banishment of
many others to Fiji and Tofua for the same reason; for violating the Constitution
which provides liberty of conscience and freedom of worship; and for many other
actions which were oppressive to the chiefs and people of Tonga. These complaints
were previously examined and reported upon by Sir Charles B. Mitchell, previous High
Commissioner for the Western Pacific, assisted by the Chief Judicial Commissioner, —
Evidence was then given, which, in. the opinion ‘of the High Commissioner, would have
justified him in prohibiting Mr. Baker, as a British subject, from residing within certain
prescribed limits, as being dangerous to peace and good order’ therein. This power, ‘how-
ever, the High Commissioner declined to exercise, having received from the King a
letter containing certain promises and propositions which he deemed to be satisfactory.

On the visit of his Excellency, Sir J. B. Thurston, the High Commissioner for
_ the Western Pacific, to Tonga in June, 1890, these and many other complaints were

formally brought before him by some of the highest chiefs, ‘including members of the =

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1281

King’s own family, and by people of all classes. They made affidavits to the effect that
Mr. Baker had ruined Tonga, that disturbances had been caused by his actions, that
more would certainly follow, and that Mr. Baker’s life was in danger as long as he
‘remained in the Group. After consideration and enquiry, the High Commissioner first
notified Mr. Baker on the 5th of July of his intention, and on the 17th of July he
issued an order prohibiting him from residing in the Group for the space of two years,
as being a person dangerous to the peace and good order of the Western Pacific. This
action has since been approved of by the British Government. On receipt of the order,
Mr. Baker left Tonga for Auckland. The King had dismissed him from all offices, and
appointed the Hon. George Tukuaho as Premier. His Majesty also, at the request of
the High Commissioner, formally proclaimed complete freedom of worship in accordance
with the Constitution of Tonga, the release of all who were imprisoned without proper
cause, and the return of all those who were exiled to Fiji and Tofua. His Excellency
the High Commissioner, at the request of the King, directed Mr. Basil H. Thomson
to assist the Government for a limited period in carrying out some necessary reforms.
The Government was found to be heavily indebted to officials for salaries over-due, and
to other creditors, but these liabilities, with the exception of some of the salaries due,
were all met before the end of the year. Taxation is decreased, many of the oppres-
sive laws are being modified or entirely repealed, and peace and harmony are again
restored to this beautiful and interesting Group.

' LORD HOWE ann NORFOLK ISLANDS.

[HE well-known ‘history of the “Mutiny of the Bounty” is one of the romantic
episodes of South Sea Island story. It was from that remarkable event that the
colonization of Pitcairn Island dated, and its connection with Norfolk Island is derived
from the fact that the descendants of the old mutineers, who had first settled on the
former Island, were removed thither in June, 1856. Some of them returned again to their
_ original settlement in 1859, and these were followed by another party in 1864, so that the
relationship between the two Islands lias been in some measure maintained. The story of
the mutiny has been often told. Captain William Bligh, afterwards Governor of New
~ South Wales, was dispatched in the Bounty, in 1787, on a mission to introduce the
bread-fruit tree from Otaheite to the British West India possessions. Until the ship's
a arrival at Otaheite, the voyage had passed unmarked by any remarkable incidents, although
F - Bligh had succeeded in making himself unpopular with his officers and men by his severe
. measures of discipline. The Bounty left Otaheite on the 7th of April, 1789, with a supply
of bread-fruit trees on board, and on the 28th of the same month the vessel was_pirati-
ally seized by the crew while in the neighbourhood of Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands.
q Just before sunrise Bligh was awakened by a party of sailors under the command of Acting-
eutenant Christian, who rushed into the cabin and placed him under arrest. He was
nd, and a guard placed at the doors of the officers who remained faithful to him.

were then brought on deck, the launch was hoisted out, and Bligh and his party
. ordered into the boat. They were allowed to take twine, lines, sails, cordage, and a
aty-eight gallon cask of water, with one hundred and fifty pounds of bread, and a small

~
nN

AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

.
quantity of rum and wine. A quadrant and a compass were given them, but no other
instruments, according to Bligh’s account; while it is alleged, on behalf of the mutineers,
that Christian handed into the long-boat a sextant and a book of nautical tables. The
launch was veered astern by a rope, and, “after having undergone a great deal of ridicule,
and been kept for some time to make sport for the unfeeling wretches,” says Bligh, the
adventurers were cast adrift. Bligh
and his eighteen companions voy-
aged three thousand five hundred
miles in their brave craft, landing
at Timor, where they were found
later on by H.IZ.S. Pandora. Dif-
ferent causes have been assigned
for this extraordinary mutiny; Bligh
ascribing it to the allurements of
savage life at Otaheite, while the
mutineers, through their leader,
Christian, gave as their reason the
continuous ill treatment to which
they had been: subjected on the
voyage. Christian took command
of the Bounty, and steered for the
island of Toubouai, lying in twenty
degrees thirteen minutes south lati-
tude, and one hundred and forty-
nine degrees thirty-five minutes

west longitude. Before landing he

revisited Otaheite and procured
some live stock, and returning JOHN ADAMS,

to Toubouai, made a_ settlement

there. Quarrels with the natives soon made it desirable to seek another place of
refuge. Returning to Otaheite, sixteen of the mutineers elected to go ashore, while
Christian and eight others, with twenty Otaheitan natives, men and women, took leave of
their friends and sailed away. Those who remained were discovered, in 1791, by the
Pandora, taken to England, and there tried by court-martial, three being hanged at the
yard-arm of a vessel in His Majesty’s fleet in Portsmouth Harbour for their share in the
memorable mutiny. The Aounty left Otaheite for the last time on the 23rd of September,
1789. There was a book on board telling how Captain Carteret, in the sloop Szwa//ow,
had sighted a small island in latitude twenty-five degrees four minutes south, and longitude
one hundred and thirty degrees twenty-four minutes west, about one thousand two hundred
miles south-east of Otaheite. * Carteret named the island after a midshipman named
Pitcairn, who sighted the spot’ on the horizon, from the mast-head, on the 2nd of July,
1767. Towards this island Christian determined to steer. The search occupied several
weeks, owing to an error in Carteret’s record; but in October, 1789, this speck in the

vast Pacific was descried, and the mutineers once more disembarked. They burnt their

INSULAR AUSTRALASI/-

A TONGAN BELLE,

1284 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

ship and sunk her guns, so that no trace might remain, and Pitcairn Island was colonized,
Christian divided the hitherto uninhabited island into nine parts, which he apportioned
among the Europeans present. For some time the settlement went on peaceably, until
one of the mutineers, named Williams, whose wife had been killed by a fall from a cliff, ,
attempted to possess himself of the wife of an Otaheitan. His comrades protested against
this step, but Williams threatened to leave the Island if they interfered, and as he was
a skillful workman, having been armourer to the ship, they soon gave up their opposition.
Thereupon the Otaheitans formed a plot, which is said to have resulted in the murder
of Christian and Williams, and three of their companions, They then proceeded to quarrel
among themselves, so that in-a short time all the males were killed, leaving Pitcairn
in the undisputed possession of four of the mutineers and the Otaheitan women. One of
the former succeeded in distilling a spirit from the ti-tree, which grew on the Island.
He lapsed into a continual state of inebriety, and presently fell over a cliff and was
killed. A companion who had taken to the same evil courses was destroyed by the two
survivors, Young and Adams, in 1799. Young had been a midshipman on the Bounty,
and Adams an able seaman, who had taught himself to read and write from printed
papers picked up in the streets of London, in which city his father had been a lighter-man.
Among the disused articles taken from the old ship were a Bible, and a prayer-book of the
English Church. Adams applied himself to the reading of these, and under the influence of
his studies, it is said, he soon began to see visions and to dream dreams. He collected
the children of the Island, to the number of nineteen, and proceeded to teach them the
Christian truths. He
taught the community
_ to read, the Bible being
the lesson-book; and
under the new influence

thus introduced, life on

the Island underwent
a radical change. Pub-
lic worship was estab-
lished, after the form
of the English Church ;

the Sunday was ob-

served; the tone of —

THE PRAYER-BOOK USED BY JOHN ADAMS. morals was raised, and

. order and some sem-

blance of social law made their appearance in the little community, so that when the

Island was once more brought into touch with the outer world by the successive

visits of the Zopaz, the Britain and the 7agus, in 1808 and 1814, it was found that the

survivors of the old mutineers had succeeded in establishing a community as idyllic

and virtuous as any in the Arcadian’ age. Mr. Young died in 1800, and from that
time Adams became the patriarch and ruler of the settlement.

After the dates named, vessels touched repeatedly at Pitcairn Island, and the outer

world learnt with interest of the singular experiment of which it had been the scene.

INSULAR

AUSTRALASIA.

‘ 4 i "i
ad

{ ¢ Wa

Pe Scoanagzeukcen

ISLAND,

AIRN

PITC

AST OF

THE

OFF

1286 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

In 1825, the Alossom, a vessel fitted out for purposes of discovery, visited the Island;
and from Captain Beechy, R.N., we get an account of the Islanders and their condition.
Adams and ten of his people put off in a boat to board the Blossom. The old
mutineer was then in his sixtieth year. His old habits of discipline were still so strong
that he held a low-crowned hat in his hand, until desired to put it on; he wore a
sailor's shirt and trousers; and he doffed his hat and smoothed his hair, after the
manner of His Majesty’s sailors of nearly half a century before, whenever the officers
of the King’s ship addressed him. The young men who accompanied him, we are told,
were tall and healthy, with good-natured countenances, and an engaging simplicity of
manner, Their dresses were whimsical enough; some had long coats without trousers,
others had trousers without coats, and others, again, waistcoats without either. None of
them had shoes or stockings, and there were only two hats among them—‘neither of
which,” says Captain Beechy, “seemed likely to hang long together.” The Blossom stayed
at Pitcairn three weeks, observing the manners of the Islanders. The village consisted
of five houses, in which the people lived in the utmost simplicity, ‘employing themselves
in work and devotion, and subsisting on temperate and wholesome fare. Three years
after Captain Beechy left, Mr. George Hunn Nobbs settled there. He had been a
lieutenant in the Chilian Navy, and after a career of adventure he settled down at
Pitcairn to quiet life and work. He went thither from Callao, a voyage of three thou-
sand five hundred miles, in an eighteen-ton launch. He married a grand-daughter of Fletcher
Christian, and later on became the ordained chaplain of the Island. He succeeded to the
patriarchate of the little colony on the demise of John Adams, who died on the 2oth
of March, 1829, in his sixty-fifth year, leaving his name on the Island as a tradition
to be treasured with respect and honour. Vessels continued to visit Pitcairn, and in
1830, H1.M.S. Seringapatam brought the inhabitants presents of clothing and agricultural
implements from the British Government. In 1831, the Government deported all the
Pitcairn Islanders to Otaheité in H.M. sloop Comet. Here twelve of their number died,
and five others died at Pitcairn, whither the party returned within seven months of their
departure. In 1833, a person named Joshua Hill arrived at the Island. He was seventy —
years of age, and claimed to have been sent out to take charge of the little colony.
This ancient adventurer soon introduced disorganization and disorder among the quiet
Islanders, some of whom he suspended by the hand in the church, flogged, and other-
wise maltreated. Complaints were made to the naval officers serving on the Pacific
station, and presently Joshua Hill, who falsely claimed to be a near relative of the
Earl of Bedford, was secured by /.42.S. Jmogene and carried off to Valparaiso, in
1837. Mr. Nobbs, who had been driven away from Pitcairn by this “partially-deranged
impostor,” returned to his charge, and the quiet and simple life of the Island was
resumed. From this time their career remained undisturbed for many years. A kind of
self-government was established, one of the inhabitants being elected Chief Magistrate, —

with two Councillors. The increasing population, however, overtaxed the sustaining

capacity of the Island, and in 1852-3 the dry season and failing crop reduced the inhabi-— _

tants to the verge of privation. After much persuasion they were induced to emigrate
to Norfolk Island, in the Morayshire, on the 22nd of April, 1856, about sixty-seven years
after the memorable mutiny. The Pitcairn Islanders then numbered nearly two hundred

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1287
souls. Some returned in 1858 and 1863, and the descendants of the old mutineers of the
last century now occupy both Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands, in much peace and simplicity.

Norfolk Island lies in latitude twenty-nine degrees fifty seconds south, and longitude
one hundred and sixty-seven degrees fifty-seven minutes east, and was discovered by
Captain Cook in 1773. It is about twenty miles in circumference, with an average
breadth of five or six, and is elevated one thousand and thirty-nine feet above the sea-
level. The Island has had a dismal history. Chosen, at an early period in the mother-
colony's history, as a place of confinement for desperate felons, it was there, as in a

conservatory. of crime, that the iniquitous penal system of the early days brought its

LANDING THROUGH: THE SURF AT NORFOLK ISLAND,

flowerage and ultimate fruit to the rankest extreme of development. The first colonizing
party reached there under Lieutenant King, in March, 1788, and in 1790 that official
was relieved by Lieutenant-Governor Ross, until his’ return in the following year. In
1805 the Island was abandoned, the inhabitants removing to Van Diemen’s Land; _ but
in 1826 it was again constituted a convict settlement. From this time, until the penal
system was. finally broken up, the story of Norfolk Island forms the darkest chapter in
Australasian history. Its aspect now differs strangely from that presented by the Island
while a penal settlement. The old prison buildings still stand, and easily strike the
visitor's eye on landing, but otherwise all is changed.

Leaving the settlement of Kingston on the left, after following a road winding up
among the hills for about a mile and a_ half, the pedestrian finds himself at the

beginning of a magnificent avenue of pine trees, straight as an arrow and about a mile

1288 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

and a half in length, Walking along this green colonnade, pleasant glimpses of the sea,
between the green downs on the left, are obtained; on the right, Mount Pitt, thickly
wooded to the summit, forms an attractive picture. At length a dip in the road brings
one to the Mission. On the left is a small green, on which stand the houses and
buildings occupied by the women and married natives; on the right is the eastern end
of the Pattison Memorial Chapel. Behind this are the school-rooms and missionaries’
houses, and the principal buildings connected with the Mission. All about, as every-where
throughout the Island,
stand straight, tall, fea-
thery pines. Here, under
the direction of Bishop
Selwyn, young natives
from the Islands, male
and female, are trained
up as teachers. As, of
course, they have many
different dialects, Motu
is taught all in the first
place. They are a happy
lot of people, and many
show great intelligence,
especially in picking up
music, several playing
the organ and harmo-
nium with more than

average facility. The

men are dressed in flan-
KINGSTON, NORFOLK ISLAND, ~ ‘nel shirts and blue trou-

sers, their hair being

combed out in the prevailing island fashion, and decorated with flowers and feathers.
Small sticks of bamboo, covered with native patterns, are usually worn stuck through
the lobe of the ear. The women wear white or red dresSes, and adorn their heads in
much the same way as the men. The show-place of the establishment is, of course, the
chapel, and a very handsome one it is. On entering, the first object that strikes the
eye is a massive font of black and red Devonshire marble. The pavement is of the
same material, black and gray, in oblongs arranged diagonally, and of a wonderful polish,
the bare feet of the worshippers precluding any scratching. The rows of pews, three
on each side, are of light-wood, and have small panels at the end, which have recently
been inlaid with mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell and ivory mosaic work, in very handsome
patterns. The hangings on either side of the altar were embroidered by the widow of
the late Commodore Goodenough. The reredos is of carved walnut with mosaic
panelling. The chancel is lighted by five single-light windows of exquisite colouring from
the designs of Burne Jones. On the right is a fine organ, the gift of Miss C. M.
Yonge, the novelist. Leaving the chapel, the dining-hall, a large building, is seen on

INSULAR

the right-hand, and at one end is a clock-tower built of shingles—the gift of a visitor.

Beyond are the missionaries’ quarters, and
the buildings occupied by the natives.
Altogether the Mission appears a pretty

and pleasant place, and the good work

.done throughout the Islands of the South

Seas attests its usefulness.
Lord Howe’s Island is the southern-
most of the outlying islands on the east

coast of Australia. It is only five and

‘a half miles long by one and a half across,

and in one part only a quarter of a mile
wide. The few families who live here
grow plentiful stores of provisions, and
are bountifully supplied with fish all round
their coast. The country is mountainous,
the most prominent object being the double
mountain at the south end, the highest
point being Mount Gower, two thousand
eight hundred and thirty-four feet high.
The summit of this abruptly rising Moun-
tain is a plateau, having a small lake in
the centre, surrounded with bush full of
wild pigs and goats. The vegetation of
the Island is quite tropical, cabbage-palms
and banyan-trees abounding, while bananas,

oranges and Indian corn grow well.

NEW CALEDONIA.
EW CALEDONIA commands

a special interest for the peo-
ple of Australasia, inasmuch as it is
the foreign possession that lies near-
est to our shores. The territory
was one of the many discoveries of
Captain. Cook, who landed there on
his cruise of 1776, and named the
Island in the same spirit that dic-
tated the name of Eastern Australia,
from its real or fancied resemblance
to some portion of the Scottish sea-
board familiar to his own earlier ex-

periences. For many years the Island

AUSTRALASTA.

we
4

CALEDONIA,

CAPITAL OF NEW

THE

NOUMEA,

1290 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

was left undisturbed by any foreign visitors,—unless, perhaps, when from time to time the
primitive stillness of its quiet bays was rippled by the restless keel of some enterprising
French or English navigator who might have put in there for water or to refit. Later
on, as the vague and irregular reports that reached civilization from these sources began to
take definite shape, far-seeing people in Europe learned to look on these distant lands as
offering a field for their spirit of enterprise. In this way the French missionaries came, |
and earnest men with no personal ends. to serve pioneered the advance of civilization
among the island tribes, as De la Salle and Marquette did along the banks of the
Mississippi and St. Lawrence. Nearly eighty years passed away from the date of the
discovery before the existence of New Caledonia was officially recognized. The incident
that led to this is characteristic of the story of the South Seas. The French frigate
Alcmeni, under the command of Comte d’Harcourt, touched at one of these havens in
1851, as so many. unrecorded visitors had before him. A boat was sent ashore to
reconnoitre. The crew strayed into an ambush of the natives, and were massacred to a
man. This tragic event directed the French official mind to the island lying unclaimed
by any civilized power, yet full of possibilities to the ‘enterprising colonist who might
courageously elect to make his home there. The Emperor Napoleon III. lost no time
in taking the necessary steps towards proclaiming the Island a French possession, and
the tricolour was formally hoisted by Admiral Febvrier-Despointes, in the name of his
imperial master, and without opposition on the part of the aboriginal inhabitants, on the
24th of September, 1853. From this date the history of New Caledonia as a French colony
begins. The Pine Islands, some few miles to the south, were annexed in the same
way the next year; and though the natives, beginning to realize that their freedom of
action was slipping away from them, shewed some opposition to the rule under which
their possessions had passed, French authority gradually made itself felt, and the work
of annexation went on as it has always done when urged by civilized new-comers
against a savage people. So far as the influx of European settlers was concerned,
progress for the first ten years continued slow and unpromising enough, but a new
state of things was inaugurated when, in 1864, the Emperor decreed the establishment of
a convict settlement at New Caledonia. Just at the time the question of the treatment
of criminals in France was under debate. Cayenne, which for many years had been the
destination of French déportés, had earned such a_ terrible reputation as the grave of
transported offenders, and the rate of mortality from fever there was so high that
sentence of exile had become synonymous in the public mind with sentence of death.
The galleys of Toulon had long been the scene .of such vice and misery among. the
forgats there as to outrage the public sentiment of the country. It was felt that circum- — |
stances and the results of official inquiry imperatively demanded some change in the
administration of the penal department, and, in the difficulty that presented itself, the
project of deporting criminals to New Caledonia was hailed as an inspiration. The
suggestion was at once acted on. That most hazardous colonizing material, a convict popula-
tion and its officers, obtained a footing in the Island; and, though the evil was in itself a
small one at first, it was the initial step towards that which has since made the existence of —
a prison settlement in New Caledonia a menace to the whole sea-board of Eastern Australia. q
While the Empire lasted—that is, up to 1870—the penal establishment in the Islands was

: INSULAR. AUSTRALASIA. 1291

efficiently conducted. Prisoners were sent there under such an adequate guard as to make
discipline effective and escape impossible; and so long as these conditions continued, the
settlement was sufficiently distant from the Australian coast to leave the danger of
contamination compara-
} tively non-existent. But
| quite another state of
, things came in with the
Republic. When the
Commune fell in Paris,

] : and the prisons were

filled with persons con-
victed of having taken
part in the destructive
operations of that body, -

M. Thiers found him-

self.confronted with

; much the same problem

—

as that laid before

¥
g

j
"
iit

Napoleon III. by his

advisers nearly twenty

years before. His de-

cision was a similar

one. Regulations were

passed, under which

New Caledonia thence-

. forth became the recep-
tacle for all classes of

offenders, political or

criminal, and convicts

- _~_— began to be deported
in such numbers that
the character of the
penal establishment
there was radically
changed, and many half-
punished offenders were
allowed semi-liberty. .

The criminal popula-

tion rapidly out-grew

es ; THE INTERIOR OF A NEW CALEDONIAN PRISON.

the ability of its guard ;
.

to preserve real discipline. Order degenerated into lawlessness and disorder, until the state

of things occurred which has made New Caledonia a danger to its Australian neighbours.

The colony of New Caledonia consists of the large Island of that name, lying about

a thousand miles from the east coast of Australia, in latitude twenty-two degrees south,

1292 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

and longitude one hundred and sixty-four east, together with the small Isle of Pines, and
the islets in its neighbourhood. The Island itself is one hundred and ninety miles long
and thirty miles wide, trending north-west and south-east. French rule is acknowledged
over the Islands of Lifu, Mare and Uvea, forming the Loyalty Group, but the area
of New Caledonia is more than double that of all the other French territory in these
parts, comprising a superficial extent of some three million seven hundred and five thou-
sand acres. The main Island differs also from the rest of the Group in the fact that
while most of the smaller islets are of the usual low coral growth, with their surfaces
almost on a level with
the sea, New Caledonia
is of volcanic origin, and
at first sight from the
sea would seem to con-
sist almost entirely of a
series of lofty moun-
tains of wild and savage
aspect. These moun-
tains are of serpentine
formation, and their
peculiar dome-like shape
and strange ruddy
colour are very charac-
teristic of the scenery

of this Island. It is en-

NEW CALEDONIAN CONVICTS MAKING ROADS. tirely surrounded by a

barrier reef of coral for-

mation. Following the dip of the ground on the main-land, which slopes more gradually on
the west coast, this reef is several miles away on that side, while on the east, where the
slope is more rapid, it lies much nearer the shore. A pass or opening is found in front
of the principal rivers, and the traveller entering one of these for ‘the first time cannot
fail to be struck by the character and beauty of the scenery. The pale green of the
calm and shallow lagoon, flecked with the strange triangular-shaped sails of the native
canoes, is separated from the tumultuous roll of the outside sea only by a curling white
fringe of foam, marking where the long wash of the Pacific breaks on the narrow
barrier of coral. The quiet lagoon is one of the principal fishing-grounds of the natives,
and the bright water is rich with all the magical charm of life and colour, in fish, or
shell, or coral, that forms the allurement and fascination of these tropical seas. A fore-
ground of shore, lined with dark-green patches of forest and mangroves concealing the
mouths of the Island rivers, is thrown out against a réséstance of purple upland broken
by depths of blue, through which the folding hills can be seen billowing away in the
farthest distance. Now and then along the shore the waving tops of cocoa-nut palms
distinguish the villages of the native people. A mountain range runs down the full
length of the Island, throwing off spurs which in some places run in rugged ridges to

the water's edge. The east coast shows the most striking instances of this, and the

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1293

high barren peaks of these eruptive masses, stretching for miles along the shore and
forming frowning precipices over deep blue water, are very striking objects. They strongly
impress the spectator with the conviction that these desolate heights are Alpine summits
resting on some submerged continent. ‘‘The impression of lonely desolation,” says an
observant resident in New Caledonia, “is almost strengthened by a nearer view. From
the deathly stillness of their peaks, from the absence of animal life and the steep inac-

cessibility of their sides—whose scant vegetation cannot hide the wild masses of ferru-

as ne

CONVICTS WASHING CLOTHES, NEW CALEDONIA.

ginous and scoriatic débrzs, or the larger heaps of argillaceous jasper of fantastic shapes
and colours scattered about, while the action of water has hollowed out deep furrows
on their flanks which form motley stains in strange contrast to the ruddy hue of the
mountain itself—the mind of the traveller is deeply imbued with an impressive sense of
these deep solitudes and awful silences.”

The natural features of other portions of the Island are not so bold. Green forests
break the sombre character of the scenery, and level tracts along the sea-board soften
down the outline of the shore. This strip, which averages on the east coast only a
few hundred yards in width except in the valleys of the larger rivers, is sometimes
seven or eight miles broad on the west coast. The soil is of stratified and metamor-
phic formation, showing traces of coal-measures and copper veins, and forming a
succession of low, rolling grass-covered hills several hundred feet in height, interspersed
with plains of black clay. The aspect of these lowlands fulfills in no way the conven-
tional idea of tropical scenery. They cover only a fifth of the whole island, and
comprise the only land available for agriculture or pasturage. The rest of the territory
is mainly made up of the rugged central mountain chain; but this has been proved to
contain wonderful mineral wealth, tempting enough to attract that enterprise and capital

for which the less wild portion of the country offers so small a field. Gold, iron, silver,

1294 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

cobalt, chrome and lead have been found, while nickel in the form of a hydratic silicate
of=nickel and magnesium has been met with in enormous quantities diffused throughout
the mountainous districts. These elevated regions also send down numerous rivers to
the sea, and although these streams spread into dark, sluggish, canal-like forms among
the mangrove-covered mud swamps at their mouths, they have an entirely different
character among the hills. Here they form bright sparkling streams, dashing over
roaring cascades, or coursing above strong beds of rounded boulders, with deep éalm
intervening pools. The scenery resembles that of some of the Scottish rivers, and they
abound in a fly-taking
fish resembling perch.
A promising field for
pisciculture exists in
New Caledonia, and
it is admitted that if
the introduction of
salmon and trout were
undertaken systema-
tically the numerous
suitable streams could
be turned into a pro-
lific source of wealth,

A CONVICT COMPOUND IN NEW CALEDONIA. - Their indigenous pro-
. ductions even, when
better known, combined with the natural beauty of the scenery and the healthfulness of
the climate, will doubtless attract a large yearly influx of Australian tourists as do the
Norwegian streams of annual visitors from other parts of Europe. |
The chief interest of New Caledonia to Australia lies, of course, in the fact of its -
being a French penal colony. Since the first consignment of défortés arrived in the
frigate /phygente, under the governorship of Admiral Guillain, in April, 1864, the number
has gone on increasing, until it now reaches upwards of twelve thousand men and women,
inclusive of those holding tickets-of-leave. This is nearly double the whole of the rest
of the population, including both soldiers and settlers. Grim stories are told of convictism
in New Caledonia, and miserable tales have been current from time to time respecting
the lax discipline, the excesses, and the general disorganization of the official system
administering this huge social anomaly. Some attempt has been made of late years to
remedy these things in a measure. The more formidable criminals are confined in the
penal establishment on the Ile Nou, an island at the mouth of Noumea Harbour, about
one mile from the town. Some five ‘or six thousand convicts are hived here in the prison
buildings distributed over the Island, which is three miles long by about three-quarters
broad. The prisoners are classified into. five divisions, according to the character of their
offences, and those in the, fifth or more desperate class are never allowed beyond the
walls, while many are kept continually in chains to prevent their escape. Other
divisions are set to work under an armed guard, but never allowed to leave the Island;
while the greater number are conveyed to the main-land daily in punts, carrying gangs

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1295

of stated numbers, and there set to labour on the roads, erecting public buildings, or
otherwise assisting in the Government works of the colony. Every morning, as these labour-
gangs land from the punts, they are’ received on the quay at Noumea by a strong
military guard, and embarked in the evening in the same way; while an armed guard
of surveillants overlooks them at their work. Notwithstanding these precautions, frequent
attempts to escape are made, and the warders have standing instructions, which are not

allowed to remain inoperative, to shoot down any convict showing any inclination that

A PAPUAN VILLAGE, NEW CALEDONIA.

way. Attempts at escape, more or less successful, are made almost every day from these
gangs, as well as from the labour camps, numbering fifty or a hundred men, which are
distributed about the colony. The escapees, or evadés, sometimes remain at large for
months, levying black-mail on the settlers and natives, and not infrequently adding to
their record of serious crime. Every now and then, tales are told of convicts escaping

in small boats and making their way in the face of terrible privation to the Australian

g
coast. From this circumstance the dissatisfaction on the part of the Australian colonies
arose, for the colonists naturally objected to their ports being made places of refuge
by this dangerous and. highly undesirable element. The protests of the colonies induced
the British Foreign Office to take action, but the official remonstrance to the French

Ministry was met by an assurance on the part of M. Ferry that his Government refused

1296 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

to acknowledge the right of the British Authorities to interfere in a question which, he
maintained, concerned the internal administration of France. The colonies, however, carried
on the agitation; and the news of the passing of ‘the new French Measure to make New ~
Caledonia a place of deportation for habitual criminals. gave rise to very bitter feelings, Pub-
lic meetings have ‘been held on the question, and threats openly made to charter a ship
and convey all French convicts now in Australian gaols to France, and land them bodily
there. Between July and October, 1883, no less than fifty-three public demonstrations
were held in the principal Australian cities to protest against the recent action of France
in the matter. Lord Derby communicated the resolutions arrived at to the French
Government, merely receiving an assurance from M. Challemel-Lacour, in reply, that the
Récidivist or Habitual Criminal Bill had not at the time become law. Advantage was
taken of the pause thus secured to deport several hundred récidivists to New Caledonia,
notwithstanding the remonstrance of the British Ambassador at Paris. Ultimately, the
Measure passed, and under its provision any 77 my Pe Correctionel may order the
transportation (a) of any criminal who, within a period of ten years, shall have suffered
imprisonment four times, for terms of three months or upwards, for certain specific
crimes; (4) of persons who, in a period of ten years, shall have been sentenced to travaux
forcés on two separate occasions, or once ‘sentenced to ¢vavaux forcés and once to
imprisonment for three months; (c) or of those who, in the space of ten years, shall
have been sentenced on six separate occasions, including at least one term of three »
months’ duration. From these provisions it will be seen that the purpose of the penal
establishment in New Caledonia is to provide a receptacle for the criminal classes of the
mother-country. Récidivists so transported receive grants of land, and no disabilities are
placed upon them other than a prohibition to return to France. They are not herded —
with the convicts, but regain their civil rights in the colony. The object of the Bill
was to provide a population for the colony, by relieving the correctional system at home,
and, so far as it goes, the plan may be said to have presented at first the appearance
of just such a humane socialistic experiment as would afford a philosophic French
theorist delight. The model aimed at was that of the Australian colonies; but, so far, —
those responsible for the working out of the theory have only succeeded in producing
another Norfolk Island on a somewhat larger scale, instead of a second New South
Wales. The scheme has been left to work itself out in the hands of officials whose
interest in the experiment is anything but a philosophic one, and the result is found to
be much the same as that arrived at under our own convict system in the earlier
stages of Australian colonization—with the radical difference, however, that these colonies:
offered room for expansion and pastoral settlement, which New Caledonia certainly does —
not. The “deré, who is placed on the land as a settler, is not always the best indi-
vidual to experiment upon, but the unwieldy system finds relief by disburdening itself in this
way of the responsi of his support. Convict women of the worst class, who are

and the lawless character of these people keeps the colony and its ether dispooatal
settlers in a condition of continual ferment and restless agitation.. Some, of the déportés —
are hired out as labourers on easy terms to the colonists, It is not to be supposed _
that the whole of the convict population of New Caledonia belongs to the hopeless :

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1297

criminal class. Many of those who have been deported for even serious offences are
remarkable for their quiet and orderly temperament and capacity for hard work. This
is particularly noticeable in convicts from the country districts, and these form the best
material for the operation of the experiment of regeneration. Of this, the late
‘Governor, M. Pallu de la Barriére, was the enthusiastic apostle. A man of great individu-
ality of character, with

vast enterprise and much

philanthropy, he did ‘
much the same kind of _ .

work in New Caledonia
as Macquarie did in early
New South Wales. This
officer gave special atten-
tion to the opening up
of the country by means
of good roads, employing
for the purpose the more
dangerous criminals who
had hitherto been kept
in idle confinement at the
Ile Nou. To the better
behaved men he gave ING ne
grants of land, to be held | ’ Nc!

during good behaviour. it | 1”

Mi |

His short term of au : MU Nes
il Mi \ or ~!!

thority saw great pro-
gress and substantial re-
forms; but since his un-
timely .recall—due, it is
believed, to a charge of
too great leniency in his
treatment of the convicts
—the colony has drifted
back almost to the stage
at which he found it. M.
de la Barriére offended.
a certain class by dis-
countenancing the ill-
treatment of convict la-.
bourers. The masters, in

many instances, carried

matters with a very high

hand, and the lash and
* imprisonment in private KANAKA WEAPONS, NEW CALEDONIA.

1298 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

cells were frequently resorted to. This course of conduct, by driving the men to des-
peration, is to a large degree answerable for the criminality of New Caledonia.

The social condition of the colony, as might be expected in a penal settlement, is
somewhat chaotic. Where the population is largely made up of liberated déportés and
their masters, it is natural to suppose that very decided social institutions may be looked
for in vain. A Governor is appointed by the French Authorities at home, who is
assisted in the administration of the colony’s affairs by the heads of the various depart-
ments of the local Government service. He presides over a Council, composed of the
Director of the Interior, the Commandant of the Forces, the Chief of the Convict
Department and the Chief Justice. Two private citizens, nominated by the Governor,
represent the civil interests; and matters relating to finance are regulated by four
members of the Municipal Council of Noumea, with three other nominees of the
Governor selected from the other municipalities. Justice is administered by a “Tribunal
of the First Instance” and a “Court of Appeal,” sitting at Noumea; while four /uges-
de-patx preside over Courts at Noumea, Onégoa, Bourail and Chepenehé. The primary
schools previously conducted by the Marist Brothers and the Sisters of St. Joseph, who
have in the past done much good work in New Caledonia, have of late years been
laicized under the law. of the Republic to that effect.

The aborigines of New Caledonia comprise between. thirty and forty thousand
persons. They belong to the Papuan race, being generally of a dark-brown colour, with
woolly hair, and are known by the general name of Kanakas. Small groups of families
collect into villages separated several’ miles from each other, forming settlements of
different tribes, speaking different dialects, and having each its own land limits. The
dwellings are of bee-hive shape, thatched with grass, and usually about twelve feet high.
The chief's hut is distinguished by being thrice as high, and is placed in the centre of
the village, with an avenue of trees before it for tribal dances or meetings. Here the
older men spend the livelong day in gossiping groups round the fire, the low monotone
of their voices blending drowsily with the humming sound one of their number is
certain to be producing from the long reed pipe which forms their sole musical _ instru-
ment. The younger men make nets or mend weapons, repair canoes, or shape the
stones they use with deadly effect in their slings. The women flit about preparing food, —
or bear provisions around the: village, as they are the universal carriers; or perhaps they
may be seen cooking at the fire, using for the purpose the peculiarly shaped conical
earthenware pots which they make themselves. The natives do not know the use of the
bow and arrow, spears and slings being their only missiles. The spears are made of a
peculiar wood, hardened in fire; while the slings are of cord, the stones being rounded
like an egg, but longer and more pointed. Clubs are of various shapes, from those
with round heads to those that are bent and pointed like a pick. There is also the
chief's greenstone tomahawk. Before the coming of the French these savages were
enthusiastic cannibals. Their chief occupation is the cultivation of the ¢avo, a root that
requires a good supply of water. This is conveyed in aqueducts constructed of earth
and wood, sometimes ten or twelve miles in length, and over terraces covering miles of
country on the sides of the hills, These cultivation areas make a fine sight as seen
from some neighbouring elevation, with acre after acre of these terraces, each with its

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1299
silver streak of water gleaming in the sun. The natives are also expert fishermen, using
for the purpose a three-pronged fish-spear as well as the

nets on which they chiefly depend. They are made of the

tough fibre of a tree called man-

yan-ye, employing the same knot as
European fishermen use, with much
the same shuttle. The nets used in
the capture of dugong and turtle are
of great length and
weight, and require
the aid of canoes to
be laid with effect.

The most curious,

MULLET AND DUGONG FISHING,

however, is that used in the capture
of the mullet generally found in shoals
in the brackish water at the mouths
of rivers. These nets hang down per-
pendicularly several feet in the water,
and are attached along their full length
to a harrow raft. Mullet are known
to jump over an ordinary net, but they

are retained by these rafts, and the FISHING WITH SPEARS.

1300 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

crowd of swimming fishermen around quickly quiet them by a crunch between their jaws.

The death of a New Caledonian chief is celebrated with much ceremony. His wives
generally strangle themselves. The body is wrapped in mats and placed in a sitting
attitude, some male attendants, from six to twenty-four in number, being appointed
watchers. Their hair is cut short, and they are smeared with charcoal and oil, becoming
strictly ¢adoo to the sight of the women. The people retire early to their huts, while
the deceased is borne round by the watchers to the chief's” favourite haunts in life.
When the body is sufficiently decayed, it is taken into the bush and decapitated by the
chief mourner. During their vigil with the departed warrior, the watchers have to go
through much tedious ceremonial. All food is thrown into their mouths by another,
and no one is allowed to partake with his own hands. Every action is accompanied by
the triple répetition of a certain cabalistic word. During this period, they are occupied
in making the gigantic masks of carved wood, painted black, which is placed over the
head and covered with sable feathers and hair reaching to the knees. When the body
has been deposited in the bush and the tribe assembled, the women painted white and
wailing lugubriously, the watchers disguised in their masks spring out of the scrub bran-
dishing spears and fire-sticks. The chief mourner advances from the bush with the dead
man’s head held aloft, and shows it to the assembled tribe. The principal men address
short speeches of ceremony to it and to the mourners, and the head is then interred in
some almost inaccessible cave which forms the tribal cemetery. Food is left for the
dead in remote places, and the religion is a worship of ancestors who are supposed to
act the part of tutelary deities.

Settlement in New Caledonia may be said to date from the coming of Mr. Henry —
and Captain Paddon, who were respectively English and Australian. The town of Noumea,
the capital of the colony, owes its existence to Mr. John Higginson, originally of Adelaide,
whose name is representative of the business energy and enterprise of the Islands. He
first settled here in 1863, and his forethought planned the town and laid it out, as his
activity was mainly instrumental in the erection of the principal official and private build-
ings and the alignment of the roads that open up the interior of the Island. The design
of the town is regular enough, but the building up of Noumea has not been in harmony
with the character of the plans. Most of the houses and minor. places of business appear
to have been carelessly built of wood, roofed with the corrugated iron that is so ill-suited
to the requirements of these tropical countries. The capital is enabled to present a
better appearance than private effort might have given it, from the fact that it contains
the principal Government buildings, the residences of the Governor and officials, the
military barracks and the head penal establishments. Approached from the sea, the town
is seen to lie in the hollow of a plain between two groups of hills, its rectangular
sections and the straight lines of its streets presenting to the distant eye the regularity —
of a geometrical figure. The population of the town of Noumea itself, as may be
expected, is made up of a strange agglomeration of representatives of the people of
many nations. The French are of course in the majority, but the total is swelled by
traders and planters from Australia, English, Italian and German deters; and visitors.
from Bourbon and the Mauritius, with a residuum made up of Malays and Asiatics, and

natives from the New Hebrides and ‘other neighbouring islands. The whole. colony was,

» lag ths

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1301

in 1879, divided into five
cantons, each of which is
ruled by a municipal coun-
cil, with the privilege of
levying its own rates and
taxes, constructing public
works, opening up roads,
administering the law re-

lating to grants and ten- ay, Ae
g 8 a ay oP :
SW as And @ & Ny

_— »

ure of land, and other less Sy AA
important duties. The Soy hI
cantons were those of .
Noumea, which had six
hundred and eighty-three
electors on the district
roll when the colony was
first divided in 1879;
Kanala, with one hundred
and four; Houailon, with
ninety-eight ; Touho, with
forty-two; and Onégoa,

with ninety-four. These

numbers have since ‘mate —
rially increased in some can-
tons, particularly in that of
Noumea, but their relative
importance remains about
‘the same, and the central
canton is the only one which
can really be said to enjoy
any actual return for its

rates. However, the colony

THE OBSEQUIES OF A KANAKA CHIEF.

1302 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

is generously assisted by the mother-country, and upwards of half a million sterling annually
appears for New Caledonia in the budget of the French Minister of Marine and the
Colonies. For the year 1881, by far the largest portion of this sum, two hundred and
twenty-five thousand pounds, was absorbed by the convict establishment; about sixty
thousand pounds were spent on naval and military expenses; and upwards of one hun-
dred and thirty thousand pounds on postal and telegraphic services.

._ The colony is in no sense self-supporting, and, considering the heavy cost of the
convict establishments and system there, it can scarcely expect to be so. In the year
for which figures have already been quoted, the principal items of local revenue were
derived from the tax upon wines and spirits, fourteen thousand six hundred pounds; the
sale of lands, eighteen thousand three hundred and sixty pounds; and the tax on land,
two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds. The local budget provides for an expendi-
ture of seventy-six thousand six hundred pounds. The commercial statistics of the colony
continue to stand at a low figure, and the returns for the years 1880 and 1881 showed
a decrease from three hundred and sixteen thousand one hundred and _ seventy-seven
pounds to two hundred and eighty-four thousand five hundred and_ sixty-four pounds on
imports, and from one hundred and ten thousand two hundred and eighty-six pounds to
sixty-one thousand three hundred and_ sixty-two pounds on exports; of the imports in
that year it may be mentioned that the cost of the rations for the supply of the total
of ten thousand prisoners, at that time distributed over the Island, amounted to a
sum of eighty thousand pounds. The public works of the colony are, of course, largely
carried out by convict labour, as already described; but this is supplemented by an
annual municipal vote by the council of Noumea of ten thousand pounds. The principal
industrial operations of the Island are confined to these public works, mining and planting.

Since 1880, the mineral prospects of the colony have attracted marked attention from
Australian colonists, many of whom have embarked both capital and labour in their
working. Companies have been formed, some of them influentially represented and
commanding considerable capital. Copper has been found in thirty-six localities, the most
promising being those of Balade and Bomamoula, where workings have been in opera-
tion for some years. Up to the end of 1883, the Balade Mine had exported forty-three
thousand tons of metal, the pure copper averaging seventeen per. cent. Thesé mining |
operations afforded at that time employment to over four hundred workmen, three-fourths
of whom were convicts released on_ tickets-of-leave. The nickel mines have also been
very active. The head-quarters of these operations are at Thio-Canalo and Houailon,
and the annual exports have reached one hundred thousand pounds in value. The draw-
back to the industry lies in the impossibility of thoroughly treating the ore locally, and
the expense of shipping it to France has proved a damaging item against the complete

success of these nickel mines. Iron has also been worked with some success, the most

promising mine for a long while being that
Australian miners. What has been done up
development has been merely sporadic, and
over free settlement has, so far, stood in
along the whole line. The encouragement

panacea for the politic ills from which New

known as the “Lucky Hit,” held by some
to the present in the shape of industrial
the preponderance of a convict population
the way of anything like distinct advance
of free immigration is spoken of as the

Caledonia suffers, and it must be confessed

INSULAR AUSTRALASIA. 1:

that until something definite is done in this direction it will bé futile to look for any
material advance in the face of the insecurity arising from the lawlessness of the
dangerous portion of the population, and the stagnation in commerce and trade.

For the last few years the French Government has been endeavouring to encourage
emigration to New Caledonia, by the offer of guaranteed assistance to settlers. Free
passages to French citizens who have completed the term of their military service, grants

of land from nine to

twelve and a half acres, =

and an additional con-
cession of nine acres on a
the marriage of any Ee
member of the emi-
grant’s family, are
among the induce-
ments that have been
offered by placard on
the walls of every
mazrze in the country
districts at home. Im-
migrants from Alsace
and Lorraine are spe-
cially encouraged by

grants of twenty-five

acres. Settlers from

countries other than

NOTRE DAME ROCK,

France receive what
are known as “concessions a titre onéreux,” permitting them to purchase land at ten
francs per acre, payable in advance by twenty-four half-yearly instalments.

Pastoral operations have been languishing’ lately from a variety of causes, among
which must be named the native troubles with which the colony is afflicted. The ab-
original tribes have at times found the incursions of the horned cattle of the settlers
detrimental to their own attempts at agriculture, and a revolt of the natives in 1877,
which resulted in great disaster to the outlying white population, was nearly due to
this cause. The question of their protection from trespass has engaged the attention of
the Government, whose task has not been lightened by the fact that the price of cattle
has of late fallen appreciably, since the tendency to allow steck to stray must increase
as their value goes down. The price obtainable for horned cattle has fallen about seventy-
five per cent. during the past few years, principally owing to over-production, the inci-
dence of unwise and ever-changing land-laws, and alterations in the price per acre by
Governmental regulation. Older ‘settlers who bought at the higher values have been
brought to the verge of ruin by this recent lowering of the upset price. Agriculture
has not made much progress in the colony. Attempts to cultivate sugar and rice, for
which the soil is more suitable than anything else, have only resulted in failure; and though

coffee -planting is still going on, the want of labour is a serious drawback to its success.

1304 AUSTRALASIA TLL USTRA TED.

On the whole, then, though it must be conceded that the experiment in New
Caledonia tells rather against the adaptability of the Freneh settler to the work of
colonization, it must be acknowledged that the disabilities he labours under there have
much to do with the unpromising result. The competition between the penal and free
labour is the first of the colony’s drawbacks. It has long been proved by experience in
other places that settlement developes better under responsible effort than under the
forced and subsidized labour of convicts. Then the coldness and sterility of the soil,

which, in all the plains but those formed by alluvial deposit at the mouths of the rivers,

is of a stiff clayey nature, constitutes a permanent discouragement. The lack of capital
in the colony, which is only to be got in small amounts, and at the exorbitant legal rate of
twelve per cent. interest, seriously discounts one of the first conditions of enterprise.
But the chief cause of the stagnation of the colony is to be found in the hasty and
inexperienced legislation of the local authorities, and the unwise attempt to acclimatize
unsuitable French laws that necessarily conflict with the conditions of a new colony.
This has especially been’ the case with regard to agriculture; while the mining laws have
hopelessly retarded what should have been the principal industry. The first discoverers

of gold, for example, obtained concessions of blocks of land so large that they embraced

$
the whole field and shut out all enterprise. This so discouraged the miners who were
drawn to the spot that littke or no attempt at gold-seeking has since been made. The
prospects of New Caledonia as a mining centre hold out, however, great promise for the
future. Gold doubtless exists in the Island in considerable quantities. Nickel is found
in almost inexhaustible stores, and this mineral itself, especially were science to apply its
non-oxidizing qualities largely in the arts and manufactures in conjunction with the
common metals, might afford occupation for many times the present. population. At
present, in the absence of enterprise and capital, mines are frequently found and
declared, and then left unworked. Coal-seams have been discovered, but the authori-
ties, with a strange indifference, long left them undeveloped and unexplored. Efforts
have lately been made to induce the Government to test these seams by diamond
borers, and examinations were only quite recently entered upon of the more important
outcrops of coal. All these considerations enter, more or less, into the question of the
adaptability of the French settler to the work of colonization. Intensely economical,
sober, and consistently hard-working as the ‘French free colonist of the working classes
in New Caledonia uniformly is, it is a subject for regret that his energy and courage

have not been displayed under fairer and more favourable conditions..

a iis ¢ &
\¥ ake 4
Ak eT

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA.

3 betes TAN Wi vicina

THE SYDNEY OBSERVATORY.

GEOLOGICAL FORMATION.
HE geology of Australasia is of special

interest. The vast Island Continent of
Australia is built up of formations correspond-
ing to those composing other parts of the globe;
at the same time, it possesses features peculiar to itself, and
* thus a new field-of research is presented. A geologist landing
upon these shores at once recognizes rocks similar in charac-
ter, and in some of their embedded fossil remains, to those
with which he is familiar; and he is inspired with new zeal
when he finds evidence of life-remains not known elsewhere,
which enables him to add to the present incomplete know-
ledge of the past life-history of the earth. Besides this, por-
tions of Australia. have existed as dry land from remote geo-
logical periods to the present day, and hence, as might be expected, our living fauna
and flora include ancient types. For a long period these old land-surfaces appeared
as comparatively small islands. Some idea of the depth of the ocean that surrounded
them may be formed from the fact that the layers of marine sediment, which form
‘the great plains of the interior, have been pierced by the boring-rod to a depth of
over one thousand six hundred feet, and then not passed through.
Australia, once small islands, but now a vast continental area, may, therefore, not

inaptly be looked upon as foreshadowing the growth of the future nation into which, from

1306 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

small isolated settlements,. the present disunited colonial elements are gradually being
welded. Then, the geology of Australia teaches a lesson not only of high scientific
interest, but one ‘of great commercial significance, namely :—that the formations afford
evidence of an enormous area of soils adapted for agricultural and pastoral purposes, and
also of the rocks that indicate rich mineral resources. In these we have assurance of the
future occupation of Australia by a vast industrial population,

On reference to a geological map of Australia, it will be seen that the features of
the coast-districts, as well as of considerable portions of the interior, have been more or
less definitely ascertained. But a large extent of the interior has not yet been examined.
Nevertheless, from the explorations already made, we learn that it is not a worthless
desert—that the rocky slate and granite hills, which were at first traversed with such diffi-
culty by the explorers, show the existence of the great metalliferous formations; and that
the wide-spreading stony downs, so deficient in permanent surface-water, indicate the
enormous area of artesian water-bearing strata. And it will further be seen that we have
formations of igneous and sedimentary origin representative of most of the principal epochs
of the earth’s history, as recorded in the well-investigated lands of the Northern Hemi-
sphere. ‘And what we find here, in regard to the fossil contents of the rocks, corrobo-
rates observations made elsewhere, that, the farther we go back into the past, the more
universal and uniform were the life-conditions of the earth, Thus, the more ancient
formations of Australia yield fossils of species identical with those found in strata of the
same age in other parts of the globe; we may, therefore, infer that in the earliest
epochs certain forms of life were unlimited in their range, and that as the surface of the
globe became in places more and more altered by physical changes—old lands sinking
beneath the ocean and new ones rising from it—so the ancient types of life gradually modi-
fied in adaptation to their altered environment, and thus the progressive differentiation
resulted in the varied animals and plants that we find now living in the different regions
most suited to them.

In portions of the globe, such as Britain, where geological changes have been frequent,
it might naturally be inferred, as we find it to be the case, that corresponding changes in
the animal and vegetable life would be so marked as to lead to the belief that old races
had suddenly disappeared and given place to others quite distinct. But in other —
portions where the old land-surfaces have remained during long periods, modified only by -
slight physical changes, we should expect the persistence of the ancient types of life, not
only upon the land, but in the surrounding ocean. And such we find’ in Australasia,
which, on this account—possessing surviving ancient forms of life long since extinct else-
where—affords one of the most interesting and important regions of the globe for investi-
gation in various branches of science. The botanist and zoologist would be at a loss to
account for the origin of the living flora and fauna peculiar to Australia, did not the
paleontologist and geologist come to their aid with the “testimony of the rocks.”

A few years ago, a small pine, Pherosphera Fitzgeraldi (F. v. Mueller), was found
growing in a moist and cool shady place in one of the precipitous ravines of the Blue
Mountains, near Katoomba; its nearest living relative, the ‘Huon Pine,” now occupies
the cooler region of Tasmania; and geological evidence points to the conclusion that the

little Blue Mountain pine, owing to its damp secluded retreat, has survived from the

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1307
Pleistocene, or great rain-fall period. Then, again, the “ pouched hyzna” (7hylacinus), and
the Sarcophilus, or ‘devil,’ whose bones are found plentifully in the Pleistocene deposits in
the Wellington Caves, have become extinct in Australia, though they still live in Tasmania.
Why the indigenous mammals of Australia belong chiefly to the Marsupialia, while this
low order of mammalia became extinct in Europe in ages far back; and why our living
vegetation possesses certain ancient forms, geology is beginning to reveal—we say is beginning,
for the little evidence already obtained indicates the wide field that yet awaits
geological research.

Moreover, the occurrence of the above-named animals being common both to Australia
and Tasmania, points to the former land connection of these colonies at no distant date.
During the Miocene period they were separated by water much wider than the existing
Bass'’s Straits; for, on the southern coast of Australia, and for a considerable distance
inland, and on the opposite or northern coast of Tasmania, are formations several
hundred feet in thickness, composed of horizontal strata full of Miocene marine shells
and corals. The upheaval of these strata, to a height of at least six hundred feet above
the sea, took place during, or at the close of, the Pliocene period, and this elevated sea-
bottom became dry land, uniting Tasmania to the Continent, and affording a passage for
the Pleistocene animals, until, either by denudation or volcanic disturbance, some of the
newly-made land gradually disappeared, and the inroad of the sea formed Bass’s Straits,
and Tasmania once more became an island.

Beneath the marine and Miocene strata, which are seen in the cliffs on the Cape
Otway coast, are fresh-water plant-bearing beds. These would indicate a previous eleva-
tion of the land in pre-Miocene times. As the great Cretaceous formation of Australia
is not known to the east of Spencer Gulf, it is probable that this portion of the
Continent was high land, and connected with Tasmania in the Cretaceous period, From
this high land may have descended the glacier which produced the polished and _ice-
scratched rock surfaces discovered by Professor Tate on the coast near Adelaide. While
the geology of Tasmania has much in common with that of Australia, New Zealand
possesses a geological interest of her own. Its recent volcanic phenomena, its magnificent
glaciated mountains, the remarkable disturbances of its Tertiary stva¢a, and the large
development of its Mesozoic formations, contribute greatly towards the completion of the
- geological record of Australia, Indeed, while in Australia and Tasmania the Palzozoic
formations are largely developed, in New Zealand the Mesozoic and succeeding forma-
tions, including the Recent, are very completely represented; and the whole series are so
united by a commingling of their fossil remains, that it is at times difficult to assign
the limits of the different formations; in fact, the geological record of this portion of the
earth represents one continuous life period.

Sir James Hector, M.D., F.R.S., Director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand,
writes —‘“ New Zealand presents a peculiar feature on the surface of the globe, as, not-
_ withstanding its isolated position, its structure is highly complicated, in which respect it
differs from that of most of the oceanic islands. It is, in fact, the remnant of a large
continent, which, formerly existing far to the eastward, has been reduced in area by the
erosive action of the sea. There is reason to believe, from consideration of the existing

1308 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

connected in the temperate zone with South America. On the other hand, there is no clear

evidence of its having been connected during the Tertiary times with Australia, lying to
the westward. On the whole, the geological record, so far as yet known, is more complete -

in New Zealand than in the Australian area.”

TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL SEDIMENTARY FORMATIONS OF AUSTRALASIA, WITH SOME OF
THEIR CHARACTERISTIC GENERA OF FOSSILS.

Human bones and implements; re-
CP OST | mains of plants and animals of living
species; Dinornis, Aptornis, &c. (extinct).
TERTIARY | Diprotodon, Macropus, Thylacoleo,
Thylacinus, Thylacopardus, Notiosaurus,

Megalania, Dromornis.

CAINOZOIC, ¢
| Spondylostrobus, Wilkinsonia, Pen-

OR Pliocene ......... teune, Plesiocapparis; Unio, Rotella,
Pleurotoma, Pecten, Pileopsis, &c.

Squalodon, Trigonia, Terebratula,

| TERTIARY Miocene .........

Fagus, Quercus, Cinnamomum,
Hocene ..ics. 0.25 Perla, Getonites, dic. ; Tnnccts Tamopats,
Voluta, Cyprea, Dentalium, Cardium,
Cardium, Meoma.

Protophyllum, Oleandridum, Dam-
marites, Auricaurites, &c.; Icthyo-
saurus, Plesiosaurus; Ammonites,
Belemnites, Cideris, Avicula, Trigonia,
Baculites, &c.

Pecopteris, Taxites, Pterophyllum,
WMABSICH ys .sss0s.8 Macroteniopteris, Twniopteris, &c.;

Ammonites, Belemni Rh; one’

MESOZOIC, ox SECONDARY 4 Soden act ch ae eae

Cea { Belemnites, Plagiostoms, Pholo-
domya, Spiriferina.

Macroteniopteris, Tasniopteris, Gan-

gamopteris, Zamites, Thinnfeldia, &c.;

Triassic: X57. sea Tremanotis,. Unio, Clavigera, Spirigera,

\ Monotis, Spiriferina, &c.; Palwoniscus,

Myriolopis, &e.; Mastodonsaurus,

Platyceps.

Glossopteris, Vertebraria, Sphenop-
teris, Phyllotheca; Trigonotreta, Spiri-
ferina, Epithyris; Urosthenes.

Glossopteris, Phyllotheca, Sphenop-
teris, Annularia, &c.; Spirifer, Pachy-
domus, Productus; Orthoceras, Corals,
&c.; Rhacopteris, Lepidodendron, Cala-
mites, Archzopteris, &c.
| Lepidodrendon, Cyclostigma; Spiri-

( Cretaceous ......

¢ Permian............ |

Carboniferous

PALAOZOIC, or PRIMARY ~ Devonian ......... fer, Rhynchonella, Atrypa, Orthis,
Orthoceras, Corals, &c.; Asterolepis,
Phacops, Brouteus, Calymene,

Pentamerus, Atrypa, Cyathophyllum,

SUTIN ¢; 7224-450 Halysites, Spirifera, | Murchisonia,
Graptolites, Didymograptus, Hymeno-
caris, Lingula.
L Cambrian ......... Conocephalites, _Dolichometopus,
Dikelocephalus. ~

PRIMARY OR PALA€OZzOIC.

Cambrian.—The oldest known rocks in Australia are certain sedimentary beds,
including limestones, near Adelaide in South Australia, and Tasmania, in which fossils of
Cambrian’ age have been discovered; and in Western Victoria are some metamorphic
schists which are regarded by Selwyn as pre-Cambrian or Laurentian; but hitherto no
fossils have been found in them.

Szlurtan.—The Silurian series are extensively represented in Victoria, New South
Wales, New Zealand and Tasmania. © They consist of altered sandstones, conglomerates,
schists and limestones, tilted into numerous anticlinal and synclinal folds, generally
striking in a meridional direction, and have been estimated to be not less than 35,000
feet thick. They are traversed by gold-bearing quartz-reefs from which, and from the

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA, 1309

alluvial deposits derived from them, the greater portion of the gold hitherto raised in
Victoria and New South Wales, amounting to £256,000,000, has been obtained. In
New South Wales they contain lead, silver and copper lodes, among which may be
mentioned the celebrated Broken Hill lode, from which 7,762,549 ounces of silver and
31,027 tons of lead have been obtained up to the year 1888 since May, 1885.
Devonian.—Devonian strata occupy considerable areas in Eastern Australia, especially
in Queensland. In New South Wales they form the summit of Mount Lambie, over
4,000 feet above sea-level, and are there 10,000 feet thick ; they attain a great thickness
in New Zealand. Together with the lower Carboniferous beds they are also traversed
by rich auriferous reefs and copper, silver, lead and antimony lodes.
Carbonifero-Permian.—The next series in ascending order, the Carbonifero-Permian, is
of much economic importance, containing, as it does, not only gold deposited, but also
the vast coal-fields of New South Wales, in which fifteen seams of coal of an aggregate
thickness—1o2 feet of coal—have been opened. It has been estimated that the coal from
these seams, at double the present annual output, would last for 25,000 years. The
series has been classed in three divisions—the Lower, Middle and Upper Coal Measures:
the lower group consists chiefly of coarse conglomerates, about 5,000 feet thick, with an
abundant marine fauna; while the Middle and Upper are together about 2,500 feet thick,
of fresh-water beds, two of the most characteristic fossils in which are Glossopteri and
Vertebraria. The same series occurs in Western Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand.
The gold-bearing geyser-deposit in the Mount Morgan Mine, near Rockhampton, in
Queensland, occurs in the lower Carbonifero-Permian formation. From this Mine, in
1885-86, gold to the value of £1,021,500 has been obtained by improved methods,

SECONDARY OR. MEsozoic.

Triassic.—In New South Wales this series embraces the Clarence and Narrabeen shale
beds, the Hawkesbury sandstones and the Wianamatta shales, each containing plant
fossils, and the two latter, remains of Ladyrinthodonts, with Paleoniscus and other fishes.
It occurs with characteristic fossils in New Zealand.

Liassic.—The Catlin’s River and Baston series of New Zealand have been determined
. by Hector to be of this age.

Ba ie Jurassit.—The Ipswich coal series in Queensland is regarded by the Government
- Geologist, Mr. Jack, as probably belonging to the Clarence beds and of Jurassic age,
to which also Prof. McCoy, upon the evidence of the fossil plants, has assigned the Car-
se bonaceous series of Victoria. They may, however, be of Triassic age. In New Zealand
=: they include both estuarine and marine fossiliferous beds; the latter occur in Western
Australia, and in New Guinea on the Fly River and the Strickland River.

sy Cretaceous.—In New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Northern Australia and
4 Western Australia, an immense area is composed of s¢vata which have been grouped in
three divisions—the Lower occurring in Western Australia, and: probably in places in the
2 central and north-eastern portions of the Continent; the Middle chiefly in New South

1310 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Division especially, splendid artescan supplies of good water are obtainable by boring.
The Cretaceous gravels surrounding the Mount Brown slate ranges are being profitably
worked for gold. The Cretaceo-tertiary series of New Zealand is extensively developed, —

and contains valuable seams of merchantable coal.

TERTIARY CAINOZOIC.

Marine beds of Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene ages form a considerable extent of
the low-lying country of the southern portion of Australia, from Gippsland, in Victoria,
to Western Australia; also in Tasmania; they do not occur on the eastern coast of
Australia. But in Victoria and New South Wales, fresh-water deposits of gravels and
clays of Eocene and Miocene age are found containing a very interesting extinct flora,
corresponding with that observed in formations of the same age in the Northern Hemi-
sphere. Fresh-water Pliocene deposits, with characteristic fossil plants, are also frequent,
especially in New South Wales and Victoria. In New Zealand the Tertiary fresh-water

and marine series are well represented.

Post TERTIARY.

Pleistocene and Recent.—Deposits of these periods occur abundantly upon the coasts
and inland. The loam deposits of Australia forming the vast inland plains, and the
terrace gravels and alluvial flats in all the main valleys, are chiefly of Pleistocene age,
and, together with the cave deposits, have yielded numerous remains of extinct animals,
some of which, as the Dzprotodon, Nototherium, Notiosaurus, Megalania, Dromornis, etc.,
were of gigantic size. With them have been found bones of animals of species now
living in the same localities. The Pleistocene period was one of great rain-fall, and
during it small glaciers were formed upon some of the highest mountains of the Great
Dividing Range, as on Mount Kosciusko, Glacial s¢vze@ have been observed upon some
of the schist rocks near Adelaide. Human remains have as yet been found only in the
recent a//uvia. The remarkable gigantic wingless birds of New Zealand became extinct
during the Recent period.

The Tertiary and the Post Tertiary fresh-water deposits are of the highest economic
importance, for they have yielded by far the greater portion of the gold and stream tin —
hitherto raised in Australia. In New South Wales about 50,000 diamonds have been -
obtained from these deposits. Extensive areas of sand-hills, formed by wind-action, occur

over many portions of the Continent and give rise to barren country.

IGNEousS AND METAMORPHIC Rocks.

Igneous rocks occupy a very considerable area in Australasia. They comprise a
great variety of granites, porphyries, greenstones, basalts, etc, some of which pass by
such a gradual change from one into the other that it is often impossible to draw any
definite line of division between them. On the other hand, some of them change so
gradually into rocks of a sedimentary origin, as, for instance, granites into Silurian schists,
that they afford convincing proof of their metamorphic origin.

Dykes of intrusive granite occur, penetrating Lower Silurian ‘strata in Victoria, and
Triassic beds in New South Wales have been intruded by hornblendic granite. No

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. ., 1311

igneous rocks older than Silurian have yet been noticed here zw situ; though pebbles
of diorite occur in the Upper Silurian conglomerates. But in New Zealand, granites of
pre-Silurian age have been observed. Granite forms the summit of Mount Kosciusko,
which is 7,351 feet above sea-level, and the highest mountain in Australia; and several
of the other high mountains on the Dividing Range are capped with Tertiary basalt.
This great coast-range was greatly disturbed by basaltic eruptions during the Tertiary
period. Victoria, especially in the south-western portion, was the scene of great volcanic
activity. No less than seventy-nine extinct points of eruption occur there. Some of
these are cone-shaped hills with crater basins, and are built up of basaltic lava, scorte °
and ashes, and from them large flows of lava have spread over the country for many
miles around. There are no recent volcanoes in Australia; in New Zealand, however,
most interesting volcanic agencies are active at the present day.

It would be impossible in this brief description of the geology of Australasia to
give due mention of the work of those men of science who have contributed to the
achievement of the present knowledge of the subject. Dampier, in 1688, wrote of the
western coast of Australia—‘the land is of a dry, sandy soil, except you make wells ;”
and most of the early explorers made only similar allusions to the rocks observed by
them. Nor is this superficial opinion to be wondered at, considering that the science of
geology is but one hundred years old. .

But our knowledge of Australasian geology upon a systematic basis is due chiefly
to the labours of Darwin, Strzelecki, Rev. H. B. Clarke (who has been called “the
Nestor among Australian workers in the field of natural science”), Jukes, Dana, Stutchbury,
Selwyn, Daintree, Aplin, Gould, Haast, Hochstetter, Gregory, Hardman, Tennison-Woods,
Denton, and many others still engaged upon the Geological Surveys in the different colonies.

CLIMATE AND RAIN-FALL.

O the physical geographer, Australia presents conditions quite different from those of

the Northern Hemisphere. Compared with other countries it is not an island, for it

has an area equal to that of the United’ States, and nearly equal to that of Europe; and it
is not a continent, for it is surrounded with water; and in some old books it is still “a fifth
quarter of the globe.” It lies in mid-ocean, as far from other continents as it can be, its
eastern coast being exactly midway between the Cape of Good Hope and Chili. It extends
‘in longitude for 2,400 miles, and in latitude it extends from 10° to 40° south latitude
—a range which affords space for every climate except that of extreme cold. With its
7,000 miles of coast-line, those who sent out the first colony had a large choice, and it
is a curious fate that the nation whose progress depended upon coal, should, all uncon-
scious of the fact, send the founders of Australia to the centre of the greatest coal-field
in the Southern Hemisphere. Later on, another pioneer party went to Western
Australia; a third to South Australia; and then the parent colony split up into three
—namely, Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales, making five colonies of the whole
= of Australia; of these, the areas, avoiding fractions, are as follows —Victoria, 90,000
square miles; New South Wales, 310,000 square miles; Queensland, 670,000 square miles;
South Australia, 904,000 square miles; Western Australia, 976,000 square miles; making

1312 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

a total of 2,950,000 square miles. The boundaries of these colonies, with the exception
of that between Victoria and New South Wales, are not natural features, but lines of
latitude and longitude; and it would be impossible to have it otherwise, owing to the
almost total abskunce of extensive natural features suitable for such divisions in the interior;
for the great and continuous mountain ranges are all near the coast, and almost the
only extensive river-system is within the limits of New South Wales.

The mountain chain on the east coast is the most extensive, and in it is the
highest land in Australia. Its solitary snow-capped peak, near the south-east corner of
‘the main-land—namely, Mount Kosciusko—is 7,351 feet high, and forms a starting-point,
whence the range extends southwards to Wilson’s Promontory, and northwards with
scarcely a break to Cape York, in all, about 1,900 miles. It is in but few places more
than fifty miles from the coast, and rises abruptly on the sea-side to from 3,000 to
4,000 feet, and in a few isolated peaks, other than the Kosciusko Range, to 6,000 feet.
Down its steep. eastern slopes, on which abundant rain falls, run many valuable
rivers, and on its western slopes is the only river-system in the interior of
Australia; but the extremely gradual descent on the west gives a character to those
rivers marked by sluggishness and absence of volume. As an illustration of the gradual
descent, it may be stated that the town of Bathurst is 2,200 feet above the sea, and
Dubbo, which is 100 miles in a straight line down the descent, 865 feet, which shows a
descent of 13% feet per mile. Bourke is 200 miles still farther down the descent, and
is 456 feet above the sea, the fall in this section being at the rate of 2 feet per mile;
and Wilcannia, 180 miles still farther down the slope, is 126 feet lower, showing a fall
of 8 inches to the mile; but it is by river 535 miles from Bourke to Wilcannia, so
that the river falls only 3 inches per mile; hence, these rivers are very sluggish in
their movements, and a heavy fall of rain takes a long time to drain off—a _ condition
which makes the River after rain navigable for a longer period than it otherwise would
be. The Darling is navigable to Walgett, which is 2,345 miles by river from the sea.
Its numerous tributaries have so far not been made use of for navigation,—indeed, they
are not very suitable for it, although they are of considerable extent, for, omitting
smaller ones, the Macquarie is 750 miles long; the Namoi, 600; the Barwon, 450; the
Gwydir, 445; the Mackintyre, 350; and the Culgoa, 950. ° These all diverge from the
main stream, a short distance above Bourke, in latitude 30°, and spread out like the
branches of a tree’ towards the Main Range, and- receive the whole of its western
drainage from latitude 24° to 34°. The average rain-fall at Bourke is 18 inches, thence
easterly it gradually increases, and along the mountains is from 30 to 4o inches. But
rain is the only source of water for this river-system, there being no snow, or at most
only an occasional and slight fall in winter, and, therefore, whenever the rain fails all
these rivers cease running. } :

The other great branch of the River, the Murray, takes its rise in the Kosciusko
Range, and is the only snow-fed river in Australia, and judged by the volume of its
water, it is a much finer river than the Darling, but it is not so long and drains a
much smaller area; it is navigable to Albury, 1,703 miles from its mouth, and one of its
tributaries, the Murrumbidgee, is navigable to Wagga Wagga, a distance of 500 miles,
and has a total length of 1,350 miles. Another, the Lachlan, is 700 miles, and the

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1313
Goulburn, 400 miles long. Owing to the melting of the snow on the Australian Alps,
the River is always in flood in the spring, but it seldom overflows its banks.

Since the Darling depends solely upon rain, it may be asked, how long is it navi-
gable in each year? The records for the past ten years show that it is navigable on
the average four months in each year, but at times a whole year passes during which
it is not navigable. But it must be borne in mind that during these ten years nothing
was done to help natural conditions, by conserving water and turning it into the River
when it was wanted. Natural facilities exist in abun-

dance for such conservation, and as population in-

creases, great improvements in the condition of the
River in regard to navigation will doubtless be made.
From the great coast
range on the west
side of Australia,
which presents such
a bold outline of
granite to the sea,
many fine coast-
rivers fall into the
" Indian Ocean, but
towards the interior
no stream worthy of
the name of a river
has yet been found
running. Nor is it
likely that they will
be found, for me-
teorological laws tell
us that the rain-
bearing winds will
be drained of their
moisture by the
mountains, and be

dry winds beyond

ONE OF THE TELESCOPES IN THE SYDNEY OBSERVATORY.
the range, while there .

is no return wind from the interior to make rain, as there is on the mountains of the
east coast. Nor is the west coast-range so high as that on the east coast; it seldom
rises above 3,000 feet, and is generally not more than 2,000. On the east, north and
west coasts of Australia are many navigable rivers and numerous smaller ones, but all
the southern coast for 1,800 miles has not a river flowing into the sea, except one, and
that one, the Murray, does not belong to it, but derives its waters from the east coast-
range. The rain-fall of the south coast is small (about 20 inches), but not sufficiently
so to account for the total absence of rivers, and it would appear that the soil is very

porous, and lets the rain down to a lower level, where it is found in quantity, making

1314 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

its way to the ocean. The comparative abundance of rain on the east coast-range is
due to the situation of the high land with reference to the direction of the rain-bearing
winds, many of which come from the tropics and travel in an easterly or south-easterly
direction over Australia, and, as they rise over the mountains, are compelled to deposit
their moisture by the elevation they have to make in getting over.

Up to the present time little or nothing has been done by the Colonial Governments
to conserve water, except for towns and stock, but abundant evidence has been collected
to show that so soon as the natural facilities for irrigation are made use of, the
colonies will be enormously enriched by a greatly extended agriculture; for the western
slopes of the Main Range on the east coast, with their ample rain-fall and numerous
half-formed natural reservoirs, wait only the magic touch of the engineer to convert them
into valuable farm-lands.

How far subterranean water may be available for irrigation and other purposes, is a
question that is being slowly answered in the various colonies by sinking wells, and the
answer, so far as it goes, is exceedingly encouraging. Very many wells yield an abun-
dant supply of artesian water; the last finished at a depth of 1,073 feet, is in the
Bourke District, and yields 350,000 gallons per day. The study of the rain and river
statistics for the Darling River shows that it carries off less than one per cent. of the
rain-fall, taking the average over eight years, and that, therefore, there must be enormous
quantities of water passing through the porous s¢rafa into under-ground drains to feed
these artesian wells; and measures of one of the rivers—the Macquarie—show that its
bed is porous in this way to a very unusual extent, and that it allows the water, which
finds its way into it from the hills, to sink rapidly down. The deepest well yet made is
near the centre of Australia, and is 1,220 feet deep.

The simplest and least expensive system of conserving water has been in use for
years in large areas which have neither rivers nor other natural surface-water. This is
the construction of. tanks, or artificial hollows, in places suitable to collect the rain-water
which runs off the surface, and experience shows that if these are made fifteen or twenty
feet deep, they will conserve sufficient water for cattle and sheep through the worst
drought, even when they are not covered in to prevent evaporation. 3G]

In the existing water-courses and lakes are to be found abundant proof that at a-
time long past the rain-fall was enormously greater than it is in the present day. At that
time, in all probability, the great east coast-range was- very much higher than it is now,
and was one of the causes of that greater rain-fall, but those very rains which it helped
to produce, gradually cut away its elevation by denudation, and destroyed its power of
rain-making, but rain-records do not go back to that extremely remote period when
rain was so abundant. Within the last twenty years, rain observers, encouraged by the
astronomers in the colonies, are springing up in all directions, and from their combined
labours we have statistics showing the rain-fall of the whole of the coast, except the
extreme north-west, and of a considerable portion of the interior, and we have the
records from a few places on the overland telegraph line in the very heart of Australia.
These records show that the average rain-fall of the colonies is as follows :—South
Australia, 20 inches; Victoria, 32 inches; New South Wales, 25 inches; Queensland, 27
inches; Western Australia, 23 inches; a few observations taken at intervals in the central

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1315

parts indicate a probable fall of 10 inches. Bearing in mind the relative areas of the
colonies, these figures give a mean rain-fall for the whole of Australia of 21, inches. For
the whole of Euirope it is 15% inches; United Kingdom, 30 inches; France, 27 inches ;
Germany, 32 inches; Russia, 14% inches; Austria, 16 inches; Spain and Portugal, 14
inches ; Italy, 34 inches.

In a country of such great extent and varied natural features, every variety of
climate may readily be found, but for any one looking at the question with a view to
using these varieties for health, they become reduced to those which have been made
available by settlement; for it must not be forgotten that but a very small part of
Australia is inhabited,
at least in such a way
as a health-seeker re-
quires. Generally, Aus-
tralia, both on the
coast and inland, is
very much cooler than
corresponding latitudes
in Europe. In many
cases there is a dif-
ference of 10° of, tem-
perature in favour of
Australia, and the snow
limit is fully 1,000 feet
lower than it is in
Europe, and since a

degree of temperature

is very nearly equal to

THE TRANSIT TELESCOPE IN THE MELBOURNE OBSERVATORY.

a change of one degree

of latitude, it is equivalent to putting Australia, or at least parts of it, 10° farther from
the equator. We may illustrate this by a few figures. Perth, in Western Australia, has a
mean shade temperature of 64°, and its latitude is 34°. Algiers which is in latitude 36° 47’,
nearly 3 degrees nearer to the pole, is still as hot as Perth. The mean shade temperature
at Adelaide is 63°.1, and its latitude 34° 55’, while Barcelona, in Spain, which is 6% degrees
nearer the pole, has yet a temperature of 62°.5. Melbourne has a mean shade temperature
of 57°.5, and latitude 37° 50’; Madrid, 2% degrees nearer the pole, a mean shade
temperature of 57°.6. Sydney has a mean shade temperature of 62°.5, and_ latitude
33° 52’; Toulon, which is 9% degrees nearer the pole, a mean shade temperature of
62°.3. Brisbane has a mean shade temperature of 70°.8, and is in latitude 27° 27’, and
Alexandria, which is 4% degrees nearer the pole, has a mean temperature of 70°.6. In
fact, if Australia were placed by its latitude over Europe and Africa it would extend
from Abyssinia in Egypt to the southern parts of France, but if placed by the temperature
of its inhabited towns would cover all Europe to the latitude of Edinburgh. Large
areas in Victoria and the southern districts of New South Wales have the same temperature

as the southern counties of England ; this is in part accounted for by the fact that they

1316 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,
/

are elevated lands, but not wholly so, for the temperature of all Australia is lower, as
shewn above, than would be expected from the latitude. The cause of this is, no doubt,
the greater extent of ocean in the South, which does not become so heated as the land
in the Northern Hemisphere, and also to the free circulation of great ocean currents from
the Southern Ocean. It must be remembered that the towns mentioned are all on the
sea-coast, and therefore have a humid atmosphere, especially those on the east coast,
but all of them are within from three to five hours’ travelling of a much cooler and
drier atmosphere on the mountains, at places where invalids can find, to a greater or
less extent, the surroundings of civilization. The mountains near Sydney are generally
admitted to be excellent in this respect; and for natural advantages in chest diseases
there can be no doubt that, in Queensland, Toowoomba is the best available position in
that colony; here the mean temperature is 62°.4, but it is rather cold in winter, the
temperature at times falling to 30°—about 8° lower than Sydney,—and in summer rising
to ror, but its elevation—1,960 feet—and situation’ make the air particularly good for
invalids, and the climate is dry, having the humidity on the average of 72°; at Mount
Victoria, about 80 miles west of Sydney, the mean shade temperature is 55°.6, the
lowest 26° 7’, and the highest 100°; the elevation is 3,490 feet.

The tides in Australia present some interesting peculiarities. At Perth, for instance,
in Western Australia, and thence south to Cape Leeuwin, they have no regular tides ;
once a day generally the water rises two or three feet and falls again, but the state
of the wind seems to be the great factor in the state of the tide. At King George's
Sound we find regular tides, the springs rising four feet, and the higher tide being at
1oh. after full moon; at Adelaide the time is 4.30 and the rise eight feet, but with a
strong westerly wind setting into Spencer’s Gulf the rise is greater, and has been known
to reach 12 feet. At Portland the time is 12h., and the rise is 4 feet, but tides are
uncertain, and in winter with east-south-east wind there is seldom more.than one tide in
a day. In the Yarra River at Melbourne, the time is 2h. 48m., and the rise 2 feet 8
inches ; while at Port Dalrymple, north coast of Tasmania, the tide rises 10 feet, and the
time is 12h. 5m.; at Hobart the time approximates to that of the east coast of
Australia, along which the great tidal wave arrives from the eastward about the same
hour; Jervis Bay time is 8h, 20m., rise g feet; at Fort Denison, Sydney Harbour, the
time 8h. 30m., and the rise 7 feet; Newcastle, gh. and 7 feet; Port Stephens, gh. and
6 feet; Moreton Bay, gh. 3m., and 7 feet; at Rockhampton, gh. 4m., and 15 feet; at
Cape York, 11h. 15m., and 10 feet; on the east side of the Gulf of Carpentaria the
time is from 7 to 8h., and the rise about 12 feet. At the head of the Gulf there is
but one tide in each day, and that of a very complex character; the rise is about 12
feet. On the west side of the Gulf, times are from 7h. to gh., and the rise 5 to 8
feet; at Port Essington we begin to get into the most remarkable tidal district of
Australia; from this point going westward the tides are very great, in places rising 38
feet, and consequently most dangerous currents are set up. Captain Stokes reported a
current of eight knots an hour at Cove Bay, not far from the Fitzroy River; and at
Hanover Bay, the same authority makes the highest tide 38 feet, and the hour 11h,
30m. At Port Darwin the extreme rise is 24 feet; at Roebuck Bay, the point at which

the cable lands, the time is 12h. 30m, and the rise is 30 feet, thence westward round

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1317

the coast the tides become rapidly smaller, and at the extreme western point, Freycinet
Reach, the rise is only 4 feet, and the time 12h. Thence to Swan River the tides
are small and uncertain.

The moon in the course of her revolutions round the earth during 18 years and 10
days, is eclipsed wholly or in part 29 times, and intervenes between the earth and the sun
41 times, making as many eclipses of the sun, partial or complete. The best points —
from which to observe the phenomena of these eclipses are scattered evenly over the
Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and hence Australia often affords the local as well
as the foreign observer convenient vantage ground for observation;’ so also the favour-
able localities on the eastern coast for observing the transit of Venus, in 1874 and 1882,
were taken advantage of by many observers, and their successful observations could not
be used until the exact longitude of Australia was known, and this led to its final
determination by means of electric signals. .

The history of the Sydney Observatory is inseparably connected with that of
Parramatta, the first public observatory ever erected in the Southern Hemisphere. Sir
Thomas Brisbane arrived at Parramatta in November, 1821, and by the end of April, 1822,
the building for the Observatory was finished, and the instruments mounted; work was
begun on the 2nd day of May, and the work done there was rewarded with four gold
medals and other smaller honours. In 1848, the Observatory was dismantled, and_ the
instruments stored in Sydney. After a long correspondence with the Home Government,
it was finally decided to give the Parramatta instruments to the colony, upon condition
that the colony established an observatory, and gave regular time-signals for the use of
the shipping. Just at this time, Sir William Denison arrived in the colony, and he,
being an enthusiastic astronomer, took the matter up, and induced the Government to
vote £7,000 for the building and instruments, and to obtain an astronomer from
England, leaving the selection to the Astronomer Royal. The Parramatta instruments
given by the Home Government, cost them £1,650. Some of these were sent to England
for repairs, and in 1856, the present buildings, excepting only the north wing, were
begun, the site being chosen from its suitability for a time-ball. The same year, the
Rev. William Scott arrived, and spent the time which was occupied in putting up the
building in travelling over the country and establishing twelve first-class meteorological
stations. In the end of 1858, Mr. Scott came into residence, and work was begun; by the
end of 1862 he found that the work would be too much for his health, and he resigned.
Mr. H. C. Russell, the present Astronomer, had charge for eighteen months, and the
second Astronomer, Mr. George Roberts Smalley, arrived in the colony from England in
1864. He induced the Government to begin a trigonometrical survey of the colony, but
died in 1870, before any progress had been made with. the work, and Mr. Russell was then
appointed Astronomer. Mr. Scott was a vigorous observer, and published several volumes
of astronomical and meteorological works. Mr. Smalley’s publications were confined to a
‘few meteorological papers.

Mr. Russell has published a number of astronomical works, and the Annual
- Meteorological Reports, and since 1878 a special report every year upon the rain-fall.
Since 1871, the Observatory has been entirely remodelled, and new and larger instru-

ments introduced; the equatorial refractor has an aperture of 11% inches, and -is the

‘ ‘

1318 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.
largest in Australia; very perfect self-recording instruments are quite a feature at the
Observatory. Similar instruments are being gradually distributed to selectéd stations
inland. Since 1878, a weather-chart has been published daily, and daily weather-tele-
grams are now received from all the colonies of Australasia, and combined in the
weather-chart. The time-ball service has been kept up since 1858. A _ similar time-ball
was established in New-
castle in 1871, and time-
signals are sent every
day all over the colony.
Rain observations are
regularly made at 866
places, and complete
meteorological observa-
tions at a number of care-
fully selected stations.
The Melbourne Ob-
servatory was first estab-
lished at Williamstown,
with the object of giving
time-signals to the ship-
ping, and rating chro-
nometers. Mr. R. L. J.
Ellery, the present As-

THE MOON,
From a Photograph by Mr. R. L. J. Ellery, of the Melbourne Observatory. tronomer, was appointed

to organize and manage it, and instruments’ suitable to the proposed work were erected,
but the colony was making such rapid strides that it soon became necessary to
start a trigonometrical survey, and Mr. Ellery was appointed to direct it in con-
nection with the Observatory. This called for better instruments, and a long series
of observations to determine the exact position of the transit instrument, the initial
point of the survey. In 1863 the Observatory was removed from Williamstown to
the Domain surrounding Government House, and Mr. Ellery then took charge of
the meteorological work as well; this had been previously done by Dr. Neumeyer.
By the cordial assistance of Sir Henry Barkly, the Governor, and Sir George Verdon,
the Colonial Treasurer, liberal grants of money were made, and the Observatory furnished
with all necessary instruments of first-class quality; and to these were added, in 1869,
the great reflector, which has a mirror 4 feet in diameter, and cost altogether nearly
£10,000. The work of the Observatory has been principally astronomical, and several
volumes of star observations, many extra-meridional observations, and a volume of the
work done with the great reflector have been published; this last records the work done
upon Southern WVedbule. Some of the best photographs of the moon have been obtained with
the great reflector, and regular photographs of the sun are taken with the photo-heliograph.
Time-signals are distributed daily, and the old time-ball at Williamstown is still dropped,
as it is in the most convenient place for shipping. Self-registering meteorological and

magnetical instruments are constantly at work in the Observatory and regular observations

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1319

‘are taken at a great number of carefully selected stations, and the results tabulated and
published. A daily weather-chart is also published, which combines the telegrams from all
the colonies—telegrams which the several colonies interchange for public information.

In Queensland, the formation of an observatory has been commenced only recently.
In January, 1887, Mr. Clement L. Wragge, Government Meteorologist, was appointed,
and under his energetic supervision the Observatory is becoming rapidly furnished with
meteorological standard instruments—with instruments for recording automatically barometer,
wind, temperature, etc.,—and observing stations are being established in the interior of
the colony for general meteorological purposes; and for daily weather-marking, during
1887, a daily weather-map was commenced, which shows the weather in all the colonies
of Australasia. The Observatory contains also -a 4¥%-inch equatorial instrument by Ross,
of London, also a transit instrument, clocks, chronographs, etc., and it is anticipated that
a suitable building will soon be erected for it near the present site on Wind-mill Hill.

In Adelaide, meteorological observations were begun in 1839, by Sir George S.
Kingston, and carried on without interruption for more than forty years. More recently,
a Government meteorological observatory was started under the superintendence of Mr.
C. Todd, Postmaster-General, and gradually the observing stations have been established

at a great number of places in the southern part of the colony; and, in 1874, all the

overland telegraph stations were made observing stations. In 1874, advantage was taken

of the transit of Venus to get a large equatorial, with -8-inch object glass, and other
valuable astronomical instruments. A fine observatory was built, in the park-land on the
west side of the city, to receive this, together with various first-class recording instruments
for the completion of the set of meteorological instruments, More recently, a high-class
meridian circle, with 6-inch telescope and all the more recent improvements, has _ been
added, completing the outfit of a first-class observatory. From the daily meteorological

observations, and the telegrams from the other colonies, a daily weather-chart is

published, showing the weather conditions in Australia generally. ‘The meteorological .

and astronomical observations have been published in a number of handy ‘volumes

issued by the Government.

THE AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.

HE first discoverers of Australia who landed on its shores found the country
sparsely inhabited by roving bands of nomad hunters, whom ethnologists have
found it impossible to class with any one of the ascertained stocks of the human race.

Every classification proposed has difficulties in its way so great that some writers have

been inclined to look upon the Australians as a distinct race. We are not, however,

limited to this conclusion; and the probable solution of the difficulty may be found in
the theory that the Tasmanians represented the primitive inhabitants of Australia, who
on the Continent were partly exterminated, and partly absorbed,: by the invading ancestors

of the present aborigines. It is probable that these invaders spread over the country

from the northern or north-western shores of the Continent, along three well-marked lines
of advance, to its southern coast; but it is evident that they did not reach Tasmania.

Whence they came it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty; but if,

1320 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

as Professor Huxley suggests, their analogues are to be looked for among the hill
tribes of the Deccan, it is easy to perceive how successful invaders of that type, slaying
most of the males, and appropriating the females of frizzly-haired autochtones of the
Melanesian stock, would in time produce a type such as that which is found among the
Australian aborigines of the present day. ;

Of the languages spoken by these tribes there is but little to be said. There is
no doubt that they are all variations of one stock; they all appear to have a common
grammatical structure, and the same words re-appear at great geographical distances,
though lost in the intervening
country. With what family of
languages the Australians are
connected is not yet settled
by philologists, but it is cer-
tain that they have little or
no connection with that to
which the Malay, Polynesian,
and Melanesian belong. Dr.
Bleek, whose reputation gives
weight to his opinion, believes
them to be nearly allied to
the languages of south-eastern
Africa. In stature the Aus-
tralian natives come nearly up
to the average height of Eu-
ropeans; but their limbs ap-
pear to be deficient in muscle,

this defect being especially per-

ceptible in the calves of the

A MALE ABORIGINAL.

legs. The whole body seems
to be built for activity rather than for muscular strength, and is often remarkably hairy, even
in the case of females. The colour is not black, but a dark chocolate brown. The lips
are prominent, the nose large, with spreading nostrils, and the eyes are deep set under
massive over-hanging brows, the white of the eye having a brownish tinge. The men
are full bearded, and the hair of the head is thick, curly, and black, as a general rule,
though occasionally inclining to be straight, and in some cases approaching frizzle. The
members of a well-known family in a Queensland tribe, referred to by Baron Maclay,
are completely hairless, but these present no more than a /usus nature.

Differences of language and custom, and especially the various words used for “Man,”
divide the aboriginal tribes into certain groups, to which, for the sake of convenience, the
term “Nations” may be applied. Each of these calls its own members “ Men,” and

designates aliens by a term of scornful depreciation. In. these nations each tribe has

also a local designation, often derived from the word used as a negative—e.g.- the

Kamilarot or Kumtlrai—the people who say Kamil or Kumil for “ No.” Extend-

ing throughout all these nations, a well-defined organization exists, on which the social

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA, 1321

regulations are based. The natives of any given community are divided into two or
more “classes,” which have connudtum one with the other. These are subdivided into
smaller divisions, distinguished by totems; and the general rule is that a male of one
division must marry a female of another division. In other words the divisions are
exogamous. The natives are also divided into geographical divisions, which we may call
“hordes.” To each horde belong certain hunting-grounds with definite boundaries, and
trespass within them is equivalent to an act of war. Marriage is arranged in various
ways, custom in this as in other matters differing so widely, that it is impossible to
generalize from the practice
of any particular tribe. When
a child is born, the first ques-
tion raised concerning it often
is if it shall be allowed to live.
If the mother has another
child of tender years requiring
her attention, or if, for other
reasons, the new born babe is
judged to have come in an in-
convenient season, it may be
smothered in sand or ashes,
or abandoned by its parents,
who remove and leave it to
die in the empty encampment.
But if the infant be permitted
to live, it is well cared for,
and both father and mother
exhibit the most tender affec-

tion towards their offspring.

A FEMALE ABORIGINAL.

Children are treated with the
greatest indulgence, and their death is the occasion of bitter grief to parents and relatives.

Circumcision is practised; but it is a singular fact, for which no explanation can be
offered, that it is, speaking generally, a characteristic of the western tribes, as distinguished
from those on the eastern side of the Continent. Some of these, however, inflict upon a
number of their males, selected by the elders, a most extraordinary operation which cannot
here be described. Until the youth reaches the age of puberty he is under the care of
his mother, and ranks with the children; but at or about, that age he is. taken away
from her by the solemn ceremony of initiation, which separates him from the children of
the community, and ranks him among the men. This ceremony, as far as has been hitherto
ascertained, is common to all tribes, with some exceptions in the southern parts of
Australia, and even they have easily recognized survivals of it. After the completion of
the ceremonies, the youth is released from his mother’s control, and is sent out into the
forests, where he remains by himself for a considerable period, and has to maintain him-
self by hunting. After some further probation, he is permitted to marry and to take his

seat in the councils of his people,

AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

to
to

It has already been stated that an Australian community is divided into hordes,
each of which has certain definite hunting-grounds, but it must not bé supposed that all the
members of a horde remain together in their every-day life. The horde splits up into
small parties, which go out in various directions, wandering hither and thither over the
common hunting-grounds, and moving their encampments as convenience may dictate. The
huts are roughly constructed of sheets of bark, and are open at one side, before which a
small fire is kept burning. But these temporary dwellings are not the real Australian huts
of the days before the white men came into the land. These were built of bent sticks,
neatly thatched with grass tussocks by the women, and were comparatively comfortable and
weather-proof structures. The introduction of the iron tomahawk, which supplanted the
stone hatchet, and made it easy to strip the bark from the forest trees, has led to the
abandonment of the old huts, and affords a curious instance of deterioration instead of
improvement, caused by the introduction of a superior ‘implement. In a large part of
Central Australia no bark is used, small bechive-shaped huts being constructed of sticks
and grass. While the men are away in pursuit of game, the women are fully occupied
in gathering edible roots, seeds and fruits, or in weaving bags, net-making, etc. They
also catch fish with the hand-nets. Spearing fish, however, is one of the duties peculiarly
the work of the men,

The natives eat almost everything they catch that has animal life, from kangaroos
down to snakes, frogs, grubmants and their eggs, and even the game which is found
in those well-stocked preserves, the hair of the blackfellow’s head. One of the most
widely spread food-plants is the Dura (Typha angustifolia), the rhizomas of which are
collected by the women and baked in the ashes, as also the heart of the tree-fern
(Dicksonia antarctica), the wild yam (Doscorea transversa), and the tap-root of the
Kurrajong (Brachychiton populneum). in Central Australia the chief vegetable food is
the Portulacca oloracea. The plant is eaten raw, the root is roasted, and the oily
seeds are ground into a coarse meal between two stones, and either made into a kind
of porridge, or into cakes, which are baked in the hot ashes, like the white man’s
“damper.” The MNardoo, properly Ngardu (Marsilea Drummondit), on which Burke and
Wills of the Victorian Exploring Expedition starved to death, is extensively used in
default of better food. The wild rice (Orzza sativa) is gathered by the women in the
districts where it is found, as also are certain kinds of grass-seeds, especially the
Sporobolus actinocladus. Among the food-plants must be mentioned the Bunya-Bunya
pine (Araucaria Bidwell’) though it is found only in one part of the Moreton Bay
’ District, and yields a plentiful crop of its cones once only in three years. The seeds
contained in its cones are highly esteemed by the aborigines, who come in great numbers,
from distances of two or three hundred miles, every third year to feast upon them. A
complete list of all the food-plants would fill an entire volume, and it must suffice to
say that the natives consume everything edible within their reach, whether animal or
vegetable. The Prtcheri (Dubosisia Hopwoodit), though it cannot strictly speaking be
called food, is found only in a district which may be roughly defined as west of Eyre’s
Creek, north of Lake Eyre, and east of the transcontinental telegraph line; it is carried
in.a dried state for several hundred miles from its habitat, and exchanged as an article
of barter with other tribes that have not the plant. The natives are extravagantly fond

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA, 13

of it. They chew it into a “quid,” about the size and shape of a silk-worm's cocoon,
and carry it with them in that state behind. the ear, producing it as a delicate
attention to acquaintances, or a friendly offering to a stranger. Its effect is that

of a narcotic stimulant.

The government of
the Australian aborig-
ines may be said to
be in the hands of the
old men. Great rever-

ence is paid to old

age, and in some tribes
a youth, in addressing
a gray-beard, will crouch
down, and deliver his
message in reverential
tones. Among the el-
ders, certain men are
distinguished above
their fellows for wis-
dom, valour, ability, and
above all for magic
power. These are the
most influential mem-
bers of the community.
They form the Great
Council which arranges
all the most important
affairs of the tribe, and
one of them generally
takes precedence of the

rest. His position, r

NA
.

NY
A Ui
however, depends upon Wn

age and personal in- A BLACK GIN AND HER CHILD.
Wadace sand is»not From a Photograph by J. Lindt
transmitted by inheritance. When it is necessary to gather together the whole community
—as in the Initiation Ceremony—or when a Great Council is to be held, runners
are sent out by the principal Headmen, who go from horde to horde carrying with
them a “message-stick,” or some other token indicative of their message. These are
recognized as heralds whose persons are sacred even in time of war, while they are
discharging their functions as messengers. It is at these assemblies that the Greater
Corrobborees, or ceremonial dances, are performed by the men, to the accompaniment
of monotonous songs set to a quick movement, the women beating time meanwhile by
drumming upon their tightly-rolled opossum rugs.

The normal relations of one Australian tribe to another may be said to be those

1324 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

of almost continual hostility. The members of each community call themselves “Men,”
while they designate those of other communities by terms of contempt, corresponding to
the’ Greek Badr Baroz. They make raids upon them for the purpose of killing their
men and stealing their women; and they suffer from like raids by the enemy in return.
In these wars with alien enemies no notice is given, and no mercy is shown to males,
excepting that boys are sometimes, though rarely, spared by the victors, and adopted
into their community. There is no need to declare war against the alien enemies.
Their very existence is a continual offence, and they are to be blotted out of existence
whenever occasion serves. There is also a considerable amount of fighting within the
community, and there are many continued blood feuds. One horde steals women from
another horde, or gives other cause of offence, such as a supposed causing of death by
witchcraft, and these quarrels may be settled by a pitched battle between the hordes or
between the “totems,” according to mutual agreement. There is, however, a marked
difference between these set fights and the raids upon the alien enemies. Due notice
is given. The two parties meet in open field; and when they have rated one another
after the fashion of Homer’s heroes, the battle is joined. Sometimes even the women
come into the fight, and not infrequently lose their lives in the fray. Many of the
tribes are cannibals, eating at least a portion of the slain. But as a general rule, they
do not eat those of their own community who fall in the pre-arranged battles of the
hordes. This crowning insult is generally reserved for the alien enemy. This kind of
cannibalism, however, must be distinguished from that practised by some of the tribes,
who eat their deceased relatives, especially the omentum fat, as a touching funeral
ceremony to prevent excessive grief. Captive women, whether taken from the aliens or
from a horde within the community, cannot be the property of their captors unless they
belong to one of the divisions with which their captors may legally intermarry.

The blackfellow’s familiarity with bush-life, and his wonderful mastery of the bush-
man’s art in every particular, have made his services useful to Europeans in several
capacities. The habits of the black races of Australia are against any long-continued
exertion in any direction, but where the work required of the black happens to bring
his peculiar gifts into play his usefulness is unquestionable. He distinguishes himself chiefly
as a “tracker” of persons or cattle who may happen to be lost in the bush. In tracing
criminals, and finding lost travellers and children, the black tracker has often evinced a
marvellous instinct, which has taken the police, or the rescue party, direct to the spot
required, when every other method had proved itself at fault. Traces are apparent to
the eye of the tracker when to even the experienced station-hand no track or indication
whatever is discernible; and a mounted black will often follow the trail at a rapid trot
long after it has been lost by skilled bush-men of the search party. For this reason
the black tracker is a necessary member of the police force of the colonies, though his
services are not so often required now as they were in former years.

The chief articles of manufacture are the weapons of war, many of which are cut
of hard, close-grained wood, and the only tools available to fashion them, before the
introduction .of iron by the white settlers, were the stone hatchet and the flint, or shell,
knife and scraper. Weapons and other articles, such as bowls, and fish-hooks made of

bone or hard-wood, are the work of the men; but the women also make nets, opossum

PHYVSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1325

rugs, etc., as well as baskets and bags, some of which are really elegant productions.
The following is a list of the weapons generally used :—There are two kinds of spear,
from six to ten feet long, commonly known as. the jag-spear and the reed-spear. The
jag-spear is made of black-wood (Acacta melanoxylon), or some other hard-wood, with
barbs or jags, cut out of the solid wood along its piercing end. The barbs may also
be formed by fixing small flints, or the tail bones of the sting-ray, along the point
with gum from the wattle,
or other gum-bearing trees,
mixed with burnt shell-lime.
Some of these spears are
much heavier than others, and
are used chiefly for thrusting
at close quarters, though they
are also thrown by the hand
at short distances. The
second kind is a much lighter
spear, with a handle of reed,
and a smooth point of wood
hardened by fire. It is used
only for casting at a distance,
and is thrown by a curious
instrument known among the
white men as the womera,
though this is merely a local
word. The womera, or ‘“‘throw-
ing-stick,” is a narrow flat
piece of wood, generally
about two feet or two and
a half feet long, having a
hook at one end. The warrior
holds it in his right hand,
while with the left he grasps

his shield and spears, the

latter being held about three

AN ABORIGINAL WARRIOR.

or four feet from the butt,
with the points behind him. In the end of the butt there is a small hollow into
which he fixes the hook of his throwing-stick, draws forth his spear, and raises it into
“position for throwing. He grasps the womera firmly with his hand, steadying the spear
upon it by a light finger touch, and throws it, not from his hand, but from the hook
of his throwing-stick. This spear is used both for hunting and for war, and is a deadly
weapon at fifty-or sixty yards. Barbs are sometimes attached to it as well as to the jag-spear.
For close fighting, besides the jag-spear already described, there are clubs of
various kinds, usually from two to three feet in length, some of these are headed by

heavy rounded knobs, while others are curved at the end. There is also a curved

1326 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

" weapon, about two feet long from the handle end to the beginning of the curve. The
curve is sometimes very sharp, almost approaching an obtuse angle; and the end of it,
with the under part of the curve, is thinned down to a cutting edge. The stroke is
delivered, if possible, with the sharpened end. A somewhat similar weapon, found in
Central Australia, is of much greater length, extending to four or five feet in the handle,
and is used like a broadsword. Another dangerous weapon at close quarters is a broad
flint with a sharp cutting edge, set in a lump of gum. This is held in the hand and
inflicts ghastly wounds on the naked combatants. For defence there are two shields.
One is a light shield made of thick bark or light wood cut from the bend of a large
limb, in shape a pointed oval, from two to three feet long, and seven inches to about
one foot to eighteen inches broad in its widest part. This is used to ward off spears
and other missiles, and is held so as to turn them aside rather than to receive them
in full front. It is not calculated to endure the direct impact of the spear. Thus
received, a well-thrown spear would pierce the shield, and in known instances both the
shield and the hand that held it have been transfixed. The other shield is about the
same length, but much thicker, heavier and narrower. It is cut out of a solid block
of very tough wood, which is not easily split, and is used as a defence against club
strokes, etc., in close fighting. Some of the tribes are said to use no shields.

The Australian canoe is, with slight variations, every-where built on the same general
plan, excepting on the north or north-east coast, where it has acquired an outrigger.
An inferior sort, for merely temporary purposes, is made from a sheet of red-gum bark,
taken, if possible, from a bend in the tree-trunk to give it an upward turn at the
ends. If a bent sheet be not easily procurable, a straight one may be used, forming a
mere hollow cylinder open at the top, the ends being stopped by a lump of clay, or
tenacious mud, to keep the water out. The sort of canoe most generally used is made
as follows:—A sheet of bark is stripped from a clean straight bole of one of the trees
of the stringy-bark group, for instance, Lucalyptus Piperita, E. Capitellata, E. Macro-
rhyncha, E. Obligua (Messmate), or £. Svebertana (Mountain Ash), etc. The bark when
thoroughly loosened is carefully lowered to the ground, and all the rough dry outer
integument is chipped off. With these chips, and dry twigs and leaves, a fire is made
under the sheet of bark, which is laid on the ground. When the bark is heated and
steamed, so as to be quite flexible, and to bend any way without cracking, it is turned
inside out, and tied with strings. The ends are chipped quite thin, and are then folded
together and. tightly bound with strips of the inner layer of bark. Stretchers are now
put in under the middle ties, and the canoe is complete. The blackfellow, standing
erect, propels his canoe by punting with a long pole, a skillful operation, or he may
use the pole as a paddle. Sometimes he squats in the bottom of the canoe, and paddles
with a small piece of bark in each hand. Another kind of canoe is made on the same
plan, but of three sheets of bark. one for the bottom, and one for each side. The
sheets are neatly sewn together, and wooden paddles three or four feet long are used.
In these frail vessels, the coast folk will go out to a considerable distance, even in a
rough sea-way. The canoes are from six feet to fifteen feet in length, and about two
feet to thirty inches from gunwale to gunwale amidships.

The Australian savage has no conception of any cause of death other than violence,

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1327

accident, or witchcraft. If sickness come upon him it never occurs to him to attribute
it to natural causes. An enemy has bewitched him, and he must seek a counter
spell to overpower that under which he is suffering. If this be not effectual it is
evident that the hostile spell is too’ powerful to be overcome, and he sets himself to
discover who has cast it upon him. The discovery may be made in a dream, or by
observation of the animal representing the totem of the suspected person, or by the
intervention of a professed wizard, who is called in to exercise his powers. If the
patient dies, his friends endeavour to take revenge upon the culprit thus discovered. In
some cases they take the first opportunity of killing him; in others he is called upon

to purge himself by the ordeal of standing before them while they throw their weapons

AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES MAKING A BARK CANOE,

at him; and in some tribes the Council of Elders send out an armed party to take
the life of the supposed offender, if he be a member of their own community. The
party generally visits his encampment at night and calls him by name. He comes
forth at their call, and frequently submits to his fate without an effort to escape or
to defend himself.

The professed wizards are greatly feared, and it is certain that, to some extent at
least, they believe in their own powers. Most of the methods are common to savages
every-where, and need not be here described. There is, however, a curious operation
supposed to be performed by the wizards which seems to be peculiar to Australia. The
natives believe them to have the power of casting a spell ‘upon their victim which
throws him into a state of magic coma. According to the native superstition they then
make an incision under the lower ribs, and extract the omentum fat, after which they
close the incision by magic art without leaving a scar, or any other trace of their

handiwork. The victim wastes away and dies; but during his illness he generally has

1328 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

a dream, or vision, in which he sees the man who has done him to death. This is the
operation which has been erroneously described as “the taking of the kidney fat.”

It has been frequently asserted that the Australian Aborigines have no religious
belief, but this is a mistake. Among all the tribes there is a belief in the existence of
a Great Ancestral Spirit, known by various names, such as Daramulum, Batame, Bunjil,
etc, and spoken of with bated breath as “Our Father.” His name is seldom uttered,
excepting during the ceremonies of initiation or other specially solemn occasions, reference
being made to him by pointing upwards, or by the use of the term “Our Father.”
According to the tradition, he formerly lived upon the earth, and gave to the tribes the
laws which govern marriage and descent, taught them how to hunt, and _ instructed
them in the manufacture of their weapons, utensils, etc. In short, he is their Great
Ancestor, a sort of deified Australian Abraham, who being removed from earth to sky,
still exercises over his descendants a supervision, which, though benevolent, is stern to
punish offenders against the ancestral customs, Some tribes believe that he lives in a
sort of “divine inaction.” The active agent between him and his children on earth being
his son 7zzdun (known by various names in various localities) whose voice it is that is
heard in the initiation ceremonies when the wooden instrument, already mentioned—which is
known as a plaything to English boys as the “bull-roarer,” and to German lads as the
brummer—makes its booming sound. This is precisely the ‘“ Voice of Ovo,” heard among
African tribes, and produced by the same instrument. The natives believe also in other
beings who are supernatural, but who were all formerly men upon the earth. In short, the
spirit-world is, to their minds, a reproduction of the material. The dead are living there much
as they lived here, but not unmindful of their descendants, whom they visit in dreams
and visions of the night, or in the shape of the animals which are their totems, warning
them against danger, imparting magic power, teaching them charms against the witch-
craft of their enemies, and generally watching over them; and the Great Elder or
Headman of the spirit-world is Daramulum, or by what other name soever he may be called.

Burial customs differ very widely, and it is impossible to give full details concerning
them within the limits of this work. Some tribes bury their dead in shallow graves, the

corpse being frequently bound in a crouching posture, and covered with sheets of bark,

or heavy logs, to keep the wild dogs or other animals from reaching it. Others leave

the body on a stage,’or in the fork of a tree, or deposit it within the trunk of a
hollow tree, closing the opening with a sheet of bark. In some places the friends of
the deceased cut part of his flesh from his bones, and carry it about with them for
a time. The dead man’s hand is elsewhere slung by a cord round the neck and under
the arm of a surviving friend, and is supposed to warn him of danger by a ghostly
pinch. The eating of the omentum fat, to assuage the grief of the mourners, has been

already noticed. Certain tribes roast their departed kinsman over a slow fire until the

outer skin rises, when it is peeled off, and the body is then basted with grease and |

red ochre, the “dripping” being carefully preserved for purposes of witchcraft. When
the corpse is well dried, it is carried from place to place to be howled over; then it
is put for a time on a stage, or in a tree, and finally buried. A singular custom
prevails in at least one locality in Queensland. The corpse is carefully flayed, and the
skin is preserved with the hairy scalp, and even the finger and toe-nails, still attached.

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1329

It is supposed to have great curative powers in sickness, especially in rheumatic affec-
tions, and is spread like a blanket over the patient. Some tribes have regular burial-
places, with the insignia of the various totems cut in the bark of the surrounding trees,
and with mysterious symbols raised in relief on the ground; while others dispose of
their dead in the localities where they die. The natives go into mourning after various
fashions. In some places both sexes cut off their hair, and gash themselves, while the
women smear their foreheads with filth, Everywhere some sort of distinctive face-paint
is applied, but tastes differ in this as in other matters. Some tribes consider black

paint and grease to be appropriate symbols of woe, but more frequently the natives use

A NATIVE TROOPER FOLLOWING A_ TRAIL.

yellow ochre, pipe-clay, or burnt gypsum, and the “messenger of death” has white circles
painted round his eyes. A very common practice is to cover the heads of the women
with a thick plaster of pipe-clay, or burnt gypsum, made into a paste with water. This
is left on their heads until it dries and falls off; and, in some places, the detached
lumps are placed on the grave of the departed.

Wherever the Australian blacks have been brought into contact with the white men,
they are fast disappearing. The ancient regulations which governed their social condition
are broken down, and no sufficient substitute is provided. Drunkenness, the disease of
vice, and the occupation of their hunting-grounds by the cattle of the settlers, altering

their modes of life, and bringing them into surroundings which are disadvantageous to

‘

1330 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

them—these causes alone, if there were no others, would be sufficient to account for
their decay. Add to all these the irregular warfare which has always been waged
along the outer fringe of our advancing settlement, and we need. seek no further for
an explanation of the rapid extinction of the native race. The Colonial Governments
and the various churches have
done something for the mis-

erable remnants near our

centres of population, by the

establishment of stations,
where they are housed, fed,
clothed and instructed. But

the natives do not flourish

under these conditions, and their final

disappearance from the scene seems to
be only a question of time.
Something has already been said.
about the Maori tribes, in dealing with
New Zealand. The people comprising
this fine race of men are deservedly
regarded as the most remarkable yet met ABORIGINAL METHODS OF DISPOSING OF THE DEAD.
with, and they are acknowledged to pos- .
sess in a singular degree some of the noblest traits of character that are to be found
among the native races of any part of the world. The Maoris are not aboriginal to New
Zealand, and some doubt still exists as to the actual cradle of the race. Many theories
have been ventilated on the subject, and perhaps the favourite is that which traces them

from the Samoan Group—or, as their own traditions name the place of their origin,

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 133!

Hawaiki. The legend runs that a chief of Hawaiki left the Island after a civil war, landed
in New Zealand, and returned thence to Hawaiki with marvellous accounts of all that: he
had seen in his adventurous career, and of the richness of the new country he had
visited. The traditions differ as to the name of this chief, but whether the adventurer
was known as Kupe or Ngahue the legends concur in making him the leader of the
expedition that planted the Maori race in New Zealand. When Cook landed he found
the Islands apparently crowded by a dense population. This appearance was, however,
misleading, and arose merely from the tendency of the Maoris to cluster along the shore-
line and at the mouths of rivers. It has since been computed that’ the total num-
ber of Maoris at that time could not have been more .than about one hundred and
fifty thousand, which lessened to eighty thousand by 1840, and has now further shrunk
to considerably less than half that number. Cannibalism existed in New Zealand from
the earliest periods known to Europeans, and sailors belonging to the expeditions of
both Tasman and Cook met their fate in this way. The custom of eating the bodies
of enemies killed in battle, obtained up to a very late period. The practice of tattooing
was general in the early days among the Maoris, but is now rapidly dying out. Many
singular customs are still retained by the Maori people of the present day, among others
the very curious one of “ rubbing noses” when friends meet, just as Englishmen would
shake hands. The remnant of the Maori race is now comparatively civilized, and some of
the wealthier representatives of the people occupy honourable positions in the colony.

FLORA.

HE vegetation of Australia, when sketched according to the regional distribution of

the species, commences naturally with the Flora of the South-western Colony,

because there the endemism is most strongly expressed, and the richness of specific

forms is there rendered most remarkable by their typic singularity and by the multitu-

dinous display of highly ornamental features. In this respect, extra-tropic Western

Australia surpasses even the éxuberant and gay floral fields of the south-east part of this
Continent, and has its only rival in the most southern portion of Africa.

It would be a vain endeavour to present in detail, within the scope of a purposely
limited essay, a complex of floral forms so vast; but particular allusion might here be
made at once to the marvellous variety of ‘‘ Heath-Myrtles,” chiefly comprised within the
genera Darwenia, Calycothrix, Lhotzkya, Thryptomene and Beckea; and further to the
= Fringe-Myrtles,” all referable to Vertzcordia, and hardly represented elsewhere, some of
Be which, though strangers yet to horticulture, have an incomparable beauty of their own.
_ The myrtaceous order, so vastly developed in South-western Australia, comprises there
also magnificent species of ABeaufortra, Regelia, Calothamnus, and Melaleuca, reminding one
of the famous South-eastern “ Bottle-brushes;’ while, in the glorious colouring of their
flowers, they participate in the brilliancy of some Eucalypts, the congeners of which
elsewhere appear mostly in sombre floral hue. But more astounding are the gigantic
dimensions reached by the Karri-Eucalypt (£4. dzversicolor), which species and our South-
eastern E. amygdalina may be counted perhaps as the tallest trees of the globe, though
; “they cannot compare in massive compactness of ramification with the colossal Sequoia

1332 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Pines of California. Indeed, the ultimate height of Eucalypts is sometimes only reached
by a solitary bough, or some few straggling branches, quite unlike the uniformly close
and densely symmetric growth of most conifers; and hence a Eucalypt of exceptionally
great height might not be recognized as such, though (to make use of the expressions
of a local observer of Karri-trees), “it is only by successive efforts that the summit of
such giant trees comes within visual reach; whilst in their enormous stem-circumference
perhaps the Eucalypts and the Sequoias stand unrivalled.”

Irrespective of striking beauties in the vegetation of Western Australia, there is an
obvious occurrence of specific forms pertaining to many genera not represented beyond
Australia. Thus, there are the Candolleas and Leschenaultias of tender and _ exquisite

loveliness. Aoronia, a rich genus restricted

to this part of the world, is in South-

western Australia developed to the amplest
extent, one species (B. megastigma), from
that region having become a conservatory
favourite abroad, on account of the strong
Dee aromatic perfume of its flowers. As in
other extra-tropic regions of Australia, the
Grevilleas and Hakeas predominate among
Proteaceae; some Lankstas are remark-
able there either for their tallness or for
the large size of their fruit, and one
(B. coccinea), for the brilliancy of its
flowers. Dryandra, also endemic in Wes-
tern Australia, reckons
numerous species. Very
similar to some arbores-
cent Grevilleas, is the
Nuytsia-tree, with its
ample golden-yellow
flower-bunches, and, like
the shrubby 4¢£znsonza of
the Blue Mountains, en-
tirely terrestrial, though
structurally belonging to
AUSTRALIAN VIOLETS. the order of Mistletoes.
Here nearly the only
Australian kind of Sandal-trees with fragrant wood (Santalum cygnorum) is to be found.
Of the great genus Acacéa, represented in all the warmer zones, that of South Europe
excepted, there are in Australia fully two-thirds of the species. The principal ‘‘ Wattle el.
of this territory for tan-bark is A. saligna, while the species there with scented wood,
similar to that of Myall in Eastern Australia, is 4. acumznata, from which a cosmetic
oil can be remuneratively distilled.

The South Australian flora, and, to a great measure, that of Central Australia,

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASTA. 1333

begins at the western extremity of the Great Bight—at all events, as regards the
generality of low-land plants. This vegetation consists of species able to sustain vigour
in a clime of extreme summer heat and

very scanty rains. Though in its consti-
tution much varied, physiognomically the
vegetation is monotonous. Large trees are
missing over wide tracts of the country,
unless the Red Gum-tree (/ucalyptus ros:
trata), which affords an almost imperish-
able timber, indicates by interrupted lines
the direction of some water-course, not flow-
ing, perhaps, for years. From eminences
seldom lofty, the traveller may glance in
many places over a ‘“‘sea of scrub,” in which
the dwarf Mallee-Eucalypts probably pre-

dominate, or which may be formed by a

gayer assembly of phyllodinous and often

Fr GA We

NAb ee
¥

D
qh ’
i

\ Ve
i "

Casstas, and woody Sadlsolacee, the latter as ae

pungent Acaczas, highly ornamental £7re-
mophilas, often interspersed with sticky

Dodoneas, small-flowered Asters, fragrant

“salt-bushes,” affording, particularly in some
of the species of A¢rzplex and Kochza, the
best nutriment for flocks in these regions;
indeed, Atrzplex nummularia, and particu-
larly A. halimozdes and A. vestcarta, may
through wide stretches of country be the
main occupants of the ground, unaffected even by the
occasional aerial wafts. The Australian salt-bushes num-
ber more than a hundred kinds. The total absence of
Orchidee@ in the dry steppes is noteworthy as a most
surprising fact, though on the meadows towards the
south these lovely plants are again of frequency. It is
in the dry country, where the angiantheous herbs,
although seldom tall, often annual, and perhaps of no ~
rural significance, contribute so much by their thousand-
fold, or even million-fold, growth in some species, to the
yellow tint of the vernal vegetation in moist or favour-
able seasons.

It may also now be aptly noted that the Wild
Stramony occasionally accompanies the much more widely
dispersed native Tobacco, while another Solanaceous
shrub, the “Pitchery” (Duédorsta Hopwoodi?) promotes

tribal intercourse, inasmuch as the. native warriors THE DIANELLA TASMANICA,

1334 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

need this very local plant as an excitant. At the verge of the tropics, on rivulets
of the Macdonnell Ranges, suddenly a Fan-palm makes its. appearance, exiled, as
it were, from its princely co-ordinal companions, yet proudly sustaining a noble altitude.
Ferns, in these regions, are of the most scanty occurrence ; and then at wide distances
only, if not entirely absent, Checlanthes tenuzfolia and C, vellea being almost the only
representatives. Many of
the native grasses here
are exquisitely adapted for
the trying climate; as
; instances, may be men-
va tioned the famous Mitchell-
rp Grass (Astrcbla), in two
species, and the likewise
Me | | perennial Pappophorum as
Z iv ‘oo | 4 eae ‘ A al ; among the most aroure
f | (j j P resisting and best relished
of our national desert pro-
vender. Among nutritious
pasture-grasses of the vast
interior, Poa and Danthonia
furnish largely the extra-
tropic species, Lvragrostis
and Lyrzachne, many of the
intra-tropical, some grega-
rious and very widely dis-
tributed.

Food- plants worth mentioning are,
however, extremely limited in number
throughout the dry interior region; and
thus the root of a sort of native Scorzo-
nera (Microseris Forster?) is rather pala-—
table, while the Quandang-tree (Santalum
acuminatum) and a Nitraria-bush (hardly
distinct from that of the saline steppes
of Asia), some Leptomerias and the small
Muntry-shrub (Kuzzea pomifera), yield fruits
really relishable, though the last mentioned
plants are more frequent at the coast than
inland, where also the AJesembrianthemum
@guilaterale more abounds, well deserving
AUSTRALIAN TERRESTRIAL ORCHIDS. notice for its sweetish somewhat fig-like

fruit. Chenopodium auricomum affords

widely through the interior a really good spinage-plant, with the advantage of being tall

and perennial, The fruits of many kinds of Styphelia, always small, are left as undis-

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF A USTRALASTA. 1335
puted property for the delectation of native birds, To the hilly, and particularly to
the riparian tracts, extends from East Australia to St. Vincent's Gulf the evergreen
Chinese Raspberry Bush, but, like so many other Eastern plants, it does not cross the
waterless country around the great Bight.

The Nardoo, of sad renown in connection
with the fate of Burke and Wills (Marsilea),

is confined to moist localities, and there common

enough; but its hard fruit, with gelatinous con-
tents, is fit only for emus, nor does its some-
what clover-like foliage serve any feeding purposes.
Through most parts of extra-tropic Australia
are dispersed, and in many places prominent, a
host of herbs, which, while, reiterating generic
types of Britain, might pass by the names under
which they are commonly known, as_ the
Buttercup, Mousetail,
Bitter-cress, Violet, Storks-
bill, Cranesbill, Flax, St.
John’s Wort, Pellitory,
Stitch Wort, Dock, Cud-
weed, Woodruff, Bell-flower,
Centaury, Bind-weed, For-
get-me-not, Heliotrope, |
Dog’s-tongue, Gipsy Wort, ©
Germander and Mint; to
which might be added, as
having even at home no
. well-recognized or accept-
able popular names, one or
more species of the genera
Polygonum, Eryngium,
Galium, Samolus, Scutel-
laria, Prunella, E-pilobium, (the latter in forms
_ demonstrative of the utmost variability) as well as
various aquatic weeds, among them the spiral-
stalked Vad/isneria, the mucilaginously coated ex-
tra-European Caéoméa, further many sedges and
grasses of familiar British feature, in some cases
con-specific. Far south also a Maidenhair-Fern
reminds us of European homes, so the coast Spleen-
wort, the Asplenium Trichomanes, the Hymeno- he
plyllum Tunbridgense, and, to some extent, the THE SILVER-BUSH (Clematis Aristata).
Trichomanes venosum. Closely akin to the “Royal Fern,” as regards botanic position, yet widely

different in aspect, is the Osmunda, or Todea barbara, of some of our secluded and irrigated glens.

1336 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Richness of ferns commences in Continental Australia only about Cape Otway; they are
trending thence through the coastal tracts eastward, until augmented in glorious multi-

tude they become displayed throughout the littoral forests of Queensland. MAelacee,
Olactnce, Acanthacee, E-benacea,
Styracee, Piperaceea, Aroidee, Pepe as

and Commelineea, though ap-

proaching Gippsland boundary,

have not been found anywhere

wIN

in Victoria, nor Cycadee, the latter

, — disappearing from Twofold Bay to
tl Y £* Fly Wy . 5 Espérance Bay, for the Zama

Was, 6 A as \ figured by Westall prominently
in the picture of Port Lincoln
(accompanying “ Flinders’ Voy-
age”) has never been re-found.
Like the Snowdrop at home,
so the Wurmbea appears here

as the first harbinger of spring,

but in numbers far more vast,

MARIANTHUS BIGNONIACEUS.

still even it may be forestalled
by some early flowering Acacias,
soon to be followed by various
grass-lilies, such as the white-
blossomed Aurchardia, the blue- -

PH YSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASTA. 1337

flowered Chamescilla, Cesta and Dianella, the D. Tasmanica particularly robust, the yellow-
racemed Bulbine, the purple-flowered Arthropodium, and accompanied in various colouring

by numerous terrestrial species of Orchids, mainly

mh. referable to Caladenta, Thelymitra, Diuris, Praso-
Phyllum, Pterostylis and Microtis, the latter two
with green flowers, while Pterostyl’s presents a
labellum, jerking at the slightest touch to entrap
insects for the functional benefit of its flowers, the
rare Caleya carrying on a somewhat similar man-
ceuvre for an analogous purpose. The leafless
Dipodium must be regarded as the tallest of all
Orchids of South-eastern Australia, quite a proud,
and by no means as yet a rare plant, though far
less frequent than the prettiest of the species of
the order there, the ‘“ Spider-Orchid” (Caladenia
| Patersonz ).

The Victorian Flora
remains in this respect
remarkable, as it still in-
cludes representatives of
genera, which nowhere
else recede so far from
the tropics. Thus the
great lily-like Crznum
and a splendid Jasmine,
with the arboreous Ca-
paris Mitchell, still grace
the banks of the Murray
River. Solanums, Myr-
sine and Avicennia ex-
tend nearly to Port Phil-
é lip. Eugenia Smithit, the
“Lilly Pilly” of the col-
/ ih onists, appears as far as
Ko, oe ge ifn | 48 : Lake King in Gippsland,
‘ Pa we, : and Adstonza constricta,
the “ Bitter bark” of the
interior, occurs in the
north-west of the colony,
New South Wales and
Queensland. The lovely

i f \ } 2
ASTER ASTEROTRICHUS (Olearza Asterotricha).

_ Fieldia gives us among Gesneriacee also a stray plant from the hot zone, decorating the
trunks of our fern-trees, while in Eastern Gippsland still occur trees or shrubs or
climbers of Eupomatia, Acronychia, Sarcopetalum, Stephania, Ficus, Claoxylon, Omalanthus,

1338 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Nephelium, two kinds of grape-vines (with edible and perhaps improvable fruit) and a
Sarsaparilla (Smedax). Even the ordinary Fan-Palm (Lzvzstona Australis) glories yet
there with stems fully eighty feet high. Clematzs aristata and Marianthus bignoniaceus
are among our most handsome climbers, the latter particularly rare. Asters are numerous,
nearly all small-flowered and shrubby here, but one Alpine species (Cedmzsza) is herbaceous
and large blossomed, with whitish, silky stems and leaves, like those of the Asée/za, with
its densely tufted habit, on our snowy regions.

Before we pass in our considerations from the Flora of Victoria onward to that of
New South Wales, some remarks should be devoted to that of Tasmania. Its peculi-
arities are mainly contained in the mountain and particularly in the highland vegetation.
Most prominent in this
respect are the conifers,
not less than six of them
being absolutely restricted
to the Alpine region of
the Island, and three
others also endemic;
more than this, we are
led to comprehensive re-
flections, when we recog-
nize that the botanic af-
finity of the three Arthro-
taxis Pines of Tasmania
is, as pointed out by Sir
Joseph Hooker, so great
to that of the stupendous
Sequoias of California,
that the latter could sys-
tematically be placed into
the genus Arthrotaxis as
A. gigantea and A. sem-
pervirens, although in the
vast space which severs
these trees no mediating
congeners occur to effect
any geographic connec-
tion between them, Thus

additional light is shed

in some respects by these

TASMANIAN WILD-FLOWERS.

now far-isolated trees on
the geologic history of widely separated portions of the globe, an interesting subject
of which our space forbids further mention. The several Rzcheas are all Tasmanian,
though one extends to the Australian Alps; but the arborescent Dyracophyllums exist

also in New Zealand, and one even at the summit of Mount Bellenden-Kerr, in Queens-

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1339

land, while the largest of all (D. Fitzgerald’), is confined to Lord Howe's Island, all
pointing to a coeval epoch in the migration or development of these notable plants
of the Epacrid order.
The «first discovery of Eucalypts_ will Y,

ever remain memorable for Tasmania. Indeed
Tasman’s carpenter, as indicated in an earlier
part of this work, seems already to have
been astounded by their vast dimensions.
Exactly one hundred years ago, the genus
Eucalyptus was founded by I|’Héritier, on
the ordinary stringy-bark tree (£. odigua),
of which he obtained branchlets gathered by
Captain Cook’s officers during their third
expedition, not far from where the city of
Hobart was subsequently built. From that
historic spot, towards the end of the century,
vam globulus was also obtained, as one of the
marvels of the vegetation of the world, namely,
during Captain d’Entrecasteaux’s expedition
in search of La Pérouse and De Langle.
Unlike £. ob/égua, the Blue-Gum tree extends rnp ae
hardly beyond Tasmania and Victoria as in-
digenous, nor does it constitute by gregarious
growth any extensive forests of its own.
Similarly restricted to Tasmania and Victoria _
is the Fagus Cunninghamz, a large ever-
green beech ; and almost the same might be
said of the most aromatic of all the so-called
Sassafras-trees (Atherosperma moschatum),
because New Zealand, New South Wales
and Queensland have Sassafras-trees of their
own, though all are allied to each other.
The absence of Mistletoes in Tasmania, and
~ even still in King’s Island, is singular; to
the latter, however, the Celery-leaved Pine
(Phyllocladus rhomboidalis) extends, and even
in New Zealand several species of Loranthus
reach far south, As among the last rem-

nants of tropic vegetation there, may be

considered .the woody Lyonsia-climber and

two diminutive species of epiphytal Orchids. EPACRIS IMPRESSA.

But Fern-trees of palm-like aspect, and as
expressive of the flora of warmer zones, though absent in the living vegetation of the conti-
nent of Europe, even in that of the most southern regions, form a superb picture yet in

1340 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED

many of the sylvan landscapes of ours as far south as Tasmania, the more slender
Alsophila Australis occupying the slopes of valleys, the more robust but less lofty
Dicksonia Billardiert seeking the margins of brooks and rivulets; yet the latter never

approaching antartic regions as its

former specific name would imply.

Quite endemic in Tasmania is
the Axnodopetalum, popularly known
as the “ Horizontal Bush,” from which
a bewildered wanderer may find it
difficult to get disentangled, more so
even than from the Bazera Scrubs.
Styphelia Oxycedrus is often costal,
and still more beautiful when loaded
with the red fruit than when bearing
richly its white flowers. Here, as in
a few other insular positions of the
world, we find the Composzt@ advance
to real tree-growth ; hence we obtain
the Musk-Aster (4. argophyllus), and
among Seneczos the Duke’s-tree (S.
Ledford). These, however, extend
in the identical species to South-
eastern Australia, whereas in New
Zealand the arborescent features in
these two genera are not con-specific.
Exactly the same takes place as
regards the evergreen Beeches, the
three or four of New Zealand being
endemic ; but doubtless these all, as

i My : A well as the Fagus Moorez, at the
My, 4) {

~! =a \ sources of the Clarence River, being,
like the Tasmanian and the

“ah Victorian and the European
Beech, sustained in their
nourishment through most
delicate and peculiar fungus-
growth ‘at the extremest
root-particles. The festoons
formed by TZetragonza im-
plexitoma on the shores of
CHRISTMAS BELLS (Llandfordia Nodbiles). Tasmania, extend also along

the whole south coast of

Australia, the leaves serving like those of 7. exfansa, indigenous here, and known as

“New Zealand Spinage.” The Button-Rush (Schanus spherocephalus) forms large tussocks

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 134!

with ponderous trunks, chiefly on moor-ground occupied by the most common of the
several of the Australian Grass-trees (Xanthorrhea). X. Australis extends to Tasmania,
and the stem attains several feet in height, the spike without the stalk exceptionally
eight feet in length. Larger still are seen X. Prezssez of Western Australia, where it is
of extraordinary frequency, and farther X. resznosa or X. arborea of New South Wales
and Queensland, and X. TZatez of Kangaroo Island, all yielding a balsamic fragrant
varnish-resin, rich in. picric acid. The Arundo-Reed and the Reedmace-Typha are here
with us far south quite the same as the European kinds. The almost incomparable
heath-like Ffacris tmpressa hailed for horticulture from Tas-

mania, and has been prized for such since the early part of

the century, but it forms vast flower-fields largely of \ its own
in South Australia and Victoria. In singular contrast to Tas-
mania stands New Zealand, although comparatively so near,
through the utter difference of the woody vegetation, and
indeed much of the herbaceous also. Thus the Eucalypts are
entirely wanting, and cannot even be considered as replaced
by the somewhat allied and often brilliantly flowering
Metrosideros-trees, the famed Rata of the Maoris.
A great feature. in the vegetation in New
Zealand is the Veronica, that genus of world-wide
distribution being richer than anywhere else, com-
prising forms from small trees to shrubby plants, Z
some with even Cypress-like foliage. Before parting ae my ay) q, a
from the Tasmanian vegetation special | : :
allusion should be made to the Tan-
Wattles, which have become cele-
brated. The only “Silver Wattle” of
valleys and river-banks (4. dealbata)
grows into the largest of the Acacia-
trees there, unless it may be exceeded by the
Blackwood-tree (A. melanoxylon), the latter supply-
ing splendid furniture-wood, and the best wood
for bending under steam. The _late-flowering
Black Wattle (4. mollessima), of ridges and hills,
furnishes a still heavier and stronger bark, and
offers one of the most profitable trees for tan-
bark anywhere in existence, but like most Aus-
tralian plants it will not endure severe frosts. The LIMNANTHEMUM EXALTATUM.
two Wattle-trees just mentioned extend also in
masses to Victoria and New South Wales, while the Sydney Wattle (4. decurrens) hardly
occurs beyond the boundaries of the eldest colony, and is distinguished by the leaflets
being not so minute nor so crowded. The fresh-water plants of the whole extra-tropic
portions of Australia, from the minute Duckweeds to the Potamogetons, remind one of Euro-

pean forms; but many of these forms are not repeated, such exotics as O¢¢e/za taking their

1342 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

place, or, as in the case of Lemnanthemum exaltatum, peculiarly Australian species being
substitutes of the European. As regards marine Algs, this part of the world can boast
of the richest flora anywhere in existence,. not only in number of species, but also
in beauty of colouration and delicacy of structure, our C/audea, with its reticular sail-

shaped red fronds, proliferously branched, being

considered the most handsome of sea-weeds in

the world. In greatest copiousness they are
met along our Continental south coast; but
the Algic flora of Tasmania and New Zea-
land generally is splendid in the extreme.

In turning now more particularly to the
New South Wales vegetation, it may be re-
membered that it was on the classic ground
at Botany Bay, where Banks and Solander
during a few days’ stay in
April, 1770, beheld for the
first time the marvels of
entirely new vegetation,
which, with their dis-
criminating knowledge as
naturalists, they could at
once understand and ap-
preciate. It was from
thence, that at the end of
the last and at the begin-
ning of this century, such
garden favourites as sev-
eral (particularly phyllo-
dinous) species of Acacia,
the Callistemon lanceloatus,
the Myrtle-like Augenza
Australis, Helichrysum lu-
cedum, Tecoma Australzs,
Dendrobium speciosum, Bauera, Correa, Kennedya, Spren-
gelia, Woollsza, and more than one £yiostemon, found
their way into the conservatories of Europe, where they
have maintained their place ever since. Subsequently,

THE WARATAH, the conservatories of Europe became enriched with the

(Lelopea Specioctssima). tall Spear-Lily (Doryanthes), magnificently flowering in

big red clusters, or spikes, and soon followed the less pretensive Blandfordias and
Fringe-Lilies (7hysanotus), the Hoveas, Actinotus, Pimeleas, Staghorn-fern, and a host of
other showy plants; while what ornamental culture would disdain was eagerly accepted for
University gardens to study, for the purpose of science in a living state, the often quaint but

always instructive organization of Australian plants, recalling to mind the forms of olden times.

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1343

As regards the tree vegetation, it might be mentioned that the number of Eucalypts
of specific difference is greater within the boundaries of New South Wales than in any
other of our colonial territories, half a hundred distinct kinds having become known from
the oldest Australian colony. As trees impress the main feature on the vegetation of
any landscape, we would single out, in passing, a few here, as worthy of special
mention. The Cedre/a Australis, called the red cedar, has its home even far south in
the once celebrated “Brushes,” many of which, however, now belong only to the past.
Cedrela in Eastern Australia, as in some tropic
bi

countries elsewhere, furnishes for us the most easily

worked and yet long-lasting timber, though the
kinds of useful and also of ornamental woods of
New South Wales are extraordinarily
numerous. J/acadamia ternifolia is

also a “nut-tree” of real value; the
number of planted trees of Ficus
macrophylla for avenue purposes is
probably much larger now than what
remains of this grand tree on its
pristine grounds, it being mainly
chosen for shade in all regions free
from frost. Stenocarpus stnuosus is, in
foliage and flowers, of an unsurpass-
able beauty of its own, while the
large order of Proteacee (besides the
two last mentioned arboreous forms)
furnishes the Waratah of universal
renown (7elopea sfectocissima). The
Wooden Pear (Xylomelum pyriforme),
declared as such in the earliest writ-
ings on Australia in a strain of fabu- THE CHRISTMAS BUSH (Ceratopetalum gummiferum).
_ lous interpretation, is rather a shrub

than a tree. Just so. it was gravely related, to the astonishment of those at the Anti-
podes, that our so-called Native Cherry-tree (Exocarpus), bore the stone outside the fruit.
The Ceratopetalum gummtferum is known as the “Christmas Bush.” The Duboisia-~-Bush
(D. myoporoides) has quite recently proved of great value for medicinal purposes, particu-
larly as a mydriatic. In secluded spots, Leichhardt’s slender Fern-tree (Adsophila Leichhard-
ttana), occurs with other varieties of ferns, or the huge /Vatycertum grande clasps
some venerable trunk, or the widely-spreading but delicately-fronded Lygodéum, and even
the gigantic Axgzopterts fern, may be seen in deceptive similarity with J/aratfza in the
northern part of New South Wales. A high-stemmed Galeola-Orchid may compete there
in extensiveness with the far-away Javanic Grammatophyllum, or with the Vanilla-plant;
and Yet the largest of all Orchids may be con-sociated with the minutest Bulbophyllum ;
or the equally epiphytal Ophzoglossum pendulum may droop from some huge branch
with its single but very long ribbon-like leaf.

1344 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

The extent of Queensland, through not less than eighteen degrees of latitude, and
its approach within ten degrees to the equator, secures for it a vastly developed tropical
flora, particularly on the eastern slope of the ranges and along the littoral tracts; while
the western fall of the country trends gradually to the widely level interior with gener-
ally but scanty rain-fall, and with a participation in an inland flora which occupies in its
general similarity almost two-thirds of our whole Continent. A vegetation stretching from
sub-tropical to almost equinoctial parallels must, even through the humid eastern tracts,
show much dissimilarity; yet many prominent types in this extensive vegetation pass
through all, or nearly all, latitudes of Queensland: for instance, some of the almost
endemic Flindersia-trees, monumental also among plants for preserving the name of a
great naval explorer; farther the Helicia-trees, which genus, however, extends northward
to the Philippine Islands, and even to Japan; the Albizzia-trees, with large leaflets, one
species (4. Vazllantiz), among about seven thousand Legumznose unique in numerous
fruitlets; and the Brassaia-tree, with mighty Eeinasties inflorescence and grand foliage.
Eucalyptus citriodera and E. Staigeriana, offer the oil of their delightfully fragrant foliage
as a vehicle for the distillation of such precious scents as are not readily fixed. In_ its
gigantic pods the Axtada presents seeds so large as to serve for turnery articles. Indig-
enous and peculiar Citrus-trees, up to half a hundred feet high, extend the dominion
of the Hesperides far south into Queensland. Wondrous for mutual adaptation is the
nesting of ants in the root-stocks of the large Hydnophytum and Myrmecodia Bushes,
occurring, however, only far north, and demonstratively a provision of Nature almost
mutually as necessary as the symbiosis of a minute peculiar Alg on our floating Azolla.
Ficus colossea, with stems of monstrous width and enormous abutments, is the “ Abbey-
tree” of these regions. The Lagunarza Patersont reaches here a height of seventy feet,
and a stem diameter of fifteen feet at a yard from the ground.

For variety of phytographic interest, and for intrinsic beauty of its own, we have a ~
real gem among the endless Queerisland floral treasures in a Rhododendron (R. Loche)
on the very culmination rocks of the Bellenden Ker Mountains, accompanied—and there
only—by a magnificent Vaccinium (Agapetes Meinu), and encircled by a belt of Rush-
Lily (//elmholtzia). Rhododendron occupies here the most southern position in extreme
isolation, whereby this genus of horticultural pride establishes some intimate relation of —
the mountain Flora of Queensland with that of the Himalayas, Siberia, the European
Alps, and others of the cool and even coldest portions of the Northern Hemisphere ; but
Oaks, Roses, and many other plants of Rhododendron regions, have been searched for
here in vain. Avrgophyllum and Balanops connect here the vegetation with that of New
Caledonia, and a true crimson-flowered Lméothrium even with that of South-western
America. As regards Pitcher-plants of Asiatic type, namely, Mefenthes, two reach North-
eastern Australia. A/drovanda with its vesicular leaves is one of the rarest of aquatics.

One of the most magnificent plants of the jungles of North-eastern Australia is the
Freycinetia insignis, palm-like but somewhat climbing in habit, and producing flowers
with large rosy bracts. So far as we are hitherto aware, epiphytal Orchids are by no
means sO numerous in species, or so showy in flowers, as might have been expected,
considering that all the requirements for their copious and luxurious development are
afforded; nevertheless we know now about seventy well-marked Epiphytes of this

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA, 1345

lovely order of plants, Dendrobiums and Bulbophyllums being predominant. Bamboos seem
even limited to one or two species, while of Palms our records muster as yet hardly
twenty for all Queensland, three of the Rattan-tribe (species of Calamus), the tall half-

silvery Alexandra-palm being of rather wide distribution, but the Alice and the Beatrice

THE AUSTRALIAN GRASS-TREE (Xanthorrhea Arborea).

palm singularly local, whereas Ptychosperma Cunninghamzi comes as far south as Shoal-
haven. Palm-Pines (Cycadee), as perpetuators of a largely bygone vegetation of geologic
ages, no longer existing in the living indigenous vegetation of Europe, reach in Australia
their greatest and the most varied display in the eastern regions. True to the general
characteristics of intra-tropical forests, gregarious trees cede also here mostly to intermingled

species-of many different orders; thus Eucalyptus loses its predominance, but Dammara

1346 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

robusta (the Kauri Pine of East Australia), Avaucaria Cunninghami and Cedrela
Australis (our Red Cedar), may still continue to form the mass of timber in some
tracts of country, most valuable commercially, and in each case sought where readily
accessible ; but the large fruited Bunya Avaucarza (A. Bidwiille), with its edible nuts, is

still more confined than the Kauri, and much more so than the ordinary East Australian

A LILY-POOL, MOUNT MACEDON, VICTORIA,

Araucarza; indeed the latter has been traced even to the highlands of New Guinea, a
significant fact, as it may indicate a geologic antiquity of the Papuan uplands contem-
poraneous with that of many regions similarly situated in Eastern Australia.

Much might be recorded about the more inland Flora, in which two Eucalypts
(Z. miniata and £. phenicea) with glittering scaly bark, and with blossoms of an orange
or fiery-red, impress a highly ornamental character on the landscape, particularly when
these Eucalypts are accompanied by the bat-shaped leaves of Lyrythrina vespertilio, or by
the two Kapok-yielding Cochlospermums with large yellow flowers. Though here, again,
the Eucalypts prevail in the tree-vegetation, they do not attain gigantic size, so that the
Cajeput-tree (Melaleuca Leucadendron), js one of the best and largest among littoral
timber-trees, and is, moreover, remarkable as one of the few trees of tall size fit to
live in saline soil. The Aédrus climber, with seeds half red and half black, so widely
dispersed through the warm zones of the Old and New World, reaches quite to the
north-western tracts of Australia, where Captain Dampier noticed it long since.

Brachychiton trees, some with a complete defoliation for a portion of the year,
reach the north-west of the Continent. Bossée@as and Pachynemas are here flat-branched

leafless shrubs; the Henne Dye-bush (ZLawsonza alba), the Sunn-fibre and Jute-plant (all

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1347

plants of commercial value), make their appearance as indigenous, the two latter like-
wise far towards the south-east.

Quite restricted to the north-west is the Baobab-tree (Adansonia Gregoriz), wonderful
to behold, the grayish smooth stems enlarging to a vast turgidity, so much so that a
whole exploring party may find shade and shelter under a single tree, even should it be
at the time devoid of its foliage, particularly when the trunk-like ramifications in ample
space emanate already from near the base of the stem. Furthermore occurs there the
sacred Lotus of the Egyptians, or the Padma of the Hindoos (Nelumbo nucifera),
though only rarely so far visible with its large white or rosy flowers of inexpressible
beauty, a leading food-plant among aquatits of tropic and sub-tropic regions, the only
other Melumbo being North American, and yellow-flowered; gorgeous to an extreme are
also our two floating water-lilies (Vymphea stellata and N. gigantea), in their display of
flowers from the purest white to deep blue or rich crimson, a floral grandeur.

A L£ugenia, with the aspect of a Weeping-Willow (£. eucalyptordes), lines many of
the river-banks, grateful for the shade it affords, and much esteemed by the nomads of
this region for its edible fruit. Still more valuable is the very palatable fruit of the

“Nonda;” but that tree extends also far eastward, having been first brought under

A BASKET OF AUSTRALIAN WILD-FLOWERS.

cognizance by the unfortunate Leichhardt, whose fate and that of his companions, often
but vainly sought out, remain even now unascertained.
Hibiscus-shrubs and Convolvulus-like /pomwas assume also far west many grand forms.

A rather tall Bamboo (Bambusa Arnhemica), graces sparingly the banks of the Adelaide

1348 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

and Roper Rivers, as a solitary representative of this tribe of Gigantic Grasses in our
North-west. The Pandanus of the North Coast is identical with the common species of
India, the leaves of which are so much used for rough coffee’ and sugar bags; the
Water Pandanus is a smaller species of very graceful habit.

' The Australian Flora in its ordinary displays, as well as in its numeric specificy, is
grander and richer than that of all Europe; indeed, the number of well-marked species
of our flowering plants now known amounts to about nine thousand, and to these, by
the researches of the next century, perhaps another thousand may be added to the
species described in the /lora Australiensis.

A hope is entertained that a history of the local achievements of science in this
part of the world will soon be written, when also just tributes can be paid to all
furtherers of phytologic research, who here among us worked for the credit of the past
and the benefit of future generations. But in grand literary efforts for the Australian
Flora three stand pre-eminent in never-fading lustre ; of whom the plants on almost
every square mile of this Great Southern Land will speak in living words for all ages,
transmitting their fame in natural inscriptions of bloom and verdure, commemorating their
achievements in forest and prairie, and with their great names we will conclude, namely,

those of Roperr. Brown, GrorGE BENTHAM and JosEPH -HOOKER.

FAUNA.

ROM the date of Dampier’s famous voyage to Terra Australis, in 1699, the strange-

fauna of the remote Australian region was a subject of keen interest to naturalists.
Dampier's contribution to the knowledge of this fauna was not great, as his opportu-
nities were not favourable, owing to the inhospitable character of that part of the western

coast on which he landed; but he appears to have been the first, in 1700, to see a kangaroo

or wallaby ; he saw also dingoes, or native dogs; the dugong, or Australian sea-cow, already.

known in Indian and Malaysian seas; remarked on the flocks of white cockatoos, and has
some curious observations on a peculiar lizard, which, from his description, is readily recog-
nizable as that familiarly known as the ‘ shingle-back.” The scanty store of interesting
facts thus obtained was added to by successive expeditions, including those entrusted to
Cook, Bougainville, D’Entrecasteaux, Flinders and others, and by the explorations of Arthur
Phillip and John White, until, quite early in the present century, a fairly complete know-
ledge had been gained of most of the novel and striking features in the animal life of
Australia and New Zealand.

The interest which the new Australian animals excited was, at first, an interest in their
strange external shapes, the peculiar anomalies which, superficially considered, they presented
—a quadruped with a beak like a’duck and webbed feet ; a hedgehog with a long bill and
no teeth; a bird without wings; these and other strange combinations excited the wonder
of naturalists acquainted with the animal life of the Northern Hemisphere. But the interest
did not long continue that of wonder merely. It soon came to be clear that the animal
life of Zerra Australis afforded a very great assistance towards the comprehension of the
whole animal life of the globe, to the better understanding of the geographical and

geological distribution of animal forms, and of their relationships to one another, It is not

‘

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1349

too much to say that, from this point of view, the submersion beneath the sea before
historic times of the whole of the North-American Continent, or the whole of Asia, would
have involved a less heavy loss to human knowledge in this department of science than the

submersion of the comparatively small area of Australia and New Zealand would have done

AUSTRALIAN BUTTERFLIES.

We frequently hear the remark—‘“Australia, with regard to its fauna and flora, has
lagged behind the rest of the earth; it has become cut off in remote times from other

regions, and has remained very much as the rest of the globe was when the separation

1350 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

took place. Australia is still in the secondary period of animal and plant development.”
But a comparison of the Australian animals and plants of the present day with the
fossil forms of the secondary period, will show that, though such a statement embodies
a truth, it is on the whole one-sided and misleading. Living Australian forms throw
great light on certain fossils found in European and American secondary strata; but
Australia is in no sense still in the secondary period. If we examine the Australian
fauna as a whole, we
shall find that it presents
a number of forms which
are especially character-
ized by their modern
character. Frogs, which
are, geologically con-
sidered, so far as fossil
evidence goes, more mod-
ern than marsupials, are
remarkable for their de-
velopment, and the num-
ber of genera and species
represented ; we have re-
presentatives of most of
the families of fresh-water
fishes found in other parts
of the earth, of most of
the groups of modern

birds and of reptiles; and

we have even some mam-

THE BUTCHER-BIRD, mals—bats, flying-foxes,

native rats and mice—

which have nothing ancient about them. Intermingled, however, with these, are a variety
of undoubtedly archaic forms—the marsupials, the duck-bill and spiny ant-eater, the
emus and cassowaries, and that remarkable survival, the Ceratodus.

There appears to be sufficient evidence that the present faunal (as well as, of course,
floral) characteristics of Australia, with this intermixture of ancient with modern forms,
were produced somewhat as follows:—The body of land which represented in the
secondary period what is now Australia, was, towards the close of that epoch, divided
into two portions—an eastern and a western. These two great subdivisions of Australia
were separated from one another for a long period in such a manner that there was
comparatively little passage of living forms from the one to the other. The western
division remained in a state of isolation from other regions, and the secondary forms
which had spread to it from other parts of the earth’s surface at an earlier period
remained almost its only inhabitants, little disturbed by invasions from without, though
undergoing a gradual development, through which were evolved, in course of ages, from

the primitive secondary forms most of the peculiar families characterizing the existing

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1351

Australian fauna and flora. Meanwhile, the eastern division had not remained thus
isolated; but had been connected with New Guinea, and, indirectly, with a mass of land
represented in modern times only by New Zealand,
but at that time much more extensive, and probably
having temporary and indirect relationships with South
America. Eastern Australia had in this way received
accessions of plants and animals from other regions,
and thus, though some of the peculiar Australian
families may have been evolved in this region from
the primitive secondary forms, yet it is reasonable to
suppose that, in the presence of invading forms
from without, the primitive animals and plants—
originally, perhaps, less abundant than in the west—
flourished less than there, and: perhaps in many
instances. became extinct. The union subsequently,
in the tertiary or early quarternary periods of the

eastern and western divisions, brought about a con-

dition of things from which the modern fauna and

SOME NEW ZEALAND BIRDS,

flora have been derived. Tasmania became separated

from the main-land of Australia, and. the connection with New Guinea was broken off;
New Zealand—its connection with Eastern Australia being lost long before—attained its
present restricted size, and isolated position, by the submergence of the mass of land of
which it previously formed but a relatively insignificant portion.

The special features of the present Australian fauna, as regards the Vertebrate or
Back-boned Class, which can alone be touched upon here, have been well summarized
by Wallace in his “Geographical Distribution of Animals.” The chief peculiarities of the
Mammalia may be briefly stated as follows :—The
mammals are represented in the Australian fauna
almost exclusively by the marsupials—an_ order
represented in other regions only in America, and
there only by one family. In addition, the Australian
region is characterized by the presence of a remark-
able order of mammals-—the Monotremes—the lowest
of the class, and not represented in any other
part of the world. The remainder of the indig-
enous mammals are very few, comprising only a few
bats and flying-foxes, a limited number of species
of rats and mice, and the Dingo or native dog.

The marsupials, then, are the characteristic
Australian mammals. For though, as_ remarked

above, marsupials are not entirely confined to the

Australian region—there being one family of marsu-

THE WOMBAT AND THE PLATYPUS.

pials, the Déde/phide, or American opossums, inhabit-

ing America—yet they reach here by far their greatest development in numbers and

1352 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

variety of forms. In the Australian region the marsupials occupy the position taken in
the other regions of the earth by the various families of the hoofed quadrupeds or
Ungulata, the gnawing quadrupeds or rodents, the carnivorous quadrupeds, the ant-eaters,
the insect-eating quadrupeds or /xsectivora, and the monkeys and lemurs. The various

forms of ruminating

hoofed quadrupeds,
such as the antelopes
or deer, may be said
to be represented in
Australia by the kan-

garoos and their allies ;

the beavers and other
gnawing animals are
represented by the
wombats,; the true
cats and allied Carnzv-
ora, by the native
cats and Tasmanian

devils; the jackals and

wolves by the thylacine
or marsupial wolf; the J/zsectévora by the small in- -
sect-eating marsupials; the arboreal monkeys and
lemurs, by the phalangers, or Australian opossums,
and the koalas, or native bears.

These and other families of marsupials present
us with great diversities of external form and mode

of life. The kangaroo family (/acropodide), includes,

THE BLACK DUCK.

besides the kangaroos proper, the wallabies and
pademelons, hare-kangaroos, bettongs, kangaroo-rats and tree-kangaroos. They are all
characterized by the great relative length of the hind limbs, which alone are used ‘in
locomotion—the animal progressing by a_ series of powerful leaps with the body in
a semi-erect posture. There are only four toes on each hind foot, and of these
only two—corresponding to the fourth and fifth of the complete foot, which are very power-
ful, especially the fourth—are sufficiently well developed to be of much service. The fore-
limbs are much shorter than the hind-limbs, and are not used in ordinary locomotion, though
they are placed on the ground to support the weight of ‘the fore-part of the body, when
the animal is grazing The body is characterized by its great breadth behind, in the neigh-
bourhood of the haunches, and its ‘relative narrowness in front, in the region of the chest.
There is a long and powerful tail, which is used to aid in supporting the body when the
animal is at rest, and to balance it during locomotion. The head has a shape not unlike
that of a doe, with large eyes and moderately developed ears. The whole surface is covered
with a soft fur of a brownish or reddish colour, lighter, sometimes almost white, under-
neath. These animals are the representatives among the Marsupials of the deer, antelopes,

and other ruminating or cud-chewing animals of other regions, and like these they are

_ Australian opossums, are all arboreal animals of noc-

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1353

adapted for swift locomotion over grassy plains, and have the teeth adapted to the
cropping and chewing of herbage. The apparatus possessed by the kangaroo for cutting
the grass is widely different, however, from
that to be observed in the hoofed quadru-

peds just referred to; in these the action is

similar to that of a chopper—formed by the
lower front teeth—pressing the bunch of grass
against a pad on the upper jaw and_ partly
dividing it, the grass being finally torn across
by ‘a sharp jerk of the head. In the kan-
garoos, on the other hand, the action is more
like that of a pair of shears; this is brought

about by a curious arrangement of the lower

‘jaw, each half of which ends in front in a
Py ee bik, long tooth with a sharp inner edge; the inner

edges of these two teeth are capable of being
brought into close contact with one another by the approximation

of the two halves of the lower jaw, which can be moved sideways.

When the kangaroo is feeding, it separates the two halves of the

lower jaw so as to open up a space between the two cutting ;
THE WEDGE-TAILED

teeth to enclose a bunch of herbage, which seat Ge
LAGLE,

is then snipped off, usually close to the ground,

by the bgrining together again of the two halves of the jaw, a little
twisting movement of the head aiding the action and tearing across
blades of grass that have not been cut through. The kangaroo-rats
and the tree-kangaroos differ somewhat widely in their habits and
mode of locomotion from the ordinary members of this family, the

former running somewhat after the fashion of a hare, and excavating

burrows in the ground, while the latter, which are confined to
a Northern Queensland and New Guinea, have the limbs so modified as

to enable them to climb among the branches of trees.

The marsupials of the family of phalangers, or

turnal habits, having the limbs and also the tail,
which is long and prehensile,
adapted for a life spent for
the most part among the
branches of trees; they feed
on the foliage of the Auca-
4ypte, and such wild fruits as
they can get, and are very

serious enemies to the farmer

and horticulturist in districts

THE NATIVE CAT. where they are abundant. THE NATIVE BEAR.

1354 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Certain of them—the so-called flying-squirrels—have, like the true flying-squirrels, a
sort of parachute, formed of an expanse of furry skin, extending between the fore and
hind limbs, and enabling them to shoot through the air obliquely downwards from one
branch to another. One member of this family—the Caseus—a near ally of the common
phalanger or opossum, but with very short ears and a naked tail, extends from Northern
Queensland to New Guinea, the neighbouring islands, and to the Celebes; and one of the
flying forms—Be/ideus, or the sugar-squirrel—is not only represented by several species
on the Australian Continent, but extends also to New Guinea and ‘the Moluccas.

The family of the Koalas, or native bears, has only one member, the Phascolarctos
cinereus, an animal restricted to the eastern portions of the Australian Continent, of
habits similar to those of the phalangers, but less active, of much heavier make, with
relatively large head and rudimentary tail. The wombats are large, thick-bodied marsu-
pials, with short and powerful limbs, by means of which they burrow for the roots that

form their food. They have

peculiar chisel-shaped gnawing
teeth, like those of the true gnaw-
ing quadrupeds or rodents, and
the skull has a remarkable super-
ficial resemblance to that of such

a member of that order as the

beaver. The wombats are con-
fined to Australia and Tasmania.
The bandicoots are rather slender
limbed, burrowing marsupials, of
moderate size, with more or less
narrow and pointed mouths; they
live naturally on roots, but are
very destructive to grain and
other crops in agricultural dis-

tricts. In their range they extend

nearly over the whole of Aus-
tralia and Tasmania, and several

species inhabit New Guinea. The

family Dasyurzde, comprising the

THE EMERALD BIRD OF PARADISE. native cats and tiger-cats, the Tas-

manian devil, the thylacine or

marsupial wolf, and the banded ant-eater, contains all the truly flesh-eating Australian
marsupials, together with a number of small forms which are more insectivorous than
carnivorous. These marsupial Carnivora have teeth adapted to the nature of their food,
and are distinguished by the swiftness and agility of their movements. The native cats
are small cat-like animals. The Tasmanian devil is of about the same height and length
as the domestic cat, but is a great deal broader and stronger, and implacably savage.
The thylacine, marsupial wolf, or Tasmanian tiger, as it is variously termed, is the largest

of the carnivorous marsupials, being of about the size of a retriever; it is dog-like in

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1

ww
wn
wn

shape also, and in the limited districts to which it is now restricted is the cause of
much damage to the flocks. Both of these animals are found only in Tasmania, while
the native cats occur in all the Australian colonies,

In spite of the great diversity which they exhibit in external form and in mode of
life, the marsupials are all connected together, and distinguished from other mammals by

certain points in their structure,

which, for the ‘most part, mark
them as somewhat lower in the
scale of animated nature. The
most prominent general feature
of the marsupials is the pouch, or
marsupitum, from which the name
of the order is derived. This is
a pouch of skin on the lower
surface of the female, in which
the teats are situated, and in
which the young, born in a very
weak and helpless condition, are
protected and nourished. :
The duck-bill platypus and
the echzdna are the most remark-
able of all the Australian mam-
mals. In many particulars of their
anatomy they differ from all other
members of the class Mammalia,
and approach nearer to the rep-
tiles. But they possess those dis-

tinctive organs of the Mammalia—

the mammary or milk glands which

ROCHE =.

no other animal but a mammal pe oy ee
possesses. The milk glands, how-
ever, which the echzdua and platypus possess are of a very undeveloped type, and,
though large, they have no teats—the milk passing out through a number of fine pores,
which perforate a bare patch of skin, and collecting in a little cup-like depression. Though
the platypus and echzdna thus, in a sense, suckle their young, they yet, unlike all other
mammals, lay eggs, the development of which in their early stages resembles that of the
eggs of reptiles and birds, rather more than that of the ova of mammals. These two
“peculiar Australian animals together constitute the J/onotremata, the lowest order of the
mammals, not represented either by living, or, so far as our knowledge extends, by
fossil forms in any other quarter of the globe.

Though nearly related to one another in their essential structure, the platypus and
the echidna are widely different in outward appearance and mode of life. The platypus
(Ornithorhynchus paradoxus), is found: in quiet pools, in creeks, rivers, and in lagoons

throughout the southern half of Australia. It has a somewhat flattened body with short

1356 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

legs, and, unlike its ally, the echzdua, a long tail, which in shape is not very unlike

that of the beaver, being flattened from above downwards, and clothed with coarse fur.

}
|
|
j

But the most striking part of the platypus is the head, in which the jaws are so
modified that they have very much the shape and appearance of the bill of a duck,

though broader in propor-

tion; they are prolonged
and flattened from above
downwards, and are covered
with a tough and leathery
naked skin. At the base
of the upper jaw this naked
skin forms a free fold or
flap, which, when the animal
is groping duck-like in the
mud, is turned forwards
and protects the eyes and
the fur of the head from
the stirred-up ooze. The

palate of the platypus is

provided with a number of
cross ridges, like that of the duck, and_ serving
the same _ purpose, namely, that of filtering out
the food from the mud and water. The eyes
are very small, and the outer shell or pinna of
the ear is absent. The whole surface is covered
with a close fur in which there are hairs of two
kinds—finer and shorter hairs, which are much
the more numerous and constitute the chief sub-
stance of the fur, and longer and coarser, more

flattened hairs, which are scattered over the sur-

THE RIFLE BIRD.

face. The legs are short and strong, and the feet
have a remarkable shape, owing to their adaptation to the two functions of swim-
ming and burrowing. The foot is adapted for swimming by having, extending between
the toes, a web of leathery skin like the web of the foot of a duck or a swan, but it
is also adapted for digging or burrowing by having all the toes, which are five in each foot,
armed with powerful claws; when the animal. is burrowing the front part of the web of
the fore-feet, which is a free flap, can be folded back, so as not to impede the action of
the claws. In the male platypus there is to be found projecting inwards from the hind *
foot a curved and pointed spur, at the apex of which opens a fine canal connected
with a gland. The presence of this canal, running from the gland to the end of the
spur, leads one to inquire if this spur has a similar function to the poison-fang of a
snake, to which it bears a considerable resemblance. Though, however, severe wounds
have been produced by the spur, there is no evidence of the occurrence of any specific

poisonous action; the spur is probably used by the males in fighting.

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1357

The platypus swims and dives with ease, and can remain below the surface for
some minutes, searching with its “bill” for its food—insects, earth-worms, shell-fish and
fresh-water shrimps—among the mud and water-weeds. The food which it collects under
water, by means of its bill, it pushes with its tongue into a pair of pouches on the
inner side of the cheeks, until it comes to the surface again to breathe and masticate.
For the latter purpose it possesses four horny structures in each jaw, which do duty as
teeth and serve to grind up the food: rudiments of true teeth, which appear in the
young platypus, never become functional, and disappear altogether in the. adult. It
frequents burrows in the banks of the streams, with the mouth of the burrow usually
below water, and here it deposits annually two eggs, from which the young speedily
emerge to be nourished by the se-
cretion of the mammary glands.

The spiny ant-eater, or porcupine
ant-eater (Echidna aculeata or Tachy-
glossus aculeatus), is a very different
looking animal from the platypus.
It is of about the same size, with
a rather bulkier body, but with no
visible tail. The upper surface and
sides are armed with numerous long
and strong pointed spines, banded
with black and yellow. These are
modified hairs, and between them, and
covering the lower surface and the
legs, are ordinary coarse hairs form-
ing a loose fur. The jaws of the
echidna, like those of the platypus,
are beak-like, but much narrower
than those of the latter animal; the
eyes are small and the Azza of the

ear rudimentary. There is a_ long

protrusible tongue, by means of which
the echidna catches the ants that THE LAUGHING JACKASS.

form its ordinary food. The legs are

short and powerful, and armed with strong claws in adaptation to the burrowing habits
of the animal. While the platypus is in some danger of early extinction, owing to the
esteem in which its fur is held, the echzdua, now that the aboriginals, who were its
chief enemies, are dwindling away, runs little risk of disappearing ; owing to its nocturnal
habits it is seldom seen, even in districts where it is fairly abundant, usually remaining
concealed during the day; while its formidable array of spines, and marvellous celerity in
burrowing out of harm’s way, make it secure against most assailants. Its rate of increase is
very slow, however, as the female lays only one egg annually. This she carries about with
her in a temporary pouch till the young one has become hatched, and the young echidna
remains protected in the pouch until it has attained a considerable size. Besides the common

oe)

AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Ge
or

spiny ant-eaters found in Australia and Tasmania, there is another species found in New
Guinea, and there occurs also in this Island a distinct and peculiar genus of spiny ant-eater
(Acanthoglossus) which differs from its Australian relative, among other points, in the great
length of its “bill,” and the reduction of the number of the toes to three in each foot.

The bird fauna of Australia is characterized, not only by the presence of some
peculiar families not found in other regions, or represented only by one or two stray
species, and by the total
absence of certain families
generally distributed else-
where, but in all the
great regions of the
earth's surface, The
families peculiar to the
Australian region—
having, however, in
some cases stray repre-
sentatives elsewhere, also
by the very special de-
velopment of certain fami-
lies that occur—are the
Cacaturtde or cockatoos,
the Zrzchoglosstde or
brush-tongued lories, the
Platycercide or broad-
tailed parrakeets, the
Paradisecde or birds of
paradise, the Weliphagide
or honey-eaters, the J7e-
nuride or lyre-birds, the
\ Atrichide or scrub-birds,
THE REGENT BIRD. the Megapodiide or

mound-birds (‘‘scrub-tur-

keys” and “brush-turkeys”), and the Casuarzde, comprising cassowaries and émus,

The cockatoos are a well-known family of birds of the parrot order, comprising a
considerable number of species, most of which are natives of Australia. The brush-
tongued lories are honey-eating parrots, with brush-like tips to their tongues, by which
they extract the honey from the flowers of eucalypts and other trees and shrubs; they
have, like the cockatoos, their head-quarters in Australia, but are represented in some of
the islands of the Malay Archipelago. The broad-tailed parrakeets, comprising the
familiar ‘“ Rosellas” among others, have a similar range. The birds of paradise, distin-
guished by the richness and gorgeousness of their plumage, are specially characteristic
of New Guinea and the neighbouring islands, and are represented in Australia by the
rifle-birds, the regent-birds, the manucodes, and by that remarkable and interesting group,

the bower-birds. The honey-eaters are, in most parts of Australia, the most numerous

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASIA. 1359

and the most characteristic of the native birds. In size and appearance they vary very
greatly, from the little slender-billed blood-birds and spine-bills to the comparatively Jarge
friar-birds’ or leather-heads, wattle-birds and _ soldier-birds.

The lyre-birds are large birds of pheasant-like shape (though really allied to the
perching birds, and not in any way to the pheasants), the males of which, in the case
of the Menura superba, have a graceful, lyre-shaped tail; they are entirely confined to
Eastern Australia. The mound-birds, or scrub-turkeys, are a peculiar family of birds
belonging to the same order as that to which the domestic fowls and turkeys belong (the
Rasores), characterized by their very long toes, and the habit, which they alone among
birds exhibit, of burying their eggs among heaps of decomposing vegetable matter which
they have themselves brought together, the heat generated by the decomposing mass
serving to incubate the eggs. They extend from Australia to the neighbouring islands.
The emus and cassowaries are gigantic birds of the ostrich order, with heavy bodies
and very stout limbs, and with small
wings, which are useless for pur-
poses of flight; they are confined
to the Australasian region, the
‘emus being restricted to the Aus-
tralian Continent.

The Columba, or pigeons, and
the Alcedinide, or kingfishers, may
be mentioned among the families
of birds which, although generally
distributed over the earth’s surface,
are more largely represented in
Australia than in any other region.
The pigeons are represented by a
large number of species, some of
which are very remarkable, such as
the very large and magnificent New
Guinea Goura, or crowned pigeon,
and the brilliantly-coloured fruit-

pigeons, abundant in the warmer

parts of Australia, where also the Z i }

kingfisher has its home; and some :
THE AUSTRALIAN PIPING CROW.

of the Australian representatives of

this group, such as the great brown kingfisher, popularly known as the laughing-jackass
(Dacelo gigas), and its allies, are the largest members of the family. The. Podargide, or
more-porks, may. also be mentioned among the characteristic Australian families, as well as
the Pachycephalide or thick-heads, the Campephagide or caterpillar-shrikes, and the Artamide
or wood-swallows. The family of the*Piping Crows, commonly known in Australia as magpies.
is also a characteristic one, finding its head-quarters in Australia. Families of birds that,
though well represented elsewhere, are entirely absent in Australia, are the true finches (/77-

gillide), the wood-peckers (Picide), the vultures (Vu/turzde), and the pheasants (Phaszanide).

1360 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

The reptilian fauna of Australia is very large, and all the orders of existing reptiles
are well represented. A large proportion of the snakes are venomous members of the
family Evapede, a family of wide distribution, found in both America and Asia, and
comprising about one-half of the venomous snakes of the globe, with some of. the most
deadly of all. The death-adder alone, of the Australian venomous snakes, differs from the
Elapide, and approaches the Viper family in some respects. The Australian lizards are

likewise extremely numerous, most of them, however, being members of well-known fami-

KANGAROO HUNTING IN AUSTRALIA.

lies, such as the geckoes, scinks, monitors, and others; but there are three Australian
families that are not found elsewhere, namely, the Afraszzde, the Pygopide, and the
Lialide, the two last being remarkable snake-like forms. The order of Reptiles (Chedonza),
which comprises the turtles and tortoises, is also well represented, and there are three
genera of fresh-water tortoises which are not found elsewhere. There are two kinds of
crocodiles, the large one (Cvocodilus biporcatus), commonly, but erroneously, known in
Australia as the “ Alligator,” a species of wide distribution in the Oriental region, inhabit-
ing the mouths of tropical rivers; and the small one (Phzlas Yohnstonz?), an inhabitant
of fresh water, with resemblances to the long-snouted gavials of the Ganges.

Australia is devoid of any representatives of the tailed Amphzbza (Newts and
Salamanders), but the tailless forms are represented: by very numerous species of frogs,
many of which belong to genera which are peculiar to the Australian region.

A class of fish-like animals—the Dzpno7z—which connect Amphibca with true fishes in

some respects, is represented by a remarkable genus—Ceratodus—sometimes called the

PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALASTA. 1361

“Burnett Salmon,” occurring in the Dawson, Mary and Burnett Rivers of Queensland ; its
only near living relatives are the mud-fishes of Africa and South America. The fresh-water
fishes present few points worthy of note, except, perhaps, the almost complete absence, among
indigenous fishes, of representatives of the family to which the salmon and trout belong, the
entire absence of the carp tribe, the occurrence of one peculiar family, the Gadopside, and
the presence of two families having a remarkable distribution—the Osteoglosside, or so-called
Barramundis, which are found in Queensland, and also in some islands of the Malay
Archipelago, in South America, and in Africa, and the Galaxzadz, or mountain-trout, which
are found in South America (in the rivers of Terra del Fuego and Chili), and in New
Zealand, as well as in Australia.

The most marked characteristics
of the fauna of New Zealand, as com-
pared with that of Australia, are the
entire absence of marsupials and mo-
notremes, and in fact of all mammals
with the exception of, two bats; the
comparative fewness of the reptiles
and Amphzbza ; and the total absence
of three orders (snakes, tortoises
and crocodiles), well represented in
Australia; the fewness of the fresh-
water fishes; the comparative scan-
tiness of the insect fauna; and the
presence of certain peculiar genera
of birds. Of the peculiar New Zea-
land birds the most remarkable is
the Kiwi (4fpleryx), of which there
are two species, birds of about the
size of an ordinary barn-door fowl,
or sometimes somewhat larger, de-
void, as far as external appearances
go, of any trace of wings, the body

covered with long and narrow and

almost hair-like feathers, the head
terminating in a long, curved beak, RETURNING FROM A KANGAROO HUNT.

and with a pair of short strong legs.

The Kiwis form a family by themselves, their nearest allies, though still very re-
mote, being the cassowaries and emus. Very large ostrich-like birds—the Moas—were
numerous in New Zealand until a comparatively recent period, though apparently
entirely extinct long before the white man arrived. There are, in the Christchurch
Museum, many specimens of the Moa (Dénornis maximus), two of which, over twelve
feet in height, are really magnificent. There are besides, a number of specimens of
various sizes, ranging from that of a small cassowary to that of a camelopard. That

Moas were at one time largely distributed in New Zealand may be gathered from the

1362 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

results of the expedition organized by Dr. von Haast, in the year 1866, for the purpose
of collecting specimen skeletons of this gigantic bird. The searchers found Moa bones
sufficient to fill a large wain. This scientific enterprise also dissipated the idea, until
then almost universally entertained, that the Moa might still be found alive in the well-nigh
impenetrable mountain ranges in the south-western portions of the province of Otago.
In the years 1887 and 1888, Herr Reischek, the Austrian scientist, spent several months
in the same wild region, and was successful in making two additions to the ornithological
knowledge of Australasia.

Besides the Moa, another remarkable New Zealand bird is the Kakapo, ‘or owl-
parrot (Strzngops habroptilus), remarkable for its owl-like face, its burrowing and climbing
habits, and its total inability to fly, though in possession of fairly well-developed wings.
There is also a peculiar large rail (Motornzs Mantelli), allied to the Australian and
New Zealand 7yzbonyx, also incapable of flight.

The only reptiles, with the exception of two sea-snakes, are twelve species of lizards,
mostly of genera found also in Australia; but with one very remarkable form—/Hatterza—
possessing certain special characteristics that distinguish it from all other families of lizards.
The only amphibian is the single species of frog. On the whole, the New Zealand fauna is
more nearly allied to that of Australia than to that of any other region; but it wants
many of the most characteristic Australian forms—the marsupials, the monotremes, the
cassowaries and emus, the peculiar reptiles and fishes; it has some alliances with the

fauna of South America, and it has also some very special features of its own.

SOMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL,

THE MINING INDUSTRY.

HE romance of history contains few chapters fuller of exciting
interest than that which records how, for countless ages,
Nature had secretly stored up, in an Island Continent, the
very existence of which was unknown to every one of the
great nations of antiquity, mineral treasures, equalling in
magnitude and value anything that even the glowing imagina-
tion of an Oriental story-teller had ventured to conceive.
And just as the discovery of America coincided with the
need for new channels to be opened out, into which the
pent-up energies of Europe might be directed, and was
followed, in due time, by the revelation of immense mines
of gold and silver, the produce of which stimulated and
expanded the commerce of the Old World; so the discovery
and occupation of Australia in the eighteenth century, was
succeeded seventy years afterwards by an exposition of the
fact that mineral treasures, as great as those found in
Mexico and Peru in the times of Cortes and Pizarro, lay
hidden in the soil of the new-found land; and this led, not
only to a re-animation of industry by an augmentation of the
ere metallic currency of the Old World, but to a remarkable
migration of its redundant population to the fifth Continent
of the globe. In brief, when the momentous consequences of the discovery of gold in
Australia shall be accurately weighed and estimated a century hence, that incident will
be recognized as one of the great turning-points in the progress of the human race.
There has been some dispute as to the person to whom the honour of the discovery
is due. Count Strzlecki, as a scientific traveller, noted and reported the geological indi-
cations of gold; but the local Government dreaded any discovery, and discouraged any
mention of the matter. The Rev. W. B. Clarke, an enthusiastic geologist, also
repeatedly noted auriferous indications, but he did not disclose any workable gold-field.
A shepherd from the west had brought in a nugget, but it failed to set people searching.
The man who actually started the gold-mining industry of Australia was undoubtedly Mr.
Edward Hammond Hargraves. He was living near the town of Bathurst, in New South
Wales, when the news of the “rush” to the Californian Dorado penetrated to that inland
town. He had been well-nigh ruined, as.a squatter, by the drought which prevailed between
1844 and 1848, and, with the small remnant of his fortune, he resolved to retrieve his
losses, if possible, on the Pacific Slope. In this hope he was disappointed, but he was
forcibly struck by the identity of the geological formation of the auriferous regions of

1364 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

California with that of those districts of New South Wales with which he was most familiar,
and he resolved to return thither and prospect for gold. This he did, and in a remote
valley, fifteen miles from a human habitation, on the 12th of February, 1851, he and a
guide, who accompanied him to the spot, began to dig in a bank of red earth and clay, and
to wash out the soil which he suspected was auriferous. His instincts did not deceive him.
Gold was found in four of the five panfuls which were operated upon. He prosecuted his
researches over a great extent of country, and almost every-where with gratifying results,
and more especially so in the vicinity of the River Turon. But when he returned to
. Sydney, with several ounces of
gold in his possession, his state-
ments were received with incre-
dulity. Nor was it until the
Government Geologist had satis-
fied himself by personal obser-
vation, in the valley of the Mac-
quarie, of the auriferous character
of the country, that the reality
of the benefaction Mr, Hargraves
had’ conferred upon the colony
began to be recognized.. The
sum of £15,000, two-thirds of
which were voted by the Legisla-
ture of New South Wales, one-
sixth by that of Victoria, and the
rest contributed by private

donors, was not, however, an

excessive remuneration for the
EDWARD HAMMOND HARGRAVES. pioneer of an industry which,
eee ae ae since the first discovery of gold
in Australia up to the year 1890, has yielded from the mines of the Continent, with
those of New Zealand, 82,444,002 ounces of the precious metal, estimated at a value of
4£329,776,008—of which the colony of Victoria alone has produced nearly seven-tenths.
Simultaneously with these incidents in the life of Edward Hargraves, there were
occurring others, offering a remarkable analogy to them, in that of a mail-coach driver
named James Esmond, living at Buninyong, in what was then the province of Port Phillip,
and is now the colony of Victoria. He, too, had taken the gold-fever, and had emigrated
to California; he, too, had been unsuccessful there; he, too, had been struck by the points
of resemblance which presented themselves between the geological structure of the mountain
ranges in California and Australia; and he, too, returned to the latter. Landing in Sydney,
he heard of the gold discoveries on the other side of the Blue Mountains, and, on
getting back to Buninyong,. Esmond prevailed upon an acquaintance, named Pugh, to
accompany him on a prospecting excursion. On the ist of July, 1851, they were fortu-
nate enough to discover the precious metal, both in quartz and in alluvial ground, on

the banks of the Deep .Creek, a tributary of the Loddon. Within a week, prospecting

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1365

parties were abroad exploring every district which held out the promise of proving auri-
ferous; and, by the end of the year, the gold-fields of Clunes, Buninyong, Mount
Alexander, Ballarat and Sandhurst—or Bendigo, as it was then called—were being
explored with such extraordinary success, that half a million’s worth of gold was procured
by shallow sinking with exceedingly primitive implements. The yield in 1852 was of the
value of £10,953,936, and in 1856 it reached its maxzmum in Victoria, for it exceeded
three million ounces, and represented a value of twelve million sterling. At that time,
the population of the colony was less than a quarter of a million, but immigrants
poured in at the rate of ninety thousand per annum; the bulk of them in the prime
of life and full of energy, and the area of gold-mining operations became greatly

enlarged in consequence. Improved methods of extracting the precious metal, both from °

THE GOLD-DIGGINGS AT OPHIR, 1851.

quartz-reefs and from the beds of ancient rivers, were had recourse to; capital and

machinery were brought into requisition, and yet—notwithstanding it was ascertained that
the auriferous area of the’ colony was equal to twenty thousand square miles—the yield
of gold steadily declined.

It seemed as if, by some mysterious instinct or influence, the earliest diggers were
directed to the richest deposits. Not only so, but all the large masses, or nuggets, as
they came to be called, were unearthed while the industry was yet young, and they
ranged in value from £4,000 up to £10,000. In New South Wales the discoveries of
large nuggets were less numerous, and there is no record of more than two having
been found exceeding in weight one thotisand ounces each. One of these was picked
up by a native boy as it was lying amongst a heap of quartz on the surface of the
ground at Meroo Creek, on the River Turon, in the year 1851. It had been broken in
three pieces by a blow from a pick, and weighed 1,272 ounces; so that its value was

not less than £5,000. : The other, which was found at Burrandong, near Orange, contained

1366 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

1,127 ounces of pure gold, and its value at the Mint was 44,389 18s. 1od. There was
something very fascinating in the search for gold in the two colonies which had been
proved to be auriferous, and where prizes of such enormous value often fell into the
hands of men who, in some instances at least,
where subsisting on the credit afforded to them
by a good-natured store-keeper. Sailors who had
deserted their ships, Cornish miners, graduates from
the British Universities, mechanics, clerks, younger
sons of good families, political refugees from Poland,
Germany and Austria, and the “landless resolutes”
from all parts of the world, thrown together upon

ship-board, would form partnerships, throw their

THE ‘ PRECIOUS” NUGGET. limitef méans into a common fund, provide them-
ere selves with a digger's outfit on reaching Sydney or
Melbourne, and would start off on foot to a gold-field already opened up, or would
explore the country in search of a new one. If a particularly rich alluvial lead was
struck, the intelligence seemed to be disseminated far and wide by some magical method.
Thousands of men came trooping in from all points of the compass, That which a
month ago had been a tranquil valley, with a stream flowing through it, and green
trees dotting its grassy slopes, was suddenly transformed into a populous - encampment,
with its stores, its taverns, its lodging-houses, all composed of canvas. Then followed
the local newspaper, the tented place of worship, and the theatre and concert-room hastily
constructed of planks, and occupied by a travelling company of players. Thus would be
formed an impromptu community
of twenty or thirty thousand souls
—a fortuitous concourse of human
atoms—busy as bees all day, and
devoting their evenings to such
recreations as the place afforded ;
Sunday being set apart for rest, for
religious worship in some cases,
and for ablutions and a rough kind
of laundry work in all. Some of
the richest deposits of alluvial gold

were very shallow, and were almost,

if not altogether, exhausted in a

few months. In that event, the

THE ‘‘ WELCOME” NUGGET.
encampment was eventually broken ° Posed Se

up and dispersed. Newer fields allured the nomadic population to other districts,
and, after they had left, nothing remained of the tented town but the superficial
indications of its principal thoroughfares, and a few Chinese ‘“ fossicking” for gold in the
abandoned holes, or in the heaps of gravel left by the side of them. In two or three
mining regions the Asiatics established a quarter of their own; with its brightly decorated

Joss-house ; its theatre, in which the performance of a single drama would extend over

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1367

three or four days; its Chinese physician; and its handicraftsmen pursuing their re-
spective occupations in shops that were quaintly Oriental in structure and decoration.
Many of the alluvial deposits of gold were exceedingly rich, and the precious metal
was found, in a great number of instances, only a few feet below the surface. As much
as one hundred and forty-five ounces have been known to be taken from the bottom of
one shaft; and it was by no means an uncommon occurrence for men to wash out ten
or twelve ounces from a single tubful of dirt. But, after a time, it seemed as if all
these teeming A/acers had been discovered and exhausted; and then arose the necessity

for deep-sinking, so as to arrive at the ancient river-beds, or auriferous drifts, which have

‘‘ PROSPECTING” FOR GOLD IN AUSTRALIA.

been overlaid in the course of countless ages by successive deposits of clay, sand, basalt
and mudstone. This, however, involved the outlay of capital, and the employment of
pumping and hoisting machinery; so that mining entered upon a new phase of develop-
ment; as it did, also, when it was found that the schist rocks of the eastern portions
of the continent of Australia were veined with auriferous quartz, which retained its
richness at great depths, and could only be hewn or blasted from its position, crushed
and manipulated on a large_scale and at a very heavy expenditure of money. Hence
this great branch of industry is now prosecuted by methods. diametrically opposed to
those which were pursued by the early digger, who had only to equip himself with a
pick and shovel, a tin pan and a cradle. The capital engaged in quartz-mining has
now to be estimated by millions; the operations it pursues are of a permanent character,

and the crust of the earth has been pierced to a depth of over 2,500 feet.

1368 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED,

In Victoria, gold-mining has continued to flourish since the discovery of the metal
there, and the total yield of that colony up to 1889 is quoted at 56,282,014 ounces,
valued at) £225,128,056. The deepest shaft in the colony, Lansell’s, at Bendigo, is
down over 2,640 feet. In New South Wales, gold-fields "have been opened up
in many places from
the extreme north to
the extreme south, and
even to the far north-
west, but none to equal
Ballarat or Bendigo.
Gold was discovered
in Queensland in July,
1858, at Canoona, a
place about thirty-five

miles distant from

Rockhampton. The usual “rush” from the settled
districts of Eastern Australia set in, and the field —
soon became over-crowded, so that considerable dis-
tress ensued, which the Government was called upon
to relieve. About nine years later, the Government
decided to encourage the search for gold in the colony, and with that object offered:
rewards ranging as high as ,£1,000 for the discovery of workable fields. Several fields
- were opened up, the well-known Gympie District, a little more than one hundred miles
beyond Brisbane, being among them. A nugget weighing one hundred pounds, and worth
£4,000, was found. here just below the surface. Since then gold-mining has developed in
the colony, and has been actively carried on at Gympie, Clermont, Rockhampton, Gladstone,
the Hodgkinson, Charters Towers, Normanby, the Palmer, Etheridge and other fields. The
famous Mount Morgan mine, which has been already described in dealing with Queens-
land, is: the peculiar boast of the colony in this connection. The yield of gold from
1867 to 1889 from the Queensland mines reached 6,827,888 ounces, valued at about ~
twenty-four million pounds sterling. South Australia has not been distinguished in the
same degree as other colonies; though in 1888, 16,763 ounces were raised, nearly doubling
the yield of 1886. Copper and silver-lead occupy the place of gold-mining in that colony.

In Western Australia gold has been met with in several places, but until 1886 not
in quantities sufficient to pay for working, though the Yilgarn District is now one of great
promise. The Government*has offered a reward of £500 for the discovery of a payable
gold-field within three hundred miles of a declared port, and active search has been
prosecuted for some time past. In. Tasmania gold-mining has not been inactive. For
1889 the gold was 32,332 ounces, valued at about £120,000, The northern portion of
the Island is the richest in this particular, and the Tamar River District has produced
the largest finds. In 1883, a nugget weighing a little over 243 ounces was found near
Corinna, Whyte River. From 1876 to 1889 the total quantity of Tasmanian gold unearthed
was 565,174 ounces. The actual discovery of gold in New Zealand dates from 1861,
when a Mr. Gabriel Read found indications at Tuapeka, Otago—though reports of

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1369

traces of the metal at Coromandel were heard of as early as 1852, Mining is now
extensively carried on throughout Otago and along the west coast; at Te Aroha,
where a system of working hydraulic power has been successfully used, the masses of
rock being broken by the force of water; at the Grey River; at .the Thames, Wairau,
Lyall, Collingwood, and other places to which detailed reference has elsewhere - been
made in the topographical description of the colony. Both alluvial and quartz mining
are very extensively carried on; the yield for 1889 was 203,211 ouncés, valued at
£808,549. Of this by far the largest quantity comes from the west coast. In New
South Wales the out-
put of gold has se-
riously decreased
since 1872, the differ-
ence between the
value for that year
and the return for
1881 being upwards
of twelve hundred
thousand pounds.
The decrease has
not been regular
every year, however,
and the renewed im- .
petus given to quartz-
mining about the
year last named made
the returns higher
than for the two
years previously,
though still below
the average for the
past fifteen years.
In 1890, seventy-five
crushing-machines
were at work, and

one hundred and

fifty-three steam en-

HYDRAULIC MINING. IN NEW SOUTH WALES,

gines; 6,285 persons
were engaged on these quartz workings, as against 6,304 in alluvial fields. The total
yield from 1851 to 1890 1s given as 10,219,815 ounces.

Wherever a gold-field possessed elements of permanence and stability, the habitations
erected on its site soon lost their temporary and fragile character. The tent and the
slab-hut were replaced by shops and dwelling-houses of brick or weather-board ; and_ these
gave way in time to larger and more substantial structures. The irregular encampment

was superseded by a well-built town; and in a very few years this expanded into a

‘

1370 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

handsome city, with its stately town hall, its numerous churches, its well-paved and
tree-planted and gas-lighted streets, its schools, markets, theatres, free library and public
gardens, and its municipal government administering a revenue of upwards of twenty
thousand pounds sterling per annum. To minister to the wants of its population,
necessitated the cultivation of the surrounding district, and thus each mining centre
became the nucleus of an agricultural and horticultural ‘settlement; and the cultivation
of grain. and ‘fodder crops, the breeding and fattening of cattle, the grazing of sheep,
the growth of fruit and vegetables, and the planting of the vine for wine-making
purposes, afforded employment to many hundreds of persons. Manufacturing industries
grew up, far? fassu, with the development of the subterranean veins and drifts of gold.
Mining machinery required to be provided, replaced and repaired; flour-mills were estab-
lished; tan-yards, brick-kilns, tile-factories, breweries, malt-houses, iron-foundries, woollen-
mills, soap and candle works, boot and shoe manufactories, and a variety of other
industrial enterprises were embarked in; and within ‘thirty years of the period at which
the first ounce of gold was dug from the soil :of some valley, which had previously
been a virgin solitude. a populous and prosperous city had sprung into existence on its
site, with nothing to differentiate it from cities of a like magnitude in Northern Europe
but the newness of its buildings, the absence of any indications of poverty among its
inhabitants, the brightness of its atmosphere, and the general air of activity, energy and
vivacity characterizing the great bulk of its population.

Gold-mining in the colonies was, for many years, a very hap-hazard and unscientific
proceeding. The news of a discovery usually referred to alluvial gold, and quartz-reefing
was a much later development. Lacking capital, the discoverers of gold in quartz had no
other resource but to let their treasure lie undeveloped until the necessary means were
forthcoming to procure a reefing-plant, crushing machines, and the other requirements of
the expensive and often very tedious process of reef-working. It was not until the
mining centre had seen its day as an alluvial “diggings” that the era of quartz-mining
came in; townships that had once been the riotous scenes of a tumultuous life of
excesses on the one hand and toil on the other, where brilliant fortunes had been made
and spent, and a seething population had gathered like insects about some teeming ant-
bed, relapsed into wildernesses when the surface-workings no longer paid. The days of
great finds dwindled down into the dull time when the district, was all but deserted,
and the few stragglers and Chinese who remained gleaned the scattered ears of the
golden harvest, and eked out a precarious living, at little more than labourer’s wages,
on ground that had once yielded fabulous fortunes. A mining district’ passing. through
this stage of its experience presented a dreary spectacle. Here and there among the
small areas of cultivation would be seen the bleak spaces that had been turned over
by the miner's pick, patches of yellow clay, grass-grown shafts of various depths, deserted
huts of dilapidated bark and slabs,‘ and a general air of desolation and decay. The life
had passed out of the place, leaving it a shell of its former self, haunted by stories of
the wild and picturesque past. Tumble-down rookeries—the remains of the drinking
shanties of a time when alcohol flowed like water, and every lucky “find” was celebrated
by a carousal in which the curious champagne of the period formed a necessary feature

—have, in some cases, been turned into dwellings; a few shop-keepers have re-opened

-invested largely in

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1371

their quiet doors; a post and telegraph office gives the place a location on the map;

and the deserted “diggings” sleeps in the sun and dreams over its past story, with

romantic snatches of which any old resident will still astonish the casual visitor. Hereafter,
if the conditions favour it, some one will discover that the quartz in the neighbourhood
is sufficiently promising to warrant the formation of a company to purchase the requisite
reefing-plant, and a
new day of prosperity
will dawn upon the dis-
trict. These are the
leading lines of the
story of most of the
more modern gold-
fields. The revival of
interest in a decayed.
“diggings” was accom-

panied by an appeal to >

AUER

the public at large to
speculate in shares in

the companies formed

\ =
Lad
es
at
=
pi
—

to carry out the pro-
posed workings, and
in this way what may
be called the second
great mining fever of
Australia was made to
appeal in a more gene-
ral and comprehensive
way than the first, to
the whole of the popu-
lation. People who had
never been on a gold-

field in their lives

claims they never ex-
pected to see, and the
amount of capital thus

put into circulation

brought in many places, A DIAMOND DRILL AT WORK.

-as it still continues to

bring, substantial returns from the more modern and more scientific methods that
wealthy companies, managed by experienced specialists, and worked with the most
improved appliances and machinery, were enabled to bring to bear.

Copper was heard of in Australia as early as 1827. On the 20th April, in that

year, copper ore was found at the convict settlement at Macquarie Harbour in Van

AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

~
&»
“J

Diemen’s Land, and two years later a similar discovery was announced in New South
Wales. But it was in South Australia and Queensland that the richest deposits of this —
mineral were afterwards to be obtained. In the former colony, copper traces were first
obtained by Messrs. Bagot and Dutton, at Kapunda, in 1843. They were able to send
ten loads of ore to Adelaide by the first of January in the following year, and its
arrival was hailed with the utmost satisfaction by those who saw in the event the first
substantial guarantee of ultimate prosperity the colony had yet received. The success of
Messrs. Bagot and Dutton incited others to go in search of similar fortune, and the
colony had to wait only another year before it was startled by the report of another
promising discovery—this time at Burra Burra, on the 19th of May, 1845. The work-_
ing of the Burra Burra and Kapunda Mines was vigorously proceeded with, and the
yield from the former mine alone, during the next thirty years, was stated at 215,132
tons, worth over four millions sterling in value. In 1861, the Wallaroo Mine, Yorke’s
Peninsula, was discovered by a shepherd on _ the “run” of a Mr. D. Hughes. Later
on, the Moonta Mine was opened, the discovery of copper there dating from 1861 ;
over 255,000 tons of ore were raised from these workings up to 1875, the ore
sold realized nearly three millions sterling, and share-holders were paid over £900,000
in dividends. In the space of twenty-five years, upwards of two hundred and _ ninety
thousand tons of ore were taken from the workings, valued at 44,500,000. In Queens-
land, in December, 1861,a man naméd John Mollard, who was more popularly known
by the name of “One-eyed Dick,” discovered what afterwards became the well-known
Peak Downs Copper Mine. A Mr. John Manton took up three eighty-acre blocks, and,
proceeding to Sydney, at once floated the Peak Downs Copper Mining Company, in
December, 1862. The first smelting took place in 1864, and in ten years the total
receipts amounted to £268,000. In Western Australia also copper was discovered in small _
quantities, in 1846. The most important copper workings in New South Wales are
situated at Cobar and Nymagee. The former is at present closed, but it will be re-
opened when the railway, now in course of construction, gives better means of transit. ~
The _deepest shaft at Cobar measures 364 feet. The new Mount Hope and Great Central
Mines have given excellent indications of payable ore, but their distance from market and
the low price of copper of late years have militated against their complete development.
Deposits of copper ore have chiefly been found in the central division of the colony,
between the Bogan, Darling and Macquarie Rivers; at Walcha, in the New England
District; and in the neighbourhood of Burrowa and Carcoar. Up to the end of 1890,
the total value of copper raised in New South Wales and exported was stated at
45,818,338. For the year itself, the value reached £275,034; but the highest value
obtained for any one year was reached in 1883, when the return was given at £577,201.
The falling-off in the return since that time is due, not by any means to the
exhaustion of the supply, but to the depreciation of the value in the world’s market.
The copper-workings were confined in 1886 to the mines in New South Wales, South
Australia and Queensland, but the whole industry in Australia shared in the discouragement
of low prices, so that the general yield was beneath that of 1885. Victoria has little .
to show in the way of remunerative copper-workings. Up to the year 1889 the total
amount of copper faised in Victoria was valued at £191,107. The ore has been found

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 13

“I
bes

in the Gippsland District, and at Bethanja, Specimen Gully, St. Arnaud, and on the
Thompson River, and in smaller quantities near Sandhurst and Castlemaine. In Queens-
land, the operations have been much more extensive. The richest “finds” in that colony

have been made at Clermont, Cloncurry and Mount Perry. Nine hundred tons of ore

were raised in 1886 in Queens-
land, valued at £7,000. South
Australia heads the list for the
same year with a total output
of 14,782 tons, valued at £58,538.
In 1888 the output was 3,165%
tons, valued at £327,227; by
486,894 less than the value
of the output of 1887. The

total value of copper and copper-

THE TIN MINES NEAR EMMAVILLE, NEW SOUTH WALES.

ore produced in Australia to the
end of 1889 was £25,058,268. _

The principal mines in South Australia are those of Burra Burra, Moonta, Wallaroo;
Yudanamutana and Blinman in the North; Poona, Doora, Kurilla, Mount Coffin,
Kapunda, Purnamuta and the Victory Mines. Considerably more than half a million tons
of ore were taken out of South Australian mines up to the end of 1886. In Tasmania
and Western Australia the practical indications of copper have so far been unimportant.
New Zealand has shown traces at Port Augusta, Mai Tai, Ducky Sound, D’Urville

Island, Nelson, and Paterson’s Inlet, but the workings have not been continued payable.

1374 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

The first mention ot the discovery of tin in Australia dates from the r1th of
March, 1843, when deposits of ore were found in the Ovens District, now Beechworth,
Victoria. Six years later that veteran geologist and fine old colonist, the Rev. W. B.
Clarke, met with traces of the metal along the Murrumbidgee, in: the Australian Alps,
this time within the boundaries of the mother-colony.. This report was dated August
16th, 1849. In the same year a Mr. James Dan brought under the notice of a silver-
smith, who knew something about metallurgy, some specimens obtained by him in the
bed of the Broadwater, a tributary of the Severn River. These specimens were declared
on examination to be rich samples of the ore. In January, 1854, advantage was taken
of the presence in Melbourne of Mr. Storer, geologist of the United States expedition,
to have some parcels. of ore from the Ovens River analyzed by him. His report was
highly favourable, and these circumstances gave an impetus to the working of tin in
Victoria, so that by the 1st of September, 1865, it was recorded that the colony had
produced two thousand three hundred and eight tons of ore. The rich fields and
flourishing workings among the table-lands of New South Wales were not inaugurated
until long after this, and it was only on the 5th of October, 1871, that Mr. George Milner
Stephen, in a letter to Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, the well-known geologist, spoke.
for the first time of a promising deposit of tin situate at a place about fifteen miles
east of Quorrell. In 1872, the discovery of specimens of the metal was announced in
Queensland, and in 1873, the wonderful discovery that has had such an influence on
the fortunes of Tasmania was made at Mount Bischoff in that colony, by a Mr. James
Smith. The most remarkable tin mines in Australia are that referred to in Tasmania
and those in the north-eastern parts of New South Wales. The principal deposits in
the latter colony, in the form of stream and lode tin, lie in the neighbourhood of
Inverell, Emmaville, Vegetable Creek and Tenterfield. At Poolamacca, in the Barrier
Ranges, the ore has also been found. The total value of the New South Wales
output up to 1890 is given at £9,255,384; the yield for the year was quoted at
£582,496; and the highest value recorded for ‘any one year was in 1882, standing at
£833,401. The total for 1886 was 4,968 tons. In Victoria the yield of tin ore for 1889
was 109 tons. That of Queensland for 1886 was 3,153 tons, chiefly from the Her-
berton District. South Australia contributed no returns; but Tasmania for the same
year recorded an output of 5,728 tons. There are some mines in New Zealand which
have not yet been extensively worked.

Silver was first discovered in New South Wales at Moruya, but little was heard of
the prospects of any profitable mining until 1882, In and after that year an epidemic
of silver “finds” broke out in the mother colony, and the lucrative operations at Boorook,
in the New England District, at Sunny Corner, near Bathurst, and at Silverton on the
Barrier Range, were rapidly opened up. Smelting was soon carried out on the latest
modern principles. The most important silver district in the colony is that at Broken
Hill where rapid advances were made between 1884 and 1888. The workings there
are now world-famous, the proved length of the lode being two miles. Important dis-
coveries have also Been made at the Pinnacle, Umberumberka, and other places in the
vicinity; the field covering an area of about 2,500 square miles, along the South
Australian border. The most successful mine is that of the Broken Hill Proprietary

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1375

Company, whose mine was first discovered in September, 1883, by Mr. Charles Rasp, ¢
boundary-rider on the Mount Gipps Run. Its plant is the most complete of its kind,
and the operations are on a gigantic scale, which may be computed from the fact that
during the year 1890 it raised 7,921,345 ounces of silver, valued at £1,959,608. During
the same period the claims known as Block 14 and the
Central Companies’ Mines raised respectively 693,563 and
692,985 ounces. Up to the end of November, 1890, the
Company had paid dividends to the total value of

2,744,000. A population of some seven thousand per-

ine ~

RA ae
yy

sons guickly settled about this
particular mine, and the shares
which reached as high as £397,
stood in 1888 at £240, represent-
ing a capital value of 43,840,000
for this Company alone. The THE HOMES OF NEWCASTLE MINERS.

dividend for 1890 amounted to

4592,000. The total population of the Barrier District reached 16,000 persons in 1887,
and already demands have been heard for the formation of a separate colony, or for
annexation to South Australia. Large silver deposits have also been obtained at Lewis
Ponds, Tuena and Mount Costigan; and the Sunny Corner Company paid handsomely in
1886, in which year £160,000 worth of silver was obtained. In the Tumut and Manaro
Districts, and at White Rock, near Fairfield in New England, valuable discoveries have
also been made. The total value exported from New South Wales up to the end of 1890
reached £6,930,951, the highest yield for any one year being in 1890, reaching 42,762,554.
In 1890 the total number of miners engaged in New South Wales silver workings
was 5,806 persons. The Victorian silver-mines at St. Arnaud and Bethanga have not been

busy of late years, but the recorded output for the colony up to the end of 1888 reached

1376 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

348,704 ounces. In Queensland the mines are in the Herberton and Ravenswood Districts,
and are worked in the usual way in conjunction with lead and galena ore, the yield for
1886 being 1,631 tons of silver and lead combined. Silver was found at Talisker, in
South Australia, prior to the great discoveries in 1885 on the New South Wales side
of the border, but the workings were discontinued. Tasmania contains silver lodes near
Mount Zeehaen which have lately been tested, with results that have been indicated
when dealing with that colony. In New Zealand silver in fair quantities has been
found mixed with gold at the Thames, Coromandel and Te Aroha, and in 1885 upwards
of sixteen thousand ounces were exported.

Iron is distributed largely throughout New South Wales. The chief deposits are at
Lithgow, Wallerawang, Rylstone, Rydal, Mudgee, Denison, Mount Lambie, Mount Tomah,
Berrima, Mittagong, Picton, Mount Keira and Jervis Bay, in the coal range of the Clarence,
at Blayney, Lyndhurst, Narrandera, Port Stephens, and in the Bogan River Valley. —
Works for the manufacture of the ore are situated hy) Bekbadle near Lithgow, but until
recently the smelting of the iron ores of the colony has been found a difficult and costly
process, so that the steel and iron imported is almost thirty times greater than the amount -
turned out of the Eskbank works. The Bessemer process has been introduced to remedy
this drawback. The ‘value of iron obtained from ore in New South Wales in 1888 was
£23,721. The deposits of iron in the other colonies are comparatively unimportant, because
it is only in proximity to coal that iron possesses any commercial value.

Next to that of .gold, the coal-mining industry is the most valuable to Australia. The
first official mention of the annual output dates from 1829, when the amount was stated at
eight hundred tons. Three years prior to that date the newly-formed Australian Agricul-
tural Company received from the Government a grant of one million acres of land, together
with a coal monopoly for the Newcastle District extending over a term of twenty years.
That wealthy corporation devoted some attention to the development of the mineral resources
thus placed at their sole disposal; several workings were begun and a certain profit made.
The yield quoted above for 1829 may be regarded as the first tangible profit of: this enter-
prise. In 1847, the Company’s monopoly ran out; year by year the importance of-the

industry was more and more recognized, and, as soon as the field was thrown open to

private enterprise, the real value of the coal deposits began to make itself encouragingly

apparent. This increase of interest is shown by the figures. In 1847, the last year of the
monopoly, the coal yield of the Newcastle District amounted to 40,732 tons, worth £13,750
sterling. Within five years from that date this output doubled itself, and the colliery opera-
tions have been advancing in magnitude ever since, the foreign export as well as the local
demand steadily increasing. The latest official returns for the year 1890 showed an output
for that year of 3,060,876 tons, worth £1,279,088 sterling. The chief seat of the coal-
mining industry in Australia is the .Hunter River or Newcastle District. The operations
here are carried out by forty-nine mines, worked by colliery companies, some of them being
the property of English capitalists, though the greater part are owned in the colony.

There are several thousand miners at work in the district, which in many characteristic
respects bears a striking resemblance both in appearance, and, of course, in the character of
its population, to the coal country in the north of England. The tastes and pursuits of the
men are much the same here as at Home. Their life of toil in the pits underground is

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1377

lightened by reading-rooms for those who use them, and the usual recreations of a coal-
mining population for those who have no bent that way. They are industrious and_hard-

working, with neither more

nor less than the usual pro-
portion of idlers and /aznéants
of the “ne’er-do-well” type;
and now and then, when they
become involved in some of
their periodical disputes with
the “‘ masters” or colliery own-

ers, they suspend work in the

it
i

|) HEAD OF. MINE
fh

pits and go out on strike for
a time. These strikes have
usually to do with the ques-
tion of wages, and they helped
the formation of the Northern
Coal Sales Association in
1872, which was also partly
due to the ruinous results to

the coal trade of over-com- f

COAL-MINING AT NEWCASTLE.

petition among the colliery
proprietors, which, about the year 1869, brought the profit of working down to a very small

margin indeed, The proprietors, after a struggle both among themselves and with the men,

1378 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

adopted the sliding-scale, adjusting the wages to the fluctuations in price; and then the
price was raised from eight to ten shillings per ton. The next strike was caused in
1873 by a dispute between the masters and the men on the question of the number of
daily working hours, and here the men were again eventually successful. The price was
raised successively from ten to twelve, and then to fourteen shillings per ton by the
Association, and, as the trade began to fall off with the rise in prices, it was found
that the agreement subsisting between the associated masters and men was threatened by a
return to lower prices and wages, and renewed competition in underselling. Then the vend
scheme was proposed by the masters, to preserve in some way the balance of property among
the collieries, but this was found to have some weak points. Finally, an agreement was
come to among a majority of the colliery companies of the district, establishing a new °
and more stringent vend agreement, fixing the price of coal at the uniform rate of ten
shillings per ton once more, with a proportionate increase in the wages of the miners.
The rate, at the instance of the miners, was afterwards raised to eleven shillings, at
which it has remained. Other strikes have occurred since, notably one in 1888, which
at one time seemed to threaten the destruction of the Australian coal trade altogether.
The effect had already begun to be felt all over the colonies, but a compromise was
happily effected, and the miners returned to work, All the coal-mines in the colony were
involved in the great strike of 1890, and coal-production ceased, except for the small
quantity raised with difficulty by non-unionist labour. The Illawarra coal-mines have
also been very productive, though not to the same extent as those in the Northern
District. In 1890, there were sixteen registered mines, spread over the districts of
Nattai, Mount Kembla, Mount Keira, Berrima and Bulli. The coal-mines of the
Western District are fifteen in number, distributed over the locality of Eskbank, Bowen-
fels, Lithgow, and the Vaie of Clwydd. The wealth of New South Wales in this particular
mineral is regarded by experts as practically inexhaustible. The total export for the
colony for 1890 has been officially stated at 1,821,874 tons, as against a total for 1880
of 753,356 tons. The total value of the export for 1890 was £987,173 sterling, and
the colony numbers the United States, Hongkong, India, Chili and China, besides the
adjacent colonies, among its largest customers. The export to Victoria- alone, for 1889,
was 857,578 tons, valued at £488,344 sterling, while that to the United States
was 407,601 tons, valued at £226,956 sterling. The best Australian coal contains less
sulphur than the foreign article, and has six per cent. greater specific gravity. The
total output for New South Wales for 1888 was 3,203,443 tons, more than thirty-eight
per cent. of which was absorbed by domestic consumption. In 1890 ten thousand four
hundred and sixty-nine persons were directly employed in the coal-mines of the colony,
and for 1889 the increase in the output was 511,220 tons over the preceding year, 1888.
It has been computed that the quantity of coal obtained from the mines of New South
Wales up to 1890 amounted to a total of 49,812,814 tons, of the sterling value of
424,066,243, and the demand is at present increasing.

Victoria has not yet been so far fortunate as to discover any remarkable pay-
able coal deposits, though the search for them has been actively prosecuted.

Four seams were found at Cape Paterson in 1885, the best measuring two feet

ten inches, and at Mirboo, a five-foot seam has. been struck. _ During 1889,

t——

hi i
HH

HARGRAVES DISCOVERING GOLD,

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1379

22,863 tons of coal were obtained in Victoria, valued at about £16,991. In Queensland
—the coal resources of which are described by the Rev. Julian E. Tenison-Woods as
being enormous—the principal mines are situate in West Moreton District; on the
Darling Downs; at Burrum, to the north of Maryborough; at Bowen, Cooktown, and
other places. The Government Geologist for the colony speaks in the most enthu-
siastic way of the future coal wealth of Queensland. The total yield up to the end

of 1889 from Queensland was 1,056,283 tons. The output for the year 1889 was

AN OLD-TIME SQUATTER.

265,507 tons, valued at £121,118. Tasmania for 1889, yielded 40,300 tons; its total
output to the end of the year 1889 being 141,416 tons. Coal has been worked
at Fingal, Mount Nicholas and Douglas River, in the north-east of the Island; at
Hamilton, in the centre; at the Mersey, in the north-west; at Jerusalem; and at
_Gardiner’s Bay, about fifty miles south of Hobart, where a four-foot seam has been
found. In New Zealand coal has been found in the North Island, at the Bay of
Islands, near Newcastle, Maramarua Valley, Whangarei, Waikato; in the South - Island
at the Grey River, in the Malvern District, Mount Rochfort, Green Island, Clutha
Valley, and in the province of Southland. Other deposits have been found in the
ranges of the Cape Colville Peninsula, and near Shakespeare Bay.

In addition to the minerals already named, several others have been found in the

1380 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

different colonies. The most commercially important of these is the Boghead mineral,
commonly called kerosene shale. This has been found, more or less, in all the coal-
mining districts, but has been principally worked at Hartley, at Berrima, and near
Wollongong. The seams vary very much in their quality and thickness, but in the best
of them the mineral is superior to any found elsewhere, both in the quantity and
quality of the gas obtained from it. The illuminating power of the gas is equal to
forty-two standard candles with burners consuming five cubic feet per hour. The shale
was first worked at Hartley, with the object of distilling kerosene oil, the price of
which at that time was six shillings a gallon. But before all the difficulties could be
conquered a superabundant supply of oil from America lowered the price, and the
manufacture of illuminating oil in Australia has been a struggle ever since, although the
industry enjoys an incidental protection of sixpence per gallon under the operation of
the revenue tariff. This shale is very valuable for gas-making purposes, and is shipped
at a good profit to many parts of the world. An addition of ten per cent. to the
ordinary coal improves the quality of the gas. Paraffine of very good quality is obtained
as a by-product from the distillation, and the crude oil is worked up into a useful
axle-grease. Several fresh seams of shale have lately been discovered, but the manufacture
of oil is carried on only at Hartley, in the west, and at Joadja Creek, near Berrima, in
the south. Of other minerals, it may be mentioned that antimony is found in New
South Wales, South Australia, Queensland and Victoria; asbestos in New South Wales;
bismuth in New South Wales and South Australia; quicksilver in Queensland and New
South Wales; manganese in New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland; and
spelter in South Australia. Gems have been found in nearly all the colonies, but no
distinctly payable diamond-field has as yet been discovered, though the geological indica-
tions warrant the hope of such a discovery.

A reference to the history of each colony will show how large a part the discovery
of mineral wealth has played in contributing to their prosperity, and in stimulating immigra-
tion. In New South Wales, the working of the coal added to the infant commerce of

the colony a new and valuable industry, which has never ceased to provide wages for

labour and profit for capital. In South Australia, the discovery of copper lifted the
colony out of deep despondency, and gave it its second start on the road to wealth. —
In Victoria, the discovery of gold not only gave the colony an impetus but altered the
whole conditions of Australian colonization. In New Zealand, the discovery of gold was
the redeeming element after the exhaustion of the Maori War. In Queensland, successive
discoveries of gold have carried civilization and settlement right up to the Cape York
Peninsula, and round to Croydon at the head of the Gulf. In Tasmania, the discoveries
of tin and gold in the northern part of the Island gave fresh life to the colony at a
time of extreme dullness; and in New South Wales, though the gold-fields have not
been so extensive and permanent as elsewhere, successive “rushes” have had the effect of 4
enticing many miners over from the other colonies who have there settled down. What
has happened in the past, will, though under different conditions, happen in the future.
Gold is a great magnet, and a great immigration agent, and there is a large unfixed
population always ready to move off on the tidings of a new discovery. We may not

find any more “ Welcome” nuggets; but we may find many more Mount Morgans; and

the pasture, the sheep then

be imported. In 1796, Cap-

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 381

both geologists and working miners are of opinion that the mineral resources of
Australia, so far from being exhausted, have been little more than indicated. There is
a great future for mining in Australia, but it will call for science, skill, capital,

machinery and organization.

THE PASTORAL INTEREST.

HE first and largest factor in the development of Australia has been the pastoral
industry. Many years before the discovery of gold precipitated the scattered settle-
ments into a nation, the growth of wool had established the country on a_ sound
commercial basis. The story of the pastoral industry begins at an early period in the
history of Australian settlement. When Governor Phillip arrived in 1788, he brought
with him but very little live stock; one bull, four cows, one ‘calf, one stallion, three
mares, three foals, twenty-nine sheep, twelve pigs and a few goats comprised the whole
of the original flocks and herds. Yet as soon as the settlers had the opportunity of
observing the adaptabilities of the country that lay round about them, some of them
recognized its suitability for
grazing purposes, and very
soon a certain amount of
interest was taken in the breed-
ing of sheep. Captain John
Macarthur stands out as the
most prominent in this direc-
tion. He began at a very early
period to accumulate flocks,
and by 1795 he had collected
about one thousand sheep.
Being an observant man, he
noticed that, under the in-

fluence of the climate and

in the colony, though of low
quality, were already begin-
ning to show an improved
fleece, and he saw how-the

improvement could be ex-

pedited if better stock could

CAPTAIN JOHN MACARTHUR.

tains Waterhouse and Kent were commissioned to proceed to the Cape of Good
Hope to procure supplies for the settlement. Macarthur and others gave these Cap-
tains a general order to purchase for them some good wool-bearing sheep to mix
with their own. On their arrival at the Cape, they found that some sheep out of the
famous Escurial flocks, presented by the Spanish Court to the Dutch Government, had

been sent there under the charge of a Scotch care-taker, who had died, leaving his

-
2

oe)

AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

widow involved in some claim on his behalf against the Dutch Authorities. The sheep
were, in consequence, for sale, and Kent and Waterhouse purchased twenty-nine of the
number. These were brought to Sydney in 1797, but of those who received a share
only Captains Cox and Macarthur properly appreciated the value of their acquisition.
They devoted considerable attention to improving the staple of wool by crossing the
breeds, gradually weeding out the inferior animals and selecting the finer breeds, ‘until
they succeeded in producing a fine fleece, and, at the same time, in keeping the original
stock pure. When Macarthur visited England in 1803, he took some samples with him,
and, before a Committee of the House of Commons, succeeded in making out so
promising a case for the future of wool-growing in Australia under due encouragement,
that Lord Camden, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, was induced to extend his
patronage to him. The scheme he proposed was entered into the more readily as
England, just then engaged in the war with Bonaparte, had every interest in making
her manufactures independent of Spain, or any other foreign country, for its wool. Lord
Camden granted Macarthur ten thousand acres of pasture land for his experiments, the
grantee choosing the fertile district known as the Cow-pastures, and naming it after his
patron. He returned in his own ship, the Avgo, in 1805, bringing with him two ewes
and three rams from the Royal flocks, and this small stud-flock was for fifty years
kept intact; his land grant was afterwards largely extended, and from that time the
pastoral industry of Australia may be said to have made a fair start. Of course, Mac-
arthur had no idea of the future which he was founding. He saw only immediate profit.
The capacity of the western plains was then’ unknown, and the pastoral quality of the
rest of the Australian territory was still more a mystery. Nobody would have been
more surprised than he, had he been told that, in less than a hundred years from the
arrival of the first stud ram, the wool export of Australia would amount to more than
five hundred million pounds. In the meantime, the trade in wool thus opened up
with England furnished a remunerative market for all that the settlement could grow.
The importation of fine-woolled sheep continued, and in 1825, Mr. Richard Jones, a
Member of the early Legislative Council, brought a superior flock of Saxony sheep to the
colony, and other sheep were imported from famous stud-flocks in France and Spain.
It was found by Mr. Cox, of Mulgoa, that a more inland climate favoured the growth
of a finer fleece, and his experiments on removing still farther inland to Mudgee were
attended with so much success as to disclose the value of the western country. The
finest merinos were afterwards to come from this district. Meanwhile, it was found that
the Australian climate generally caused even the wool of the Spanish sheep to grow
softer, brighter, and more elastic, and through thinning it somewhat, made the fleece
longer, causing a decided improvement on the whole in the quality.

Although the general statement is true that the Australian climate is favourable to
_ wool-growing, it is a vague one, because the climate of a country covering so large an
area must necessarily be very variable. When the fitness of Australia for wool-growing
was first discovered, the term Australia meant Sydney, and some thirty miles inland.
Now, it means from Sydney to Shark’s Bay, and from the Swan River to the Gulf of
Carpentaria. The enormous expansion of the pastoral industry has, of course, led to

many observations as to the effect of climate and pasture on wool, and to the discovery

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. "1383

of the differences developed in different localities. There is still much more to be learnt,
but the breeders have now ceased to try for impossibilities, and are striving to work
with Nature, so as to produce the maximum results in each separate locality. The
original merino type, owing chiefly to climatic causes, became distinctly modified in
Australia. The wool lost its harshness, and gained in length and elasticity, but lost
somewhat in density. A distinct Australian type was thus formed, and the Australian
merino now produces the best wool for manufacturing purposes of any sheep in the
world. The size of the animal, too, is found to vary very much with the quality of

the herbage, dependent, perhaps, partly on the quantity of limestone in the soil. In

DRYING WOOL AT A RECEIVING DEPOT.

some districts where very fine wool is produced, the sheep fall off very much in_ size.
In others, where the wool is coarser, the sheep are large-framed, and make up in the
quantity of the wool what they lose in quality. Even the same animals moved from
one locality to another will, in a year or two, be found to have increased wonderfully
in frame, while at the same time the quality of the wool has undergone a change. As
a rule, all excellences cannot be combined, and the best result is either the fullest develop-
ment of a speciality, or a judicious compromise. On the western slopes of New South
Wales the flocks produce a dense fleece of moderate length, great softness and elasticity,
and so fine that this wool can be spun into a thread of which one pound will stretch
for thirty-five miles. On the rich plains of the Riverina a much deeper . growth is
obtained, and is now being largely used in America to mix with the harsher and _ less
combing character of wool produced in that country. Still farther to the West, owing
to the extreme heat and dryness in the climate, the wool becomes lighter and_ harsher,
and requires a constant change of blood to keep up the degree of excellence already
attained. Rams from the cooler hill-country, or from Tasmania, are annually imported.

Fencing-in the sheep-runs, and subdividing them into large paddocks, has had a

1384 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

decidedly beneficial effect upon the wool, and many millions sterling have been spent by
the sheep-farmers in thus fencing-in land of which they are only tenants. When sheep are
shepherded, it is necessarily in large flocks, owing to the high price of labour. They
consequently feed in the cloud of dust that they raise, and this is more particularly so
when they are closely packed in going from, or returning to, their folds. This dust
strikes into the fleece, and eventually finds its way to the skin, thus preventing the
yolk, or natural secretion, from rising’ and nourishing the wool, which consequently
becomes dry and perished, and deteriorates in quality.

In Victoria, especially in the central and south-western portions, the climate and soil are
particularly favourable to wool-growing, and the stud-stock of the most careful breeders is
eagerly sought after at high prices. Tasmania, too, has great natural advantages, and the
rams of the best breeders of this Island are briskly competed for. In South Australia the
original sheep-farmers, who occupied the country a hundred miles north of Adelaide, have
been dispossessed by the advancing army of agriculturalists, and have had to move off to the
north and north-west into a drier climate, similar to that of the extreme west of New South
Wales. The rain-fall in these districts is sometimes less than five inches in the year. Water
has to be artificially provided, and in the absence of grass the sheep feed on salsolaceous
bushes, which, however, are nutritive and healthy. In extreme seasons there is often great
destruction amongst the flocks, and these heavy losses check the enterprise of sheep-
farmers. Western Australia has not been very favourable to wool-growing, as so much of
the soil is light and sandy, but the northern half of the colony promises much better, and
is now being occupied by settlers who have had practice and gained experience in the
eastern settlements. The sea-board of New South Wales is found by experience to be
somewhat too moist for fine-woolled sheep, and more suitable for long wool. In the main,
however, this part of the colony is mostly devoted to cattle. In Queensland the climate is
warmer, but the southern and south-western half is well adapted for wool, especially in the
downs country; in the far North the wool has a tendency to become hairy, and this part
of the country seems better suited to cattle. New Zealand, though containing large areas
admirably adapted to sheep-farming, has a moister climate than Australia, and has made
a greater success in growing long and lustrous wool, as well as in producing sheep of
larger carcase, while keeping a fine quality of meat. For this reason, it has succeeded ©
better than any other colony has done in meeting the taste of the English market for
frozen mutton. Notwithstanding the severe droughts that have from time to time afflicted all
the colonies, and wrought great havoc now and then among the pastoralists, the flocks have
continued to increase, and at one time, before the gold discovery, they so outgrew the
population that the carcase was of little value. In 1843, Mr. James O'Brien, of Yass,
saw that it would pay him better to boil his flocks down for tallow than to sell them at
the rates then obtaining in that particular season, with the result that his sheep were
in this condition worth from five to eight shillings per head, where they were formerly —
worth only half-a-crown, This was the beginning of the export of tallow. Some idea of
the rate of increase may be gathered from the following figures:—In 1859, Queensland
separated from New South Wales, and in 1861, for which year complete returns are
available for the mother-colony, the number of sheep within its boundaries numbered
5,615,054; ten years later, in 1871, the number had increased to 16,278,697; in 1881,

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL.

Ge
*
wn

the total was 36,591,946; and in 1887, the number of sheep in New South Wales
stood at 46,965,152. while the value of the wool-clip reached £9,496,019, The total
number of sheep in the whole of Australasia was estimated in 1888 to be close upon a
hundred million, of which half were depastured in New South Wales.

It was a singular fact with regard to most of the brave men who took up the
hazardous work of early exploration, that their reports on the condition of the country they
opened up erred either on the side of the pes-
simistic or the optimistic, with a decided lean-
ing to the former. In the diaries of the first Na!

explorers we sometimes find the brightest de- a oe

. scriptions of country which we have since learnt
to be comparatively worthless, the discoverer
being misled by the accident of the season.
At other times we have beef told that certain
tracts of country were useless for occupation,

because the explorer went there during a

SHEEP-SHEARING IN AUSTRALIA.

given

period of drought, or in the dry season. A more fortunate visitor has

more promising accounts later on, and thus many parts of the colonies that were

: condemned as useless have—more especially by sinking for. and conserving water—
¥ become the pasturages of great flocks and herds. Colonel Gawler thought that no wheat
4 would grow north of Adelaide. Mr. Oxley, the Surveyor-General who discovered the
f Lachlan, and Sir Thomas ‘Mitchell who discovered the Darling, both regretted that such
>

vast tracts should be so utterly barren as to be worthless for man or beast. Neither

1386 ' AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

knew that though these plains were so devoid of grass, the salsolaceous plants that
abounded would prove an invaluable fodder for millions of sheep. The condemnation was
the more remarkable in Mitchell’s case, because on his trip down the Darling the fattest

sheep of the small flock that accompanied the expedition was always killed, and the last
sheep was the fattest of the lot. The lesson

thus taught was not thoroughly learnt till some
years afterwards. Cattle thrive well in Australia,
though the country is not so specially adapted
for them as for sheep. The stock was of poor
quality in the early days, because in the small
wooden vessels then used, it was costly and
hazardous to import from England. It was
easier to get them from India, and for many
years the prevailing colours were black, brown
and brindle, inherited from the Indian ancestry.
But of late years, large sums have been spent
in importing the bluest blood from England, and
the progeny of Booth and Bates sires are now
to be found in most of the short-horn herds.
Tasmania was the first colony to introduce the
Hereford into Australia, and this favourite breed
is now much sought after, owing to its greater
hardihood, enabling it to withstand the severe
droughts to which the country is periodically
liable, and, being also a more active animal, it
can travel from distant pastures to market ‘with

pat se 5 comparative immunity from loss. Devon cattle,
A TAR BOY ON A SHEEP STATION,

_ from their propensity to become wild when turned
out upon large runs, are not in favour; but upon poor and wild country their activity
and hardihood make them profitable. Dairy cattle are now receiving much more atten-
tion than they did in earlier days, and Ayrshires and Alderneys, if well-bred, bring
extreme prices, dairy produce being more profitable than agricultural. Some of the
colonies are better adapted for cattle than others; and some parts’ again, such as the
comparatively dry inland plains, are more suitable for sheep than for cattle, while the |
whole of the coast districts, and the greater portion of Northern Queensland, are
better adapted for cattle than for sheep. It is also, as a rule, safer and better to stock
new country with cattle than sheep; but while a good deal of the country which is
now stocked with sheep is well adapted for cattle, sheep are preferred, as they pay
better and are less liable to loss through drought. This accounts for the compara-
tively few cattle now in Victoria, and also in New South Wales, where the rearing of
cattle has very much declined of late, as compared with former years. Previous to 1851,
when gold was discovered, more attention indeed was paid to the breeding of sheep,
but from that time cattle began to displace the sheep; and in 1861, just after the
separation of Queensland, the figures show the value of the former within the colony at

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1387

about £7,000,000, while the total worth of the sheep there pastured scarcely reached half

that amount. The returns for the year 1889 show a very different condition of things. The

value of cattle is quoted by Coghlan at about £8,120,000 for that year; while that of
the sheep is quoted at £18,750,000, Since 1875 the number of cattle in the older
colony has been regularly declining from over three millions in that year to about one

million and three quarters in 1889, the ratio of total value being preserved by the

advances in the prices of
cattle of late years. Signs
are not wanting of a re-

newed interest in New South Wales, but it .

is not likely that there will ever be again so

great a proportion of cattle as before. The oe Lee Be SEATIONG TEAMGR EER.
increase for 1889 was quoted at 118,685,

and large numbers have been brought over from Queensland, travelling under the
charge of men of the class known as ‘“‘over-landers.” This task of ‘over-landing” is some-
times a hazardous one, the mobs of cattle being often composed of wild and unruly
beasts, and the journey being rendered difficult, sometimes by the rivers in flood that
have to be crossed on the way, and at others by the want of water during the
periods of protracted drought. The chief breeds of cattle now in the colony are the
Short-horn, Hereford, Devon, Black-polled, Ayrshire and Alderney breeds, with their
crosses ; of these, the greater number are Short-horns, which amount, with their crosses, to
1,031,865, while the other breeds and crosses make up somewhat more than 709,700.
The cattle, as a whole, are of a good average quality, as the introduction of pedigree
stock, of the breeds named, from England has done, and is doing; much to improve
them. Australia has always been famous as a breeding-ground for horses. The Aus-
tralian horse, so well known in India and elsewhere, is descended from an importation

of pure-bred Arabs from India in the early days of the colony, and latterly from the

1388 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

English thorough-bred. These were crossed with the animals of the settlement, and the
type developed characteristics suitable to the country as it advanced. Some of these
horses would be ridden by stock-men one hundred, or even one hundred and fifty, miles
in a day. The pace of the racing-horses is equal to that on the English turf. First-
class draught and light-horse sires have also been imported. The draught stock require
repeated importation to keep up size and bone, and the climate is evidently not suited
for them. The lighter
sorts are in request
for the Indian market,
there being regular
shipments from dif-
ferent Australian ports.
Schemes have been
proposed for shortening
the sea voyage, by
raising horses in Cen-
tral and Northern Aus-
tralia, and shipping
them from Port Dar-
win; but this is an
industry of the future.

The life of a squat-
ter in Australia has
always had a. powerful
fascination for the
minds of those adven-_

turous young ‘men of

family or means, who,

LOADING WOOL FOR SHIPMENT AT SYDNEY.

from time to time,
were led to seek their fortunes at the antipodes. The free life of the open country, the
prizes of the calling, its element of romance and adventure in the primeval bush, and
even the very ordeal of “roughing it” that the new comer was then obliged to pass
through, invested the whole career with just that spice of wild freedom which was most
calculated to satisfy the straining youth of the “Old Land” at that period; nothing but
life in the American backwoods in the early days could offer a comparison to it. The
first steps towards the formation of what has grown up into the squatting interest were
made towards the end of the first quarter of the present century, but it must be
confessed that the term “squatter” was then accepted as conveying a signification that
by no means belongs to it now.. In those days, early settlement was confined to a few
spots along the coast, and the stock of the colony was carried only on land that had
been granted to, or purchased by, the holder. But as the flocks and herds of the.
settlement increased, the population gradually threw off an erratic element that hung on
the skirts of the settlement proper. These enterprising pioneers went farther out and

selected suitable spots, well provided with the necessary grass and water, where they

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1389
established their camps, and, in short, ‘squatted down” outside the range of all
constituted authority. It can be easily imagined that boundaries were ill-defined, and
that the ownership of stock was a little hazy, and that quarrels between neighbours
were frequent. As time went on, the example thus set of going farther out was followed
by other owners of sheep and cattle, who, finding their flocks and herds increasing
beyond all reasonable limits, or the capacity of the country to carry them, were compelled
to relieve the pressure by sending a portion of their stock farther afield. The younger
sons of the better classes of the colony, as well as the new-comers who had been
attracted to Australia by the fascination of the free life under new conditions there,

readily entered upon this service. ‘‘Squatting” in those days was rougher than it is now.

PRESSING WOOL FOR SHIPMENT.

The railways had not opened up the country, the blacks were troublesome and dangerous,

and the dingoes with which the bush was infested—the only wild animals, by the way,

that interfered with the shepherd’s charge in Australia—at times made great havoc
among the flocks. Communication with the settled districts was not frequent, as may be
supposed ; provisions were often scarce, and the search for good water was not always
rewarded with the success that the enterprise of those early days of the pastoralists
would seem to have deserved. The old-time squatter was not, as now, the lord
of boundless acres, sending his wool to the sea-port every season, and commanding the
luxuries of life on his well-appointed station as readily as he might in a first-class hotel.
The leaders of these enterprises were in no respects better off than their shepherds or

stock-men, and many years had to pass away before their courage in opening up the

1390 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

interior of the country was to be rewarded with long-delayed success. The chief difficulty
of which the early squatters complained, arose from the insecurity of their tenure, and
the unfavourable eye with which their undertakings were viewed by the Government.
The spirit that led them so far afield was incomprehensible to the official mind of early
authority, and we find even
Governor Bourke complaining
in his time of the tendency
of the squatters to “ wander off
beyond the limits of location,”
while Gipps later on echoed his
opposition, whimsically enough as
it now seems, “to the people
living in bark huts beyond the
boundaries.” It is not very
wonderful that the Government
of the day—like that which ruled
at the outburst of the gold-mining
industry — was perplexed and
alarmed at what seemed to be
the danger of letting people
roam wildly over, the whole
country. One great difficulty of
Government was to keep order,
and the great danger was law-
lessness. There was a large con-
vict population to manage,
amongst whom disturbances and

little insurrections had been fre-

quent. Great severity had been

AN AUSTRALIAN BOUNDARY RIDER. used to manage them, even within

the legalized limits of a settle-
ment ; and how were they to be controlled if they were scattered far and wide? This official

anxiety and timidity took no account of the fact that men are much easier to govern when
they are engaged in steady industry, and when they are prosperous. The Botany Bay settle-
ment at that epoch was, in truth, pining for a broader life, and when it came, and that, too,
in spite of the wish of the Authorities to grant it, the task of Administration became more
easy instead of more difficult. All that Government really had to do was to follow the new
industry with suitable regulations, and here—as afterwards with the gold—the mistake of
the Government was over-regulation. The convicts who went out as servants on the
pastoral lands, so far from proving more troublesome, were really more amenable than
when confined to the smaller limits of the early settlements. They enjoyed the freer
life, they made light of its hardships, and became, for the most part, invaluable helps
to the sheep-farmers who employed them. So far from proving adverse to the cause of

law, their industry really laid the basis for a new and better social order. The scatter-

COMMERCIAL

ing of the people was, under the
convict camp into a commercial community.

The early squatters were essentially a nomadic race.
moved on with their flocks and herds as soon
them, or when the land they temporarily occupied,

the Government to whoever cared to pay the price for it.

willing enough to. buy or rent

find the complaint reiterated by

him to buy, or rent, or obtain a tenure.

circumstances,

land when

squatter

AND INDUSTRIAL.

thing

country

without tenure

The

1391

necessary to transform a

early patriarchs, they

grew too small to hold

or title, was sold by

graziers themselves were
they found it suitable for their purpose,

but the tendency of the officialism of the day was to discourage squatting, and we frequently

Government would not allow

As time went on, and the pastoralists acquired

wealth and its consequent influence and power, however, their claims began to force
themselves on official attention, not way the squatters themselves

would have preferred to see. Governor Bourke made the first step in this direction, by

ea a

\ iM cal mM

a) Mii

acknowledging the
legal existence of the

squatter to the extent

| iy represented by a ten-
Bali: ls)

= Hh scense

i } pound license, though

i fH}

A SHEARER ‘‘ KNOCKING

HIS CHEQUE,

Ae “i
lal ny) it

this tax was imposed
in the first instance in
order to give the Gov-
ernor power to with-
hold permission to
go upon the land for
squatting purposes, in
cases where he may
have deemed it neces-
sary. Each license
covered only a certain
area, so that as the
limit was extended the
squatter had to get a
fresh license. Later
on, a police tax was
imposed on the graziers
at their own request.
In 1843, the Pastoral
Association for the pro-
tection of squatting

interests was first

spoken of in Sydney, when Sir George Gipps passed some regulations which the pastoralists

regarded as pressing on their interests unduly. In addition to the license fee and stock

assessment, the squatter was now to be compelled to purchase, at stated periods, whether he

wanted it or not, three hundred and twenty acres of land at the menzmum price of one

1392 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

pound per acre, in order to provide a revenue for immigration purposes, for it was
held that the land should pay the expense of bringing an adequate population to
Australia. When these regulations were formulated, the squatters lost no time in
completing their organization, and it was at this stage that the term “squatter” first
began to be applied to the graziers in the sense it now bears. The Association drew
up a schedule of claims, which their representatives began thenceforth to advocate,
embracing a request’ for regular leases of their runs, a fixed tenure, and the right of
pre-emption. The agitation was carried on vigorously. The squatters carried their influence
to England, and, in so short a space of time as lay between the formation of the Associa-
tion and 1846, they succeeded in getting their claims granted and confirmed by Orders
in Council. In 1861, Sir. John Robertson passed his Measure in the Parliament of New
South Wales providing for free selection before survey; and another for re-establishing
the pastoral tenure; and in these two Measures the two great divisions into which the
pastoral interests of the Australian colonies class thémselves—the squatters and the free
selectors—may be said to have received their legal charter.

The land legislation of Sir John Robertson made a great change. Hitherto the
laws had expressed the wisdom of Downing Street; now they were made to express
the views and feelings of practical settlers, and especially those of the class of small
settlers. The Government of the day had not taken much pains to create a body of

yeomanry-farmers, and when large grants ceased to be made, and all land was sold by

auction, the man who wished to buy a small farm too often found himself over-bid by

the squatter on whose run he wished to pitch his tent. To relieve him from this
competition, the new law dispensed, in the case of the genuine settler, with auction and
even with survey, and also with cash payment. He was allowed to settle where he
chose, excepting only on land specially reserved, but he had to mark his boundary in
conformity with certain very simple regulations. He was required to pay in cash only
five shillings an acre, and he had unlimited credit for the balance, but in return for these
privileges he contracted to reside on the land for three years, and to improve it to the
extent of a pound an acre. He could transfer only to some one who would take up
the conditions. The squatter, on the other hand, lost his general right of pre-emption,
but retained the right to purchase one square mile, and any land on which he had put
more than forty pounds’ worth of improvements. After an experience of several years,
this system was found td have developed many consequences which were not intended.
The two classes of settlers were brought somewhat into antagonism, the selectors often
taking up land simply to be bought off, while the squatters tried to protect themselves
by heavy purchases of land at auction, by using their station-hands as dummy-selectors,
and by buying up and using the land-orders granted to volunteers for their military
service. Alterations have been made from time to time to try to deal with the complaints
that arose. The last law divides each run into two parts, giving the squatter a secure

tenure of one portion at an increased rental, and leaving the rest, at an annual lease,

open to free selection, The auction sale of rural lands has at the same time been

limited to 200,000 acres a year. Even this change does not give universal satisfaction,
and the land question, in its various phases, continues to be, as it has been from the

first, and promises long to remain, a puzzle and a perplexity to politicians.

STRIAL.,

IND

tRCIAL

COMME

“VINOLOIA

“NOLLV.LS

daaHs

ANNOG TIONS

1304 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

The pioneer days of squatting in Australia are long since over, and the life has
lost much of that element of adventure and unrestraint which characterized it in the
days when the early pastoralist went forth into unexplored country to seek a _ location
for his flocks, When he found it, he lived there in a very primitive way. The
squatter himself had his head-quarters at the home-station, which in those days consisted
of what was called the ‘main hut,” generally a structure about forty feet long by
twenty broad. This was usually flanked by a deep verandah, made to face the gouth-
east, so that the fierce rays of the mid-day sun might be in some measure guarded against.
If there were a woman's hand about the place, which was not often the case in those
days of single-handed adventure, a trailing vine might throw the shadow of its green
leaves along this verandah, and here it was the custom for the master of the pastures
to recline and take his ease when not in the saddle, or otherwise occupied. The roof
of the hut was of bark, and at the back, branching off the main apartment, were
smaller buildings of the skillion order, which served as store-rooms, and for other purposes
of the kind. The squatter’s fare was of the simplest. He baked his damper in the
ashes, and dined on the mutton-chops his sheep provided, or on the salt beef he had
stored in his harness-cask. His black tea and his blacker pipe completed his list of
luxuries ; and so the old-time squatter lived his life, and laid the foundations of the
colossal pastoral fortunes of to-day. The lines of those who came after him have fallen
in pleasanter places. The home-station is now a_ hospitable mansion, graced by the
refinements and surroundings of a gentler life and the charm of feminine society. The
owner spends as much of his time in one of the colonial capitals as on his “run,” and
the actual work of the station, which is reduced to a mznzmum by the improved system
of more modern times, is usually carried on by a superintendent and his boundary-
riders, with the assistance of shearers in the season. The wire-fencing introduced of late
years has done away with the necessity for shepherds, and these worthies, once so
characteristic a type of Australian bush-life, -are rapidly becoming mere relics of the
past. The lot of these old shepherds, it must be confessed, was not always a very
bright one. They lived solitary lives for nine months out of the year, and many of
them saw a human being much seldomer than that, with the exception, indeed, of the
driver of the ration-cart who visited them once a week with supplies. Many years spent
in the bush had unfitted these men for anything else but shepherding, and so their
monotonous life went round without any other than the periodical break which followed
the receipt of their wages. These were usually paid by an order on the squatter’s
agent in the nearest township, after the value of all lost sheep had been deducted—a
piece of prudent thrift on the part of the squatter which often left the shepherd without
much to spend. The orders were taken to the first bush shanty, to be cashed by the
publican. He took possession of the order and supplied the victim with liquor, of
which an important ingredient was not infrequently blue-stone, until the funds were
supposed to be exhausted. This process was known by the name of “lambing-down,”
from the publican’s point of view, and “knocking down his cheque,” from that of the
reckless reveller; frequently the process was assisted, more especially of late years, by
the wiles of some more or less fascinating barmaid brought up from the city for the

season. When the value of the order was supposed to have been covered by the liquor

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1395

consumed by the victim—a matter left entirely to the judgment of the publican—he was
forcibly informed of the fact; given, perhaps, a bottle of rum and some tobacco, and
told to take himself off and come back when he had earned another cheque; and so

the shepherd disappeared from view for another year or two, and prepared himself by

a course of rigid abstinence and self-denial to be worthy to pass through the same

delirious ecstacy of pleasure

once more. All this is rapidly

passing away now; but there are still
bush-shanties and low _public-houses
where the process of ‘‘lambing-down”
is carried on, and some still remain-
ing instances of foolish shearers having
HARVESTING ON THE WIMMERA PLAINS. taken the place of the old-time shep-

herds who were so eager to “knock

down their cheques.” Boundary-riders have now taken the place of shepherds. Shearers
are usually small selectors and others, who travel from station to station in the season,
at the beginning of summer, and take contracts or engagements for the work of fleecing
the sheep preparatory to sending the wool to market. They are paid by the score of sheep
passed through their hands, and the more expert among them often earn enough in
this way to make their expenses for the year a matter beyond the scope of anxious
concern. The sum gained is a handsome addition to the profits of their farms, and
indeed without it the selections would often not be tenable. After the shearing, an

experienced wool-sorter skirts and classes the wool, arranging it according to its qualities.

1396 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

The wool at one time was, as a rule, washed on the sheep’s back, but now it is
principally shorn and sent to market in the grease; and unless it is exceptionally dirty
only the “locks and pieces” are now scoured. In scouring on the station the most common
mode is to soak the fleece first in large cisterns of hot water and soap, and then
plunge it into the river in perforated zinc boxes, men meanwhile stirring the wool
with long poles. When the requisite degree of cleanliness is secured, the wool is taken
to the drying-ground, where it is spread out in ‘the sun, the portion of the land-
scape so used looking as if it had received a-fall of snow. The wool dries clean and
white, and is then pressed into bales for market. There are, however, a good many
scouring establishments in the colony where wool sent down in the grease is washed
by machinery. On the shearing being finished, the teams come into view, and the bales
are stacked upon waggons and conveyed to the nearest railway station, or to some
shipping-place on a river. Here, again, a great advantage is possessed by modern wool-
growers over those of the old days, when there were no railways and no river steamers,
and the teams were often six and nine months, and sometimes a whole ‘year, and

more, on the roads.

THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST.

NE of the very first duties of the early settlers was to try to make the earth
yield its sustenance,’ and the Home Government was urgent that the settlement
should become self-supporting, with respect to food, at the earliest possible date. Seeds
had been brought out, and experiments on a small scale were soon made at Farm Cove,
at Grose Farm, and at Parramatta. But tillage proceeded slowly, and with many diffi-
culties, and more than one harvest season passed by before the little settlement ceased
its dependence for breadstuffs on India. The land in the immediate neighbourhood of
Sydney, with the exception of a few patches here and there, is not very favourable to
farming; but the discovery of rich alluvial land on the banks of the Hawkesbury, _and
of good trap-soil at Camden, gave somewhat more encouragement to those who drove
the plough. The starting of the sheep-farming “industry drew men’s attention a good
deal away from agriculture, and grain-growing was more attended to in Tasmania than in
the metropolitan county of New South Wales. Indeed, it is rather a remarkable fact
that the mother-colony has never, during the whole century of its existence, provided
itself with breadstuffs. This is partly due to the fact that the settlers have found
grazing the more profitable occupation, and partly to the physical geography of the
colony. The metropolitan district has not much good arable land, while ranges of moun-
tains cut it off from the fine wheat-lands on the inner slopes. Along the coast wheat
can be grown, but the farmers are much troubled with rust and the weevil. The conse-—
quence is that in the older colony wheat-growing has met with many discouragements,
and it is only within the past few years that the acreage under the plough has been
sufficient to give promise of an adequate harvest, and that promise has been spoilt first
by drought, and secondly by unseasonable rains. But with a good season, the colony
could, and probably would, produce more than enough wheat to make its own loaf.
What agriculture there was prior to 1851 was a good deal checked by the discovery of

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL.

1397

gold, and wheat was then largely imported from Valparaiso and California. The colony

of South Australia was the first to take up the running in wheat production, It had

shown what it could do by sending prize wheat from its Mount Barker District to the

Crystal Palace Exhibition in London. The local Government, anxious to bring back its

Decriele

A VINEYARD NEAR SINGLETON, NEW SOUTH WALES.

truant population that had been decoyed to the Victorian gold-fields, established an over-
land escort, by which the absentees sent their gains to their wives and children whom
they had left behind. Many of them followed, and invested these gains in farms. The
Government held weekly land-sales of eighty-acre blocks, and these were eagerly purchased,

some by returned diggers, others by capitalists, who leased the land with the right

1398 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

of purchase—a right often exercised out of the profits of the first, second, or third year.
The seasons at that juncture were fairly favourable, the soil was virgin, and the price
of wheat was a paying one. Agriculture went ahead, and South Australia became for a
time the granary of
Australia. Since then
the industry has re-
ceived a check, partly
because Victoria, the
principal buyer, has
been producing for
itself, partly because
the settlers, pushing
more and more toward
the North, have got
into a drier latitude,
and have been vexed

with harvests that bare-

ly repaid the labour
spent on them. The
average all over the
colony has sometimes
been as low as four
bushels to the acre;
but everything has
been done to cheapen
the cost of production,
which, on the whole, is
lower there than in
any other colony.

In Victoria, after
the first effervescence
of the gold mania had
subsided, and land had

been wrested from the

squatters, many men,

CLEARING LAND BY RING-BARKING ‘TREES. tire O the: ieee

ties of mining, turned

their attention to farming; and the industry was subsequently encouraged by a pro-
tective duty on imported wheat. Victoria now grows more than enough for its own
consumption, and what it cannot sell to its eastern neighbours, it has, like South Aus-
tralia, to send to England. But this distant market yields a poor price to the growers,
who are now asking for additional Government encouragement. New Zealand, which
abounds in rich land, is a good wheat-growing country, but on account of the greater

moistness of the climate, the grain does not carry quite so well on long voyages. But

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1399

up to the present time there has been a fairly remunerative market for its surplus in
New South Wales and Queensland, where the wheat mixes conveniently in the mill
with that which is locally grown.

The rich alluvial lands on the east coast of New South Wales, where the growers,
from the first, have had the advantage of easy access to the market, have been largely
utilized for the growth of Indian-corn, which is used for horse-fodder. The colony exports
largely to its neighbours, and would do so more extensively but for the intercolonial
tariffs. Oats are not very much grown in the mother-colony, but they are in New
Zealand, Tasmania and Victoria. In the same colonies, barley and hops are also
produced, but notwithstanding the brewers’ demand, the cultivation has not reached any
considerable dimensions. On the eastern coast of Australia considerable attention has
lately been given to sugar. Within the limits of New South Wales it was tried on
most of the rivers north of Sydney, but it proved to be a commercial failure every-where
south of the Clarence and the Richmond, On the rich land bordering these two Rivers
it is now an established crop. All along the coast of Queensland sugar grows freely,
and the check to the industry is not the want of: land, or any defect in the climate, but
the want of labour. Sugar has fallen in price to a discouraging point, and the abuses
connected with the coloured labour traffic have necessitated so

much Government restraint that it is not now easy to work

an old plantation, and there is no inducement to establish a
new one, and the European labourers cannot work in the cane-
brush. But there is an enormous area of rich river-bank land
available for cultiva-
tion, whenever the la-
bour problem can be
solved. If the land on
the eastern coast, south
of the Clarence, is un-
available for sugar, it
has a scarcely less pro- ; Yi eat
waa rest 4 Hit) damale Hynatera tiene cde vmarhin
fitable use in dairy- ee Sa is cageeene
farming; and dairying |
in Australia has of late
made great progress,
owing to the mechani-
cal improvements in-
troduced into the busi-

ness. The separators,

a
—

the butter and cheese
factories, and the freez- A CHINESE GARDEN IN AUSTRALIA.

ing apparatus by which

butter and milk are carried cool to market, have all given a great stimulus to dairy
work, and for this branch of industry the rich alluvial coast-soil is pre-eminently suited.

In a capricious climate like that of Australia, irrigation has naturally been much

1400 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

talked about, but till lately only a few scattered experiments have been made. But the
Government of Victoria sent a Cabinet Minister to Southern California to examine and _
report upon the irrigation farms there, and one result of his successful visit was that
Messrs. Chaffey Brothers, who had gained much experience in irrigation works in that State,
visited Australia, and, after a careful examina-
tion of the country, established on the River
Murray two large irrigation settlements, one
in Victoria and one in South Australia. These
are now in the initial stage of development,
and, if they succeed, they will introduce a new
epoch of Australian agriculture. Our land is
to a large extent of inferior quality, the rich
soil being mostly alluvial, or the detritus of
igneous rock, and even the rich soil can be
profitably tilled only when the produce is within
reach of some payable market. The introduc-
tion of scientific and systematic irrigation would.
enable us to bring under tillage all land that
can command a supply of water. How much
water we can secure, how much land we can
treat with it, and to what extent we can meet

in price the demand of the world’s market, are

oe questions we have yet to answer, but they are
ite ne SME | dca ® ;
ea en pig questions toward which the mind of the prac-

AN AUSTRALIAN ‘‘ SUN-DOWNER.”

tical cultivator is now set.

As to orchard and vineyard culture, the area available in Australia is indefinite, the
extent of the cultivation being simply a question of the cost of production and of profit-
able sale. But the quality of Australian wine is improving every year, and a_ successful
beginning has been already made with canning fruit for export. In all directions the

Australians are doing more than they ever did before to make the land yield its increase.

COMMERCE.

HE essence of commerce is interchange—the export by one country of its surplus

to pay for what it can afford to import. The first settlement in Australia was
simply a Government penal establishment, and, in the first instance, every necessary had
to be supplied. For some years the country could not support itself, and had nothing
whatever to pay for imports. The production of wool was the beginning of its
commerce; the produce sent away before that time being too insignificant to be worth
mention. But the production of wool had in it an unlimited expansibility, and from the
day of Macarthur's first shipment until now, the market has never been glutted. Varia-
tions in price there have been, and therefore great variations in the wool-grower’s profit,
but never have the world’s consumers stayed the hand of the Australian producer. And

wool, which was the beginning of Australia’s commerce, is still its greatest support, this

’
ba

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1401

being pre-eminently the greatest wool-producing country in the world. The country most
suitable for sheep has, no doubt, been now occupied, but the resources of Australia, as
a whole, are by no means ‘fully developed, for in the Northern _ Territory. of South
Australia, and in the northern part of Western Australia, there are large tracts of country
still to be occupied. The difficulties which have hitherto checked pastoral settlement on
these large areas are certain to be conquered, and the commerce of Australia will still
grow by the expansion of its original industry,

Its next contribution to commerce has undoubtedly been its mineral treasure. The

THE TRAVELLING HAWKER OF THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH.,

export of gold has been large, and though at present somewhat declining, will increase
again as scientific and economical mining developes it. Australia has already purchased a
great deal by what it has taken out of the bowels of the earth, and will continue for
very many years to pay in minerals for those products which for many years to come
the Old World will furnish to much greater advantage.

Of agricultural exports there has not been much; first, because the surplus has
always been slight; and secondly, because the export price does not give the local
farmer very great encouragement. Wheat can be produced. more cheaply elsewhere, and
at present there is not very much encouragement for producing breadstuffs for the
English market in competition with the growers in India, America and Southern Europe.

Something has been done in the way of supplying animal food, but the shipments

1402 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED, — S

of frozen meat and preserved meat have not been so steadily profitable as to open up
an unlimited trade. The shippers have often been tried by the rise in price at this
end, due to severe droughts, and also by low prices in England consequent on the
limited and somewhat capricious market. During the time when the mechanical difficulties
of sending meat half round the world were being energetically combated, it was fondly
hoped that when the process was made a success, the English demand would expand at
such a rate that every available mile of Australian pasture would be quickly brought
into use. But this dream has not been realized. All difficulties have been conquered
but one, namely, that of securing a steady and satisfactory profit. The trade is still a
struggling one, and is kept down to small limits, yet those who are engaged in it are
patiently waiting, and not without hope for the future. |

Manufactures, Australia is not at present in a position to exchange. For five-sixths
of its consumption it is still dependent on the outer world, and its manufacturers have
at present no higher ambition than to supply the local market. It will be time enough
when that is done to study the markets of the world. But what Australia produces,
and can send away to advantage, is already an appreciable item in the world’s commerce.
In dealing with the different colonies, there has been special reference to the local
productions of each, and it will be sufficient, therefore, to say here, that according to
the statistical returns for 1887 the gross exports of the whole of the Australian colonies
in that year was valued at £50,552,982, while the imports amounted to £57,252,967
for less than 4,000,000 of people.

With the growth of the commerce came a corresponding improvement in the mercantile
marine, and vessels not inferior to those engaged in the trade of any other country
have been specially built to carry our merchandise. Lines of large steamers give us quick
communication with Europe, Asia and America. ,

In addition to the extra-Australian commerce, there is, of course, a large intercolonial
trade. The different colonies have different climates, and certain industries are more
developed in some of them than in others. But this intra-Australian trade is much
checked by the different, and, to some extent, hostile tariffs of the Australian Colonies,
The mother-country granted to each colony full fiscal self-government, and exercised no
“restraint on fiscal legislation. Uniformity of tariffs, therefore, was never compelled, and —
has never been secured. This has been partly due to the financial necessities of the
different Governments, which have varied very much, according to good or bad seasons,
and also according to the expenditure on public works. It has also been caused, to
some extent, by a varying attachment to fiscal theories. In Victoria, the policy of
protection to native industries was first established, and has been strenuously supported;
but in all the other colonies there has been some incidental protection under the revenue
tariffs. In New South Wales there has been the nearest approach to a free-trade policy.
At the present time, no two colonies have the same tariff, and there are customs’ officers
on the frontiers of all the colonies on the’ main-land. The policy of having a customs’
union for the whole of Australia is strenuously maintained, but it is, to some extent,
in conflict with the desire for local protection, and the adjustment of these conflicting

views and interests forms one of the perplexities of the Australian statesman.

Australian commerce is well supplied with every description of mercantile convenience,

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1403

The early banks were, of course, started with English capital, and these still hold their
own, but as the colonies grew in wealth local banks were established, and have been
well supported. The same remark applies to insurance companies; fire, life, maritime
and guarantee risks in every form being readily accepted. There is an abundant supply,
too, of financial companies, trustee companies, produce and mercantile agencies of every
description; and all the forms of doing business customary in Europe and America are
adopted with but little alteration. The only foreign bank doing business in Australia is
the Comptoir d’Escompte de Paris.

Closely connected with the growing commerce of the colonies has been that part
of their public finance
which is represented .
by their indebtedness.
As has been already

pointed: out, in all the

colonies, the great
railway works, as well
as harbour improve-
ments, bridges and
telegraphs, have been
undertaken by the
Governments. No
revenue raised by tax-
ation could have sup-
plied the funds for
these works, nor could
private enterprise

have carried them out,

J
=
com
4
=
on
=
=

‘

except by importing
capital to feed joint-
stock enterprise. In
either case the colo-
nies would have had
to pay the interest to
those who had _ lent

the money. Had THE UNION BANK, PITT STREET, SYDNEY.

these great construc-

tive enterprises been held in abeyance, the colonies could not have progressed so
rapidly, and the popular impatience would not brook any such delay. All the rail-
ways, which in earlier days were constructed by private companies, have passed into
the hands of the Governments, and the only private railways now remaining aré
the Main Trunk Line in Tasmania, and the newly-constructed land-grant lines. in West-
ern Australia. There has been an observable and uniform tendency, therefore, for
the Governments to become the great constructors of works, which, in England and

America, are carried out by private capitalists. The only remaining exceptions are

1404 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

cases where the Government does not feel itself strong enough to borrow the
necessary money. This Australian policy, therefore, which has been so general, which
has evidently developed itself under the compulsion of circumstances, and which has
been so largely carried out, is a characteristic feature of Australian finance, and
must not be overlooked by any one wishing to understand the commercial history of
these colonies. Their gross indebtedness amounted in 1889 to £180,000,000, and the
debentures thus represented have furnished a very welcome opportunity for investment
to English lenders. The growing credit of the borrowers is sufficiently illustrated by
the fact that while thirty years ago they had to give six per cent. interest, they can
now borrow at three and a half. Over and over again, they have been warned by
financial authorities in England that they were borrowing too fast for their population
and their rate of progress, but up to the present time each colony has been able to
carry its burden; although sometimes rather heavy taxation has been necessary. The
two colonies which have borne the pressure the most easily are naturally New South
Wales and Victoria, each of which has a million of people, and each of which possesses
considerable taxation resources and reserves. The colonies which have most tried their
present resources are the younger ones, where the area of occupiable land is large, and
where the eagerness to open up the country and promote settlement has been very
great. It is well known that, in young colonies, railways which precede settlement are
for a time unproductive. Where these railways are made by private companies, the
speculators have to wait for their return. Where they are made by the Government,
the general revenue has for a term of years to make good the deficit on the railway
returns; and if that deficit is considerable, extra taxation may for a time be necessary
to meet the requirements. The indisputable advantages of railways are so great that
there has been, on the whole, very little dissatisfaction at the outlay. The mistakes
made have not been so much in the magnitude of the railway investment, as in the
political influence used to control their direction and management; and to meet this
difficulty the colonies are, one after another, placing them under the management of
independent Commissioners. This arrangement has already given good promise that
before many years are over all the Australian railways will be self-supporting. Those in
Victoria, where the new system was first begun, have already reached that happy
state. The colonial view of the indebtedness is that the English hostile critics look too
much at figures and too little at facts. Those on the spot, and who are responsible for
the policy adopted, contend that the national investments in railways must turn out
right, for three reasons :—first, because the Government, as the part owner of the land,
improves its national estates; secondly, because, as the great collector of revenue, it
strengthens its fiscal position by developing the resources of the country and increasing
the taxable wealth of the people; and thirdly, because, having a monopoly of railway
communication, and being therefore free from the risk of ruinous competition, the
railways, as a whole, improve as a property every year. It is possible that some of
the lines may be badly designed, some constructed in too costly a manner, some too
much in advance of settlement; but these mistakes are far more than neutralized by
the steadily improving position of the Governments as the great land-owners, the carriers,

and the revenue receivers. The only point connected with the national indebtedness

‘

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1405

which gives local financiers any concern is that it is nearly all foreign debt, and this
has arisen from the fact that money for investment is much more abundant in England
than it is in the colonies. In the older colonies some small quantity has been locally
raised. In Victoria some portion of the railway expenditure was defrayed out of surplus
revenue, and in New South Wales there is a local funded stock at four per cent.; and
there have in all the colonies, from time to time, been temporary local loans, in the
shape of Treasury bills, to enable the Government to tide over periods of financial
trouble. The negotiation of local debt to any large extent has necessarily been checked
by the greater cheapness of money in London. The Government could not possibly
borrow in the colonies at less than four per cent., and could get only a small quantity
at that rate; and the banks and their customers do not favour any large absorption of
the local surplus wealth of the Government, as that would check the accommodation given
to banking customers. So long as money can be borrowed in England at three and a
half per cent., the local Governments will continue to go to the metropolitan market.
At the same time, the nominal rate of borrowing is not quite the real rate, as there
are expenses for brokerage, agency and remittance, which would not have to be incurred
in the colonies. That there is a large’ amount of what may be considered floating and
uninvested capital in the colonies themselves is sufficiently evident from the fact that the
gross deposits in the Australian banks amounted in 1887 to £94,000,000. Some of this
may have been English capital awaiting investment, but the greater portion represented ac-
cumulated colonial wealth not permanently invested, and deposited with the banks pending the
discovery of any better occupation for it. These deposits constitute practically the work-
ing capital of the banks, for their paid-up capital is small compared with the amount
which these financial institutions borrow from one set of colonists to lend to another.

THE RAILWAY SYSTEM.

AILWAYS and rivers are the two great channels of inland intercommunication
available for a people’s enterprise. Some countries are, fortunately for themselves,

well favoured by the endowment of Nature with one of these aids to development.
Australia has not been so fortunate. Our water-courses, with the exception of a few,
are neither navigable nor large, and even such as we have are available only under
certain circumstances. It~-is some evidence of our enterprise and determination as a
people that, since the sod of the first railway was turned in Australia, a little over
forty years ago, we have never relaxed in our persistent effort to link all parts of the
eastern side of the Continent together in iron bands. As the beginnings of colonization
had their rise in New South Wales, so, of course, had the Australian railway system.
And it is important to notice that the beginning was quite in conformity with English
ideas. Nearly all our railways are public property, but they began in an attempt at
private adventure. The change has not been due to any economical theorising, but to
the compulsion of circumstances. The colonists were not rich enough for the work, and
English capitalists were not at that time awake to the opportunity, and’so what private
enterprise began drifted unavoidably into the hands of the Government. Our railway

policy has been made for us, rather than by us.

1406 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Sixteen years after the opening of the first railway line in England, a © public
meeting was called in Sydney to discuss the question of railway communication. The
idea was well received, and a Committee was appointed to inquire into the railway
question and the cost of the construction of an experimental line; and it brought up a
report to the effect that a line could be laid from the metropolis to Goulburn at a
cost of about six thousand pounds per mile, to yield a net profit of eight per cent.
Early in 1848, the survey for the proposed line was completed. A petition was drawn
up and presented to the Legislative Council, which referred it to a Select Committee
presided over by Mr. Charles Cowper as chairman. On the report of this Committee
resolutions were passed by the Council, averring that the time was ripe for the incep-
tion of a scheme of railway enterprise. Up to this time no thought had apparently been
taken for the interference of the State in the work of construction, and so far was this
from the thought of the Committee, that we find 2 recommendation appended to their
report that the Government should offer some premium for the encouragement of private
enterprise in this direction. In November, a Provisional Committee was appointed, and
a prospectus issued, setting forth the scope of the proposed “ Sydney Tram-road and

”

Railway Company,” with a capital of £100,000 and a guaranteed interest by the Govern-
ment for ten years at the rate of five per cent. The scrip of the Company was promptly
taken up, although its aim met with a certain amount of opposition, and some difficulty
was at first experienced in stimulating the public mind into a practical interest in what
was then so novel an enterprise. When the first general meeting of the share-holders
was called, in. November, 1849, it was found that the affairs of the Company were in
fair order and ready for work.. By December a survey had been made to Parramatta
and Liverpool, and in January of the following year the directors, in their first report,
were able to congratulate the share-holders on the prospects of the enterprise in
which they were engaged. On the 3rd of July, 1850, the Sydney Railway Company
invited the Governor, Sir Charles Augustus Fitzroy, to witness at Redfern the turning
of the first sod of the great railway system of the Australian Continent by the hands
of his daughter, the Hon, Mrs. Keith Stuart, in the presence of an enthusiastic concourse
of spectators. This was a brilliant commencement. But the Company soon found that
the heavy drain upon its resources, and the necessarily unproductive expenses they were
daily incurring, began to seriously discourage the share-holders and the public, and very
soon we find them complaining that the support of the Government was the only thing
that continued to hold the nascent enterprise together. The first contract let was for
four and a half miles, from Haslem’s Creek—now Rookwood—towards Sydney, and the”
work went on, until the gold discovery and the rush of population to the gold-fields,
with the consequent rise in the price of labour and material, compelled the company to
release the contractors from their obligations. Another contract was let to carry the
work to Ashfield, and thence to Parramatta. Five hundred navvies were imported by the
Government, and an additional State loan of £150,000 was obtained on condition that
the Government had power to name one-half the directors, who had hitherto been
elected by the share-holders. This was the first step towards the Government taking the
enterprise over into its own hands, The next step was an intermediate one. In January,

1854, the directors announced at a half-yearly meeting that the cost of the line to

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1407

Parramatta would exceed the original estimate, owing to the price of labour and material,
from £218,240, as estimated in 1852, to £320,000, besides {£97,000 for the Darling

Harbour Works. The capital was increased by £100,000, and another loan of £150,000

THE ‘‘ ZIG-ZAG” ON THE WESTERN LINE, NEW SOUTH WALES.

was obtained from the State on the same terms as before. By January of the following
year, the estimate for the Parramatta line had risen to £500,000, and the share-holders

were convinced at last that the prospect of a profit on their courageous enterprise had

1408 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

finally disappeared. In 1853, another movement was initiated to carry a railway line
from Newcastle to Maitland, a Provisional Committee being formed and a capital of
£100,000 subscribed on the spot. In the course of twelve months, however, this Company
also found the work beyond their powers; and the inevitable result, that far-seeing
people had doubtless foreseen so long, came to pass, in the taking over of the affairs
of both Companies by the Government of New South Wales, in September and July,
1854, respectively. More money and renewed vigour were put into the enterprise under
State management, and, on the 26th of September, 1855, five years after the first sod
was turned, and nine years after the railway project was mooted, the line from Parra-
matta to Sydney was declared open to traffic, and the Government railway system of
the mother-colony was at last practically inaugurated.

But, although the railway system had its inception in New South Wales, it was in
Victoria that the first line was opened for actual traffic. The line from Melbourne to
Sandridge was not commenced until January, 1853. It was constructed by a_ private
company, and by September of the next year, or about twelve months before the
corresponding event in the mother-colony, the line was opened. The first section of
the South Australian Railway was from Adelaide to Port Adelaide, and the next was
from Adelaide to Gawler, which was opened in October, 1857, the distance being
twenty-five miles. In New Zealand, the first line thrown open was at Lyttelton,
Canterbury District, on the 1st of December, 1863. Queensland followed, on the 31st of July,
1865, with a line from Ipswich to Toowoomba ; Tasmania opened its first section on the 19th
of August, 1869; and the first sod of the Western Australian Line was turned by Governor
Weld on the 22nd of November, 1874. The progress in all the colonies has been in every
way wonderful, when the sparseness of the population and their resources are taken into
consideration. In New South Wales, after the opening of the first short line, the work
of railway construction languished somewhat for at least twenty years, though only three
were allowed to pass without at least some progress being made. Those exceptions were
the years 1859, 1865, and 1866. When the two decades had passed, only 437 miles were
open in the mother-colony; by 1885 a distance of 1,832% miles was traversed by the
rails; and at the end of 1890 the total length. of railway line in the colony reached
2,182 miles, giving an average of about 61 miles per year. To this, is to be added the ©
private line between Moama and Deniliquin, connecting with the traffic from Echuca.
The cost of the Government lines up to 1890 amounted to £30,555,123. The routes
are known as the Great Northern, Great Western and Great Southern Lines. The first,
which for many years had its termination at Newcastle, has now been connected with
Sydney by a junction at Strathfield, and one of the great works is the celebrated bridge .
over the Hawkesbury River. This line taps the Newcastle coal district, the agricultural
valley of the Hunter River, the rich pastoral country of New England, connecting with
the line to Brisbane on reaching the Queensland border. The Western Line crosses the
Blue Mountains over that marvel of engineering skill known as the Zig-zag, and passes
on by Bathurst and Dubbo to Bourke. The chief line in New South Wales is the
Great Southern Line, branching from the junction at Granville and traversing the south-
ern districts through Goulburn, Wagga Wagga, and the other principal towns on the
route to Albury, where a junction is effected with the Victorian Line to Melbourne,

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1406

The connection of

the two chief cities, the
most important feat of
railway construction in
Australia, was finally ef-
fected by a*bridge over
the Murray at Wodonga
in 1883. Besides these

4 main lines there are many

Red

subsidiary lines and

branches. In 1890, the
number of persons car-
ried over the lines in
New South Wales was
17,071,945; the tonnage
of goods carried being
3,788,950 tons for the
same year. The average
cost per mile is calcu-
lated at £14,003. The

interest for 1887 on the

total capital expended
amounted to £1,663,938, leaving a net
deficiency for the year to be paid out
of the general revenue, of £313,404.
The whole railway and tram-way system
has lately been placed under the con-
trol of three Commissioners in order
to relieve the management from po-
litical influence. In order to protect
the Government against undue local
applications for new lines, an Act was
passed providing for the appointment
of a joint Parliamentary Committee of both Houses
to which should be referred all works estimated to
cost more than £20,000. All projects for new
railways were therefore to be investigated and re-

ported on by this Committee. Victoria in the

|
|
|
}
;

year 1887 adopted the same _ principle.

From the first steps towards railway construc- )
Sa ; THE RAILWAY LINE AT MT. VICTORIA.
tion in Victoria, in 1853, the progress was rapid.

A private line to- St. Kilda was opened in 1857, and one to Geelong in the same year.
The Government constructed at great expense a line from Melbourne to .Sandhurst, and

another from Geelong to Ballarat. These supplied the wants of the largest gold-fields,

1410 ‘AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

but extensions and branches followed in rapid succession. By 1873, the North-Eastern
Line was open as far as Wodonga, on the Murray, though ten more years had to elapse
before the junction with the New South Wales system was effected. In 1883, the Vic-
torian Railways were vested by Act of Parliament in a Commission of three, holding
office for seven years, and the term has been renewed. By 1887, the colony had
1,880 miles under rail. The total amount spent on the railways of the colony by the
Government up to that year was £26,479,206. The return on capital was then equal
to about 4.17 per cent. but this profit has since been reduced by unproductive branches.
The lines of Victoria comprise the Northern, Western, North-Eastern and Eastern Sys-
tems, with branches to nearly every important township. In fact, the central portion. of
Victoria is the best railwayed part of Australia.

The first sod turned in Queensland, in 1864, was that of the Great Southern and
Western Railway Line of that colony. This is carried at a height of 2,600 feet over
the Main Coast Range to Toowoomba, and thence Southwand to the junction with the
New South Wales Line to Sydney, at Tenterfield. The system of Queensland, as at
present developed, consists substantially of five trunk lines running from ports on the
coast to the west and north, Of these, the most southerly is the longest, and the third
northerly is connected with a line which has worked south from the head of the
Gulf of Carpentaria. In addition to the five trunk lines, there are several subsidiary and
connecting ones. The guage in Queensland is the narrow one, three feet six inches;
that of New South Wales, the standard one of four feet eight and a half inches, and
that of Victoria, the broad one of five feet three inches. South Australia began with
the broad gauge, but all the later lines have been on the narrowest. On both the
New South Wales frontiers there is, therefore, a break of guage. In Tasmania, the
Trunk Line has been constructed by an English company on a Government guarantee,
but the arrangement being a constant cause of quarrel, an agreement was at last
arrived at under which the Government bought out the Company. In New Zealand
a great development of railway enterprise was caused by Sir Julius Vogel’s great public
works and immigration policy, which he devised to give the colony a push after
the exhaustion that followed on the Maori War. To satisfy the different localities,
many of the lines had to be in the first instance detached, and the links are not yet |
all filled in. Owing, too, to the physical geography of the country, many of the lines
compete with water traffic, and this, by preventing monopoly, keeps down profit. The

New Zealand guage is the narrow one.

THE POSTAL SYSTEM.

HE Postal System of Australasia had its. obscure beginning in a small and very
unpretentious wooden structure, which stood at the northern end of George Street,
Sydney,—or, as it was then called, High Street—near the Queen’s Wharf, at that time
known as the King’s Wharf, in’ 1810. In that year one Isaac Nichols was appointed Post-
master, with authority to board the vessels entering the Harbour, and collect all letters
and parcels entrusted to the master or passengers for persons residing in the infant
settlement. It became the duty of the Postmaster to advertise this primitive mail

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1411

matter in the newspaper of the day, the Gazette, and those concerned learnt through
that channel of the arrival of letters addressed to them. The mail matter thus collected
was delivered to the early inhabitants at the rate of eightpence for letters, and
eighteen-pence for parcels weighing up to twenty pounds avoirdupois ; parcels over that
weight being charged for at the rate of three shillings. In cases where the letters were
addressed to persons living out of town, or in the country—which in those days merely
comprised the neighbourhood of Windsor, Parramatta and Newcastle—the care of their
delivery was entrusted to the police, or failing that, to any person who might be

travelling in the required direction. These were remunerated at the rate of four-

4
5

A BACK-BLOCKS POST OFFICE.

pence per letter, Under these exceedingly primitive regulations, a certain method in
postal matters and the beginning of a postal revenue were inaugurated in the infant
colony. Things went on in this way for nearly twenty years, before the growth
of the settlement called for any remarkable development of the system, but by that
time it began to be recognized that the condition of the colony was showing signs of
change. In 1829, therefore, Governor Darling’s Council passed the first Postal Act,
establishing a uniform postal rate, and formally constituting the Postal Department of the
colony. The lowest rate for inland letters was fixed at threepence, the highest being
one shilling, the weight of each letter was one fourth of an ounce, and tenders were
for the first time invited for the regular conveyance of mails. .Some idea may be
gathered of the slow advance in postal matters, from the fact that no response was
made to the first appeal for persons willing to take up these early mail contracts, and
recourse was had to the services of the mounted police for the purpose. A few of the
higher officials of the colony, after the example of the custom obtaining in England,
were allowed to frank letters. In the year 1828, the whole postal establishment of New
South Wales consisted of the person in charge of- the office in Sydney—who began to

be known by the title of the Postmaster-General—one clerk, one letter-carrier, and

1412 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

eight country postmasters. There was also a letter-carrier at Parramatta, who, however,
remunerated himself by a charge to the public of one penny on each letter or paper
delivered. The difficulty in connection with the conveyance of inland mails was
apparently overcome in 1834, since in that year we find the assistance of the mounted
police no longer needed, and regular mail contracts in active operation. In 1836, the
carrying on of the postal system began to show a loss. A return dated two years
before showed twenty-three existing offices, and the expenses of these, with that of the
mail contracts and the salaries of a staff of eleven officials in the head office at Sydney, —
brought the expenditure for’ the year up to £2,874; the revenue for the same period
being £3,735. This financially healthy state of affairs changed very much during the next
two years, however, and the postal accounts of the colony have carried forward a yearly
deficit ever since. In the year last referred to, 1834, the number of letters dealt with
by the Department, in the course of the twelve months, was 190,000, and a total distance
of about 2,960 miles had been travelled over in the conveyance of mails. The next year
the mznzmum weight of letters was raised to half an ounce, and the rates of postage
fixed at from fourpence to a shilling, for distances not exceeding twelve hundred
miles. The charge on a single letter conveyed 15 miles was 4d.; 25 miles, 5d.; 30
miles, 6d.; 50 miles, 7d.; 80 miles, 8d.; 120 miles, 9d.; 170 miles, 10d: 230 miles,
11d.; 300 miles, 12d.; one penny for every additional 100 miles, or part thereof. The
farthest point to which internal mails were then carried was Melbourne, for which a
special postage rate was fixed at fifteen pence per letter. Even at that early period
of the colony's history, the importance of allowing no obviable restriction to remain in
the way of the circulation of knowledge was recognized in the fact that newspapers
posted within seven days of publication were transmitted free through the post. When
it is remembered that for thousands of people then, as now, sparsely scattered up and
down the colonies, newspaper literature is practically the only available channel of
communication with the thought and action of the age, the good sense of this regula-
tion will be apparent. ;

A vessel sailing in the required direction in those days was compelled to . carry
letters, on payment to the master or owner, of a fee of one penny on each, for owing
to the irregularity of communication with the remoter parts of the colony it was found
_ necessary to make use of the first available opportunity that might offer. In 1838, stamp
covers were introduced and sold at 1s. 3d. per dozen, and allowed to pass free in
Sydney. In 1849, Sir Rowland Hill’s great work of postal reform made its benefits felt
in New South Wales by the introduction of the pre-payment system by means of —
postage stamps, relieving the customers of the Post Office of a world of inconvenience.
The postal rates were reduced to one penny for town and twopence for country letters,
the system of franking was abolished, and the first postage stamps were struck, the or-
iginal design being a copy of the great seal of the colony. Enthusiastic philatelists now
seek for these stamps as treasures for their collections, but of late years they have became
exceedingly rare. The inter-oceanic carriage of Australian mails was first spoken of as
early as 1834. In July of that year the feasibility of establishing regular mail communi-
cation between Sydney and London was energetically discussed in Sydney. In 1844, the
first monthly contract packet arrived from the United Kingdom. A difference of opinion

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1413

existed as to the route to be adopted, that round the Cape of Good Hope being advo-
cated by one party, while the Red Sea route was pressed by another. The difficulties
.in the way, the small importance of the colonies at the time, and the conflicting coun-
sels on the subject, relegated the proposal for a time to the region of forgotten projects,
and it was many years before the matter was again heard of. In February, 1837, a
fortnightly mail was established between Sydney and Port Phillip, the infant settlement
there, of course, forming at that time part of the colony of New South Wales. In
March, 1846, the subject of steam communication with England was broached in Sydney.
The idea was taken up with considerable enthusiasm by many of the principal merchants,
who saw at a glance the marked effects such a step could not fail to have on the
prosperity of the colony. The question came under the notice of the old — Legislative

Council of that day, and the proposal was received with so

much favour that no difficulty was experienced in getting

a select Committee appointed to inquire into the conditions
under which such an enterprise could be carried into effect.
That Committee, after careful deliberation and weighing of
the evidence available on the
subject as to expenditure and
probable returns, recommend-
ed the establishment of a
postal service between Aus-
tralia and England, the route
suggested being that by way
of Singapore. The initiation
of this mail service was
anxiously looked for by the
colonists of the day, whose
earnestness in the matter may
be gauged by the fact that
news at that time occasion-
ally took over five months
in transit between England
and Australia.

The arrival of the first
mail-steamer was a_ looked-
for event both at Melbourne
and in Sydney, but it was
not until the 23rd of July,

GATHERING THE MAIL FROM THE PILLAR-BOXES.

1852, that the steamer Chusan,
from Singapore, by the Leeuwin route, arrived in Hobson's Bay, reaching Sydney on the
3rd of August following. From this stage, postal progress went on more rapidly. In
the course of the same year, the Government of New South Wales, from which colony
Victoria had by this time separated, offered a bonus, varying according to. certain stipu-

lated circumstances, from £6,000 to £20,000, to any company which might have the enter-

1414 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

prise to undertake a monthly mail-service between England and the colony. This led to
a contract with the Peninsular and Oriental Company for £84,000. But the steamers
were subsequently withdrawn, their services being required in connection with the Crimean
War, and mails were carried between Great Britain and Australia in sailing vessels. <A
contract subsequently taken, in 1856, with the European and Australian Royal Mail
Company, to run by way of the Cape, was a failure, and ended disastrously to the
Company. The first mail-steamer to pass through Torres Straits, the Sw Foo, arrived
in December, 1873. The service vza Panama, preceded this; it was taken up in 1867, with
a subsidy of £55,000 a year, but it broke down. In August, 1870, the Australian Steam
Navigation Company undertook the mail-service temporarily between Sydney and San
Francisco, and since that time great inter-oceanic mail contracts have been entered into
on large annual subsidies—a system which continued unbroken until 1883, when for a
time a contract was accepted from the Orient Company, under which a poundage. rate
was payable on all mail matter carried, with a premium for delivery under contract time,
and penalties recoverable by the colony in case of delay. The British Government now
shares with the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania
in the contracts with the “ P. and O.” Company and the Orient Company, by the Suez
route. Each runs a fortnightly mail, and they carry the bulk of the correspondence.
But Queensland subsidizes the British India Company to carry a monthly mail. va
Torres Straits. New. Zealand and New South Wales subsidize the San Francisco line,
the contract for which is with the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand, but
which is worked by the Oceanic Company. New Zealand grants a subsidy to the
New Zealand Steamship Company, and also to the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company,
both of which run va the Cape of Good Hope, calling at Hobart. In addition to these,
the French Messageries Maritimes run a monthly line, with a branch to New Caledonia,
and the North German Lloyd a bi-monthly line, with a branch line to and from Sydney
and Samoa, but they are subsidized by their own Governments. The transit of English
mails to Sydney now takes from twenty-nine to thirty-eight days. In 1889, there were
1,261 post-offices in New South Wales, and 305 receiving-offices, served by 2,650 persons;
the mails were carried over distances amounting, in the aggregate, to 7,299,400 miles,
and the total length of the postal lines reached 28,718 miles; the return from the
Postal Department of the colony amounted to £395,584, while the expenditure amounted
to £393,606. About 53,971,300 letters were carried in the colony in 1889, and about
42,019,100 packets and newspapers, the proportion of letters per head of the population
—namely, thirty-eight—being nearly the same as that for England and Wales,

In 1836, shortly after the settlement at Port Phillip was founded, Mr. John Batman
was elected by the pioneers as their first Postmaster. In February, 1837, a Mr. John
Hawdon contracted to carry the first mails fortnightly between Sydney and Port Phillip.
Four years later, the Melbourne Post Office was formally opened, and the first inward
mail was despatched to Mount Macedon in February, 1844. The fine edifice that forms
the present General Post Office of Victoria was opened in 1867. At the end of 1886
there were 1,429 post-offices in Victoria, dealing with a year’s total of 2,330,534 letters
and 1,642,289 newspapers and packets. A postage rate of a half-penny is charged on
papers transmitted in Victoria. The time allowed by contract for the conveyance of

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL. 1415

mails from Adelaide to London ‘is thirty-five days, and one day less for seven trips
during the prevalence of the south-west monsoon. The time allowed from London to

Adelaide is thirty-five days.

LELEGRAP HS;

HE use of the electric telegraph in New South Wales dates from 1851, and two
years later the work of construction was commenced in Victoria. It was not till

1854 that the first wire in Victoria—that between Melbourne and Williamstown—was
brought into active use by Lieutenant-Governor Latrobe.. A proposal to unite Sydney
and Melbourne by telegraph was made as early as 1845, but it was only in 1858 that
the plan was carried into execution, Melbourne and Adelaide having been connected in
1856. In South Australia the first line from Adelaide to Port Adelaide, about 9%
miles, was constructed by Mr. McGeorge, but it was soon superseded by a Government
line. Tasmania introduced the telegraph in 1857, and two attempts were made _ to
connect Tasmania with Victoria by cable—one in 1859, and the second from Cape
Otway to King’s Island, and so on to Tasmania, in 1860—each resulted in failure.
New Zealand established her
first telegraph in 1862; and
a line was opened in Queens-
land from Brisbane to Rock-
hampton in 1864. In June, 1869,
Western Australia opened a
line from Perth to Fremantle ;
and in May, 1869, the first
message from Tasmania to
Victoria, through the medium
of the new electric cable, was
successfully received. In each
colony inland telegraphs have
been constructed, and are
worked by the Government,
and every important township
is included in the system.

There is an unbroken line of

wire from the Gulf of Carpen-

A TELEGRAPH MESSENGER, SYDNEY.

taria, round the east and south
coast, to Roebuck’s Bay, on the west coast. It is only on the north-west coast,
where there are no settlements, that there are no telegraphs.

A great event in the history of Australia was the establishment of the first cable
between England and the, Colonies. It is almost impossible to realize now that less
than twenty years ago there were no cable messages, no European telegrams in the
morning papers, of events that had happened the day before, and an entire absence: of

that intimate acquaintance with the everyday progress of Old World affairs, that is to be

‘1416 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

found in Australia to-day. Australia, being at the antipodes of England, a line to
connect the two must necessarily be long and costly. The shortest and easiest connection
was from Port Darwin to Batavia, and for making that, the colonies were indebted to
an English company. Neither singly nor jointly have’ any of the Colonial Governments
ventured on the ownership of cables. They prefer to grant a subsidy, without .which
the enterprise could not prove remunerative. The first step towards the connection was
taken in 1870, when the Overland Telegraph to the Northern Territory of South Australia
was commenced, mainly at the instance of Mr. Charles Todd, the energetic Superintendent
of Tele

joewangie and Port Darwin was laid at the latter place, and, on the 20th of the same

graphs in that colony. In the next year, the shore end of the cable between Ban-
month, a cable message came through from Java reporting that communication was
complete. On the 2nd of July, 1872, the first cablegram from England was _ received
in Melbourne, and in October of the same year the Overland Telegraph across South Aus-
tralia was completed at a cost of £370,000. A submarine cable connecting New Zealand
with New. South Wales was laid from La Pérouse, Botany, near Sydney, in 1876. A
second cable from Rangoon and Singapore, direct to Banjoewangie, by Port Darwin,
avoiding the Java land-line, was laid by the Company in consideration of an ad-
ditional subsidy; and a third from Java to Roebuck’s Bay, so as to give an_alter-
native route. Surveys are also being made across the Pacific, with a view to con-
necting, with the west coast of America. A cable message between Melbourne and
London travels over 13,685 miles of wire, the course taken, after leaving Port Darwin,
being vza Banjoewangie, Batavia, Singapore, Penang, Madras, Bombay, Aden, Suez,
Alexandria, Malta, Gibraltar, Falmouth and London. "The total cost of the whole extent
of telegraphic communication in the mother-colony of New South Wales on the 31st

of December, 1889; viz:—22,606 miles 41 chains—was £713,663 Is. 3d.

moon tT CALS= AND SOCIAL.

A, CENTURY OF PROGRESS.

_ \|EORGE THE THIRD was King when, one hundred years

the North American Continent, the enterprise of Cook and the

discipline of Phillip founded on the banks of the Tank Stream,
the nucleus of that group of flourishing states that now make
up the wealthy and important Australian system. The story of
colonization has already been told in the earlier pages of this

book. We have seen how the settlement progressed from what

it was originally, a mere place of detention for felons under
punishment, until it began to take the form and substance of
a colony to which the convict element was but an accidental
adjunct, to be thrown off as the time went on. It is always
to be remembered in speaking of the earlier stages of Australian colonization, that the
original purpose of settlement was not to found a colony at all, so much as to provide
a place to which the criminal and pauper population of England might be sent, that
the overburdened Home country might be relieved. It is true that we find mention in
the early state papers of some crude intention of allowing the convict element to reform
itself under novel conditions, and solidify in time into a new society. But the experi-
ment, such as it was, was entrusted to the hands best qualified to defeat it; and the
early history of colonization in Australia has consequently been blackened by a record
of tyranny on the one hand and of criminality on the other, over which it is perhaps best
that we should draw a veil of discreet silence. Life in the early settlement presented a
good deal of the colour and outward appearance of English life at the beginning of the
last quarter of the eighteenth century. Both manners and dress have changed since then,
and a good deal of what was once regarded as good public policy and private morality
has disappeared as completely from the life of to-day as the knee-breeches and queues
of the gentlemen of the period, or the Georgian costumes of the ladies. Meanwhile,
however, the interests within the colony were forming themselves. The Macarthurs of
the settlement were beginning to gather about them the patriarchal flocks which later
on formed the staple of the wealth of the mother-colony; and the officers of the corps
sent out to act as gaolers to the first convicts learnt to engage in those questionable
trading operations which they carried on with so little scruple and so much success, In
the time of Governor Brisbane the colony first attracted the attention of the general
public at Home, and the tide of free immigration began to set in, in a small degree at
first, but gradually increasing in volume as time went on. Free settlers were then
encouraged to come to Australia by the promise of lavish grants of land and the

assistance of convict labour. The expense and burden of maintaining these convicts had

1418 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

become so great that the proportion of the grant of land offered to the new-comer was
graduated by the number of convicts he could afford to keep. This system had the
effect of introducing a new element into the population, which gradually blended with
the original official and emancipated classes. Though the line of demarcation between
these was kept as rigidly drawn as possible by the former class, the asperity of the
original conditions was in some degree softened, and the average of social and domestic
life in a measure raised. These free immigrants brought more or less capital into the
colony, too, and were thus enabled to engage in the pastoral and other operations of
which they were in the true sense the pioneers. Before this time it is to be observed
that the actual work of opening up the colony was commenced by the active and public-
spirited Governor Macquarie, who, in the face of the opposition of those who had
profited by the state of things he was sent out to alter, had ameliorated the condition
of the inhabitants, promoted trade and agriculture, _ and opened up so much of the
colony as was then known by the formation of good roads. Among these was that
to Bathurst over the Blue Mountains, which threw open the hitherto virgin country to
the west of the Range.

With Governor Bourke another era of social development was entered upon. By
this time the free population had acquired so much influence by numbers and wealth
that it was found anxiously claiming to be relieved from the burden of a penal estab-
lishment, and the rule of prison officials. Bourke showed an intelligent sympathy with
this aspiration, and so far as his personal power went, it is to his credit that it was
on every occasion used to promote the desire for responsibility of action. To him is
due the early emergence of the colony from the twilight of the ante-constitutional days,
just as to Macquarie is due its deliverance from the Cimmerian darkness of the earlier
penal times. Bourke stopped the system of the assignment of convict labour as it had
been carried on up to his time, and handed the privilege over to a Board. He strongly
recommended to the Downing Street Authorities at Home the complete abandonment of -
the transportation system. He introduced the jury-right into the colony, and set on foot
a system of assisted free immigration. He abolished the supremacy of the State Church,
putting all denominations on a footing of equality. For the first time he gave a public
account of the colony's yearly receipts and expenditure. He established the liberty of ©
the Press, and in other ways of which these may stand as examples, he lifted the
whole body politic to a higher plane than that on which he found it on his arrival
in Australia, and thus more than corrected the tendency of the ill-advised measures
of his predecessors.

During the time of Governors Gipps and Fitzroy the agitation for constitutional —
privileges made considerable way. Step by step the battle of popular rights was fought,
and, although contested at every stage by the representatives of the older interests in
the colony, by 1850 these long-continued efforts were at last crowned with success. This
agitation began in 1825, when Governor Brisbane, on his departure from the colony,
took with him a petition for the right of self-government by the colonists. Two years
later another meeting for the same object was held. On both these occasions the name
of Wentworth was found on the list of promoters of the movement. In 1828, a Royal
Charter was received in the colony, under which the first formal Executive and Legisla-

C SOMVARAL

THE

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL.

VS MEDLEY =

LAWN, GOVERNMENT HOUSE, SYDNEY.

1420 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

tive Councils were constituted. In 1830, another demonstration of those in favour of
Responsible Government was held in Sydney; a memorial to the same effect was sent
Home on the accession of William IV.; and in 1833, a large public meeting was held
which advocated the same object. A body known as the Patriotic Association was formed
to direct the popular movement on this question, and at a meeting for the pur-
pose, held in 1841, a strongly-worded manifesto of the people was drawn up, defining
the claims of the colonists to control their own political affairs. Another meeting was
convened six months later in the same year, and in 1842 an Act was passed by the
English Parliament granting a new Constitution to New South Wales, with a Council
composed of twelve nominee Members and twenty-four to be elected by the people.
This was the first recognition of the elective principle in Australia. The Act reached
Sydney in January, 1843, and by June in the same year the first election took place
under its provisions. This Constitution remained in force for about thirteen years. It
merely satisfied the popular aspiration for the moment, and formed a temporary step
between the nominee Council of the previous and the elective Parliament of the
succeeding periods. For the next few years, the public mind was occupied chiefly with
the anti-transportation movement. The social conditions of the colony had by this time
so far developed that the new race which had grown up was no longer content to
receive the outcasts of the civilization of the older parts of the Empire. But the
settlement of both this and the Constitution question was precipitated in an unexpected
way by the brilliant discovery of gold that marked the opening of the second half of the
century. How that discovery was made has already been told, and it concerns us here
only in regard to the effect it had in changing and re-modelling the social conditions
of the Australian people. Immigration up to this time had been fitful at the best. In
the time of Bourke and Gipps, encouragement was given to the process by assisting
intending colonists to make the passage to Australia. Land was sold, and the prices
obtained funded to form an “Immigration Reserve” for this purpose; but the utmost that
was done in this way dwindled into insignificance beside the extraordinary effect which
the news of the Australian gold discoveries suddenly exercised over the minds of men
in all quarters of the globe. The spirit of enterprise and the lust of adventure and
gain were every-where aroused. The movement was not confined to men trained to
work the earth for a livelihood. The younger sons of wealthy families, young doctors
and barristers and University men, who found their diplomas and degrees of little
service to assist them in passing the portals of the over-crowded professions to which -
they had been trained to belong, seemed to have hailed with unanimous enthusiasm the
unexpected chance that now offered to try a new field, and “make the best of the
limited competition of a new country. Adventurers, too, from the Pacific Slope of the
United States, who had been disappointed in their hopes of a golden fortune in Cali-
fornia, began to pour into the two elder colonies, as well as thousands of other active
spirits from all quarters of the world, whose very presence in Australia showed them to
be people of restless habit and active mind. Victoria had separated from New South
Wales in 1850, so that by the time the gold discovery was made known, the southern
portion of Eastern Australia was just entering on its career as an independent colony.

The dazzling reports of mineral wealth at Bendigo and Ballarat drew a large proportion

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1421

of the new population to these centres, with the result that Victoria advanced towards
prosperity by leaps and bounds, and the characteristics of the new element in the
Australian population began to make themselves more plainly visible in that colony
than in any other of the Australian Group. Tasmania and South Australia—the stories
of which have been told in their proper places—were not directly affected by the new
element, while Queensland, which became an independent colony only as late as 1859,
inherited its results in due course.

The population then in Australia, as well as its leaders, failed to estimate at
anything like its real importance the effects of this sudden influx of new blood into the
country. The older colonists had grown up from year to year, and from father to son,
in the midst of their familiar surroundings, far removed from contact with the stream
of Old World life, and to all practical intents and purposes cut off from anything like
intimate communication with the rapidly-developing thought and opinion of the mother-
country. They belonged, as it were, to a past age, and it was only recently that, with
the establishment of a public Press and the spread of popular opinion, they began to
feei or to think for themselves. Their leaders had come to Australia at a time before
English liberalism as we now know it was invented—before the first Reform Bill of
Lord John Russell, or any of that long succession of popular Acts and Measures of the
House of Commons that had put the rank and file of the more modern population of
England on a much more elevated plane than that occupied by their fathers of even a
generation before. The wealthier inhabitants of the colony, and those, consequently, who
should have been the natural leaders of the people, had been trained in a state of
things of which the spirit was that of the days of a by-gone generation, and long
before even the upper classes at Home had been educated by the march of events into
their later sympathy with the wants and wishes of the hitherto unrepresented portion of
the English people. It can be easily understood, then, that the sudden avalanche of
humanity that now descended on the Australian coast really revolutionized public opinion
and stimulated the public spirit of the country into more healthful activity. Most of
the new-comers were men in the vigour of youth, or in the prime of life, physically
able to make their influence and numbers felt in a new country where the stream of
life had been accustomed to run so slowly, and mentally active enough to assert that
influence as occasion required. Few countries in the world’s history, with the single
notable exception, perhaps, of California, have passed through the same singular experience
as that which now fell to the lot of the Australian colonies. Every one of the immigrant
ships that crowded Hobson’s Bay and Sydney Harbour in the early fifties brought with
it a cargo of muscle and manhood that was soon to be used in carving the destinies
of the new country, and nothing at the same time could have better served the interest
of Australia, or acted more usefully in the work of its development. It is true that the
bulk of the new-comers had but little conception of the nature of the political problem
they were to work out in their new home. Those taken from the operative and
agricultural classes of the United Kingdom had never in the home they had left polled a
vote. Little thought had they for sociological or economic theories, or political privileges,
or rights of responsible representation. But they had always the advantage over the
population whose character they came to change, that they had been in touch with the

1422 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

working of free Parliamentary institutions, had seen the development of popular opinion
at Home, and had grown up with the growth of modern liberalism in England. Almost
every ship that came to Australia in those days carried in it men who were to take
part during: the next thirty years in the first stages of responsible legislative effort in
one or other of the colonies, and the remark has passed into a truism that the seething
‘tween-decks of these crowded craft contained more than one raw and inexperienced
youth who was to grow up with the country, and who would, later on, be called upon to
govern as a responsible Minister of the Crown, Several of the men, who have been
Premiers of Colonial Administrations since 1856, came to Australia in this way and at
this time, the long list including most of the easily recognizable names of leaders of
local political action. Of course their labour, so far, has of necessity been an experimental
one. Untrained to the discharge of the duties they were called upon to undertake,
they have earned their experience at the cost of the country, teaching themselves and
the country by their own mistakes, while unconsciously or consciously working out from
day to day the stages of Australian progress, and making way for its future.

Undoubtedly, the greatest political event since the introduction of Responsible Govern-
ment has been the movement in favour of federation. Tasmania, New Zealand, Victoria
and Queensland were separately detached from the mother-colony of New South Wales,
and South Australia and Western Australia were founded independently. Each colony was
a separate sovereignty,~ controlled only by the mother-country, the exercise of whose
authority was very slight. Hostile tariffs, and even hostile railway systems, developed
themselves, and, as a re-action on. separation, grew up a feeling in favour of re-union.
This first took shape in the passing of the Federal Council Act, but though New South
Wales had been represented at the Intercolonial Conference, at which that Act was
passed, its Legislative Assembly refused to adopt it, and even South Australia hung
back for some time, and entered the Council only tentatively, and for a limited period
of three years. The Federal Council met three or four times at Hobart, but its influ-
ence was feeble, and its labours were not very important. Still the movement was a
beginning in the inevitable direction, and when, in 1890, Sir Henry Parkes proposed
another Conference for the purpose of framing a complete Federal Constitution, the
Parliaments of all the colonies passed resolutions expressing approval, and each appointed
seven Delegates to a Convention. New Zealand, however, which was doubtful of the
suitability of federation to its isolated position, appointed only three. The Convention
met in Sydney in March, 1891, and, after six weeks’ earnest and well-sustained debate,
a draft Constitution was adopted to be submitted for approval to the several colonies.

It will thus be seen that the process of the formation of the Australian social and
political condition of to-day divides itself into certain clearly defined and easily distinguish-
able stages. The first stage was that of the naval Governors up to William Bligh, who
may be looked upon merely’ as the gaolers of a penal settlement. With the coming of
Macquarie, order and law began to take shape, and these were systematized under the wise
rule of Bourke. From that time, to the date of the calling together of the first partly
elective Legislative Council, was the next stage, succeeded by the period that closed with the
introduction of Responsible Government in 1856, when Australia really entered on the demo-
cratic epoch of the present day. Whether or not the Constitution drawn up by the men of

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL, 1423

THE UNIVERSITIES OF ADELAIDE, SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE,

1424 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

a generation ago will be found in the course of years to be exactly fitted to the wants of
the Australian people under their altered conditions of education, wealth, and the growing
national spirit, is one of those interesting problems that must be left to history to solve.
The natural resources and wealth of the colonies have been such that the task of self-
government has hitherto been a comparatively easy one. But every year shows indications
of its own that interests are growing up and rapidly solidifying themselves that will
make the business of politics here as complicated as in most of the older countries of the
world. In the earlier years of Responsible Government, these interests were in their rudi-
mentary stages, the mechanism of politics was in its simplest form, and the factors stood at
their lowest concrete expression. The political conditions of Australian public life thus
presented material for a curious study—such as that of which De Tocqueville was enabled
to follow out the fascinating processes in the United States, nearly fifty years ago, and of

which the Australian colonies furnish just now the most interesting and instructive example.

EDUCATION.
HEN the Church and School Corporation, under the authority of the Colonial

Office, was constituted in 1825, the provisions of the charter were all in favour
of one system of education, as they were all on the side of one Church. Yet a good
work was commenced, inasmuch as the educational interest in the colony began, at least,
to take definite shape. Up to that,time the task of the instruction of the youth of the
settlement had been undertaken in a hap-hazard way. Here and there a minister of
religion, or occasionally some educated convict, might be found instructing children in the
crudest rudiments of what is now known as a common-school education; still the work
of education as an affair of State concern cannot be said to have properly begun till 1825.
Dr. Lang established his Scotch College soon after, without State aid, and schools in
connection with the Roman Catholic body existed from a comparatively early period, but
the administration of the charter, solely in the interests of the Church of England, had
the effect of discouraging all the other denominations. The seventh part of all public lands
made a princely endowment to the Church of England for church and school purposes,
and the other religious bodies felt very keenly their exclusion from participation in this
appropriation. A grant of this kind had been made in a similar way for church and
school purposes in Canada, and when a precisely similar difficulty arose there, and the
question was submitted to the Courts for their ruling, it was held that all religions
tolerated by the State within the Dominion of Canada were equally entitled to partici-
pate pro rata in the grant set aside for purposes of religion and education. Up to
Governor Darling’s time the official tendency was distinctly against the recognition of
any such general claim in Australia, and it was not until the arrival of Governor
Bourke that this matter was placed on its proper footing, both as regards education and
religion. In a remarkable despatch, to which we shall presently have occasion to refer,
Bourke dealt with both these questions together, for at that time they each formed part
of what was really one and the same question. He aimed, however, at dissociating the
two interests, and at making the educational system of the colony a State affair, without
the control of any one of the Churches. He therefore recommended to Lord Stanley

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1425
the introduction of the Irish National School System. On the receipt of the official
reply to this report, and its suggestions from Lord Glenelg, who had in the meantime
replaced Lord Stanley, it was found that, although expressing a preference for a
system which allowed of the reading of the authorized Scriptures in the schools, that
official gave his consent to the introduction of the National System where practicable.
When Bourke made the contents of this Home despatch known, it was vehemently
opposed on the ground that the system proposed was infidel and un-Christian, and in
order to pacify the opposition, and reduce

the proposal to a practical shape, the

system of Denominational Education was
introduced. By this system the recog-
nized religious denominations in the col-
ony were aided from the Public Funds. \
Each body had its own schools, in which bi : s Es aie
the work of religious education went for-
ward side by side with that of secular
instruction. In 1844, a Select Committee
appointed by the Legislative Council
reported in favour of the National Sys-
tem, and against De-
nominationalism. © On
the question being sub-
mitted to the House, it
was carried in favour

of the former ; but the
proceedings were ve-
toed by the Governor,

Sir George Gipps, who
directed that the De-
nominational System
should be continued,
and this was accord-
ingly done. The advo- . “
cates of the National ——
System succeeded, —
however, in having a er
sum of £2,000 appro- -
priated for the pur- ama eee

pose of experiment.

A HALF-TIME SCHOOL-TEACHER, AND A STATE SCHOOL IN THE BUSH.
The two systems con-
tinued to work in competition with each other for nearly twenty years, or ten years after
the granting of Responsible Government, when the Public Schools Act was passed in 1866.
This Measure acknowledged the existence of two classes of schools—one purely secular, and

the other denominational, both supported by the State and controlled by the Council of

1426 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

Education. Fourteen years later, another Measure was passed in the Parliament of New
South Wales, under the operation of which the denominational system: of education was
entirely abolished so far as the control or assistance of the Government was concerned,
and a system established which made the State education of the youth of the colony
entirely secular—except so far as the reading of the Scripture extracts in the Irish
National School books was concerned—and compulsory up to a certain age. The
ministers of the different denominations, by the provisions of the Act, are, however,

allowed access to the schools during a certain allotted period of each day, for the
purpose of affording instruction

in religion and morality. Under
this Act of 1880, the old. system
of denominational education
came to an end. At the same
time the care of the adminis-
tration of the Act and of the
school system of the colony was

% fee tah RR Th, anil taken out of the hands of the

ok NT Oy al ee Council of Education and placed

in those of a responsible

Cabinet Minister, the new port-

AN AUSTRALIAN STATE SCHOOL IN THE CITY. folio of Public Instruction being
created for the purpose.
The passing of the Public Instruction Act, which came into force in New South
Wales in 1882, marked a new era in the State system of education. The Measure was
not carried without a strong fight on the part of the advocates of “ religious education,”
the opposition being, however, confined almost exclusively to the Roman Catholic and
the Anglican bodies. The Roman Catholic prelates, supported by the clergy and laity,
expressed their determination to carry on their own schools, whatever- the cost or
sacrifice might be, with the result that the seventy-five Roman Catholic schools
which were in existence in the colony under the State aid system in 1882, were,
by the beginning of 1891, increased to three hundred and_ thirty-four, this number

including two hundred and thirty primary schools and eight colleges. The total number

of children attending these religious schools—almost without exception conducted by —

sand six hundred and ninety-nine. In the neighbouring colony of Victoria, the returns
from the Roman Catholic self-supporting schools showed a total of twenty-seven thousand
three hundred and sixty-seven pupils, while the estimated total for the whole of
Australasia was eighty-six thousand. The denominational schools in New South Wales,
other than Roman Catholic, had, in 1891, dwindled down to less than seventy—mostly
Anglican—an evidence that, with one exception, the Churches have given up the fight

against. the ‘popular system. The Roman Catholics—upon whom, in all the colonies, falls

the heavy cost of carrying on their “religious” schools—have, on the plea of relieving
the Government of a large annual expenditure, strenuously sought, but unsuccessfully, for
State recognition in the form of payment by results. The primary public schools in the

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1427

colonies, exclusive of denominational and private establishments, numbered, in 1891, nearly

six thousand, and these State schools were attended by more than a million children,

What has been said of New South Wales applies, of course, in the earlier stages,

ST. IGNATIUS COLLEGE, RIVERVIEW, SYDNEY.

RIVERVIEW, LANE COVE RIVER.

to the whole of the colonies.
But the existing system was
introduced into Victoria by the
Education Act of 1872, about
eight years before a somewhat
similar Measure passed the
Legislature of New South
Wales. It came into active
operation on the first day of
January, 1873, and, being after-
wards amended by a supple-

mentary Act in 1876, provides

1428 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

free primary instruction of a secular character to all children taught in the State
schools, and prescribes a certain standard of attainment for all children whether so
schooled by the State or not. In Queensland, the Act of 1875 regulates the educational
interest. Among the first Enactments of the Legislature after the separation from New
South Wales, were an Act to provide for primary education and an Act to provide for
the establishment of grammar schools, both of which received the Royal Assent in 1860.
Under the former a Board of General Education, under the Chairmanship of a Minister
of the Crown, was called into existence to superintend the primary school system of the
colony. The Act did away with future State aid to denominational education, but this
provision was so earnestly argued that the regulation was soon after relaxed so as not
to exclude denominational schools established subsequent to the passing of the Act. At
the beginning of January, 1870, public education was made free of charge in all the
primary schools of the State. In 1874, a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire
into the working of the educational system, and in the following year the present Act
was passed by Sir Samuel Griffith, constituting education secular, compulsory and free.
In South Australia, the system first adopted was that of payment by results. The
Churches had begun to establish schools before the State thought of interfering, and
when it entered the field, it did so simply to supply what was deficient in the labours
of the Churches; in other words, it offered payment for results. Schools containing a
certain number of children, and where’the teaching was reported to be up to a certain
grade, were proportionately subsidized. After six years of experiment, however, it was
found that under this system the colony was drifting behind its neighbours, and that if
the State was to do anything effective in the way of education it must do something more
than merely inspect and subsidize; and accordingly a system in which the State acted
more directly in the maintenance of schools was substituted. In Western Australia, the
elementary Education Act now in force was passed in 1871. It is administered by a Cen-
tral Board, aided by District Boards elected by the franchise-exercising population, The
Act acknowledges Government schools, which are undenominational, and assisted schools,
which may be conducted by any religious body. - In the State schools the education is
secular, but not free. In Tasmania, the Education Act of 1886 regulates the system of
State instruction. It is administered by the Minister of Education, and the instruction
given is purely secular. Attendance is compulsory on three days out of the week, and
fixed fees are charged. In New Zealand, definite recognition of the duty of the State
with regard to the instruction of the people dates from the establishment of the Provinces
in 1853. From that time until the abolition of the provincial form of Government at
the end of 1876, it was left to each Province to fix its own system of public instruc-
tion. One of the first Acts of the General Assembly after that date was to make
temporary provision for carrying on this work until a Measure adapted to the general
wants of the people could be passed. This was done in 1877, when a Bill was put
through which provided for a Department of Education under a responsible Minister.

It will thus be seen that one of the principal objects to which the Australian
colonies devoted their attention since the introduction of Responsible Government has
been the public instruction of the children of the people. For some years the interest

in public education remained at a low ebb. Even in the centres of population, while

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1429

the wealthier classes were always fairly well provided for in this respect, the children of
the working classes were in a large measure neglected. But in the sparsely-peopled
districts in the interior, _where the indications of settlement were few and far between,
and children, perforce, grew up as wild almost as the kangaroos that settlement had

displaced, the prospect was for many years a dismal one indeed. Such teaching as went

on was. unskilful and in-
effectual, being without
supervision, and, of
course, without method.
The school-master was
ordinarily a man who
had failed at everything
else, and the person who

had proved his inability

THE, LEADING GRAMMAR SCHOOLS OF MELBOURNE.

to take care of sheep or
of himself, was often tacitly taken to have proved his capacity to undertake the charge
of children. With the spread of the successive systems of State education, all this
passed away. School buildings, of a more or less pretentious but always | serviceable
order, were opened in every village centre. Where the population was sparse, provisional
schools were opened—and to-day every child in the land has the advantage of a sound
primary education, literally forced upon him or her by the State.

While the principal educational work has consisted in covering the country with
primary schools, so that no future citizen should be destitute of elementary knowledge,
the higher education has not been neglected. To provide for the requirements of
primary education, and thus whet the appetites of the growing population for a wider

range of knowledge without providing adequate means for its gratification, would have

1430 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

been, in some measure, to stultify the work of the State in this connection. This was
recognized at a very early period, and, though a few colleges and higher schools already
existed, efficiently conducted by the religious denominations and by private teachers, it
was felt that the imperative duty of the State called for an extension of the State
system in this direction as well. Hence grammar schools were established in every
colony, but they are not all constituted on the same plan. Some of the earlier in
Sydney were purely private institutions, though

mma 2 one of them—the King’s College, at Parramatta

a ; Ps —was a Church of England institution, with an

ff . Saee ~ endowment of land. Its establishment was fol-

7 . lowed, not many years after, by the Sydney

Grammar School, the management of which was

placed in the hands of trustees. This has been
from the first a purely unsectarian institution,
and receives a moderate annual endowment.

Lyndhurst College, a Roman Catholic institution,

came after. Of late years, the different Churches
~ me roused themselves, and established numerous

THE MODEL SCHOOL, MELBOURNE, colleges and grammar schools, thus increasing

; the competition, and also the facilities for educa-

tion. In all the large cities of the colonies there are to be found fine buildings con-
nected with the various Churches—notably, the Roman Catholic—in which the work of-
higher education is effectively carried on. Some of the most costly and conspicuous edifices
in the different .Australian capitals and provincial towns, not devoted to public purposes,
are thus used, and the leading colleges of the more important religious denominations are
really splendid monuments to the zeal of these bodies in the cause of education. In
point of architectural beauty and picturesque situation, the Jesuit College of St. Ignatius,
on the Lane Cove River, Sydney, is one of the best examples. In Victoria, there is no
national grammar school; the great Churches have each established one of their own,
and have received grants of land for the purpose. In South Australia, too, the principal
grammar schools are ecclesiastical. In Queensland and New Zealand, the people have
given their preference to State grammar schools, and in both these colonies provision
has been made at the public expense for the higher education of girls as well as of
boys. In some of the colonies, provision is made for franking clever children from
the primary schools through the higher institutions, and in New South Wales high
schools are established at which the education is only half as costly as at the grammar
school. It will thus be seen, that there is no absolute uniformity in the grammar-school
systems of the different colonies, but in every one of them a first-class education is
obtainable at a moderate rate. No young person of good capacity, and with a passion
for learning, can want for opportunity. The means are within the reach of all who care
to appropriate them. The rising talent of the colony has abundant opportunity for
training itself. All the colonies have been liberal, almost lavish, in their educational
expenditure, but there is a strong, almost intense, feeling that the chances should be
free to the poor as well as to the rich, and that the humblest child who is willing to

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1431

climb should get his foot upon the ladder. In all the colonies, except Queensland and
Western Australia, there are local universities. All the universities are well equipped
with educational apparatus, and each has a full staff of competent professors. At
Melbourne and at Sydney there are medical schools, in which the number of students
is annually increasing. The latest development in the direction of the higher education
of women is the establishment of a woman’s college in connection with the Sydney
University. The Sydney University, which was incorporated in 1851, has a roll of nearly
eight hundred students, and receives noble support every year from the Government,
and the list of private benefactors includes the late John Henry Challis, whose bequest
amounted to £200,000. There are three affiliated colleges—St. Paul’s (Anglican), St.
John’s (Roman Catholic), and St. Andrew’s (Presbyterian).

The affiliated colleges correspond in some measure to the colleges within the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In the. colonies they belong to the various
denominations, and are aided by the State. Some of these collegiate buildings have
been erected out of funds provided partly by the State and partly by subscriptions, and
in one notable instance—that of the Ormond College, in Melbourne—the expense has
been borne by the munificent liberality of one man. The interests of general education
and culture in the colonies receive attention at the hands of the State in various ways
other than through the instruction
given in primary and higher schools.
Schools of Arts—or Mechanics’
Institutes, as they are sometimes
called—have been widely established
throughout all the colonies, so that
nearly every Australian township
throughout the Continent can now
boast of its local institution of this
kind, where lectures are given, and
educational influences of a popular
kind regularly brought to bear.
‘Each such institute has its public
library, aided in New South Wales

THE SCOTCH COLLEGE, MELBOURNE.

by a judicious system of book-
lending on the part of the State. Free public libraries are found in the chief metro-
politan cities, those of Sydney and Melbourne being admirable institutions of their kind,
and noble testimonials to the intellectual curiosity and literature-loving tastes of the
people as a whole. In Sydney, besides the Public Library proper, there is an efficient
lending-branch, from which the public are allowed to borrow books without charge,
subject only to the rules of the institution, It is from this lending library that the
provincial Schools of Arts are from time to time provided with parcels of books, in
addition to their own stock. These parcels are renewed when done with, and so a
continual interchange of literature is kept up even with the outlying districts of the colony.
Not the least of the active educational agencies of the Australian Colonies are the

technical schools that flourish and carry out an excellent work in many of the larger

1432 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

cities. These valuable institutions apply themselves to the duty of providing instruction
to all who may care to avail themselves of their benefits, in the practical occupations,
trades and professions of life. The number of persons who are found to co-operate with
the advantages thus offered is a large and ever-increasing one, and the results as shown

in the yearly exhibitions of these Technical Schools are in the highest degree encouraging,

RELIGION.

HE circumstances attendant on the first steps at Australian colonization were not
exactly such as to favour any very marked religious developments, and the settle-

ment for some time might have been searched in vain for any very encouraging evidences
of this kind. The first minister of religion, it is true, came out ‘as chaplain of the First
Fleet, but the conditions of primitive settlement. were apparently adverse to the efficacy
of his ministrations, for in the early records frequent mention is made of the antagonism
of the Rev. Richard Johnson to the official element, and the difficulty he experienced in
his endeavours to enlist its interest in the work on which he was engaged. His chief
trouble was the building of a church, in which task he vainly sought the Governor's
assistance. The usual reply to his solicitations was to the effect that the housing of
the population and stores claimed first attention. He therefore undertook, after a time,
to build a church himself, and in 1793 he opened a small building for Divine Service
on the east side of Sydney Cove. This primitive structure was built of wattle and
plaster, and covered with thatch. It was seventy-three feet long by fifteen feet wide,
and had a transept measuring forty feet by fifteen feet. Little sympathy subsisted
between the chaplain and the officials, it would seem, for the former is reported as
preaching a sermon—after the arrival of Governor Hunter to relieve the temporary
military Administrators of the Government—in which he denounced in no measured
terms the extortion and debauchery of the officers, whom he accused of driving the
settlement to ruin by charging twelve hundred per cent. for the, goods they retailed.
The chaplain left the colony in 1802, having amassed a considerable fortune by agricul-
ture. The same year that saw the erection of Mr. Johnson’s church witnessed the
laying of the foundation stone of the first St. Philip's Church, Sydney; and in the
following year the Rev. Samuel Marsden came to the colony, where he continued to
be connected with the development of the denomination to which he belonged for
upwards of sixty years. The Church of England remained the only recognized State
Church of New South Wales up to the time of Governor Bourke—that is to say, 1833.
The ministers were, like Samuel Marsden, usually civil magistrates as well, and some
strange stories are told of the effect of this novel combination of offices in a penal
settlement. Some order was introduced into the religious system of the infant settlement
in 1825, when the Church and School Corporation was established by Royal Charter,
under which one-seventh of the whole of the lands of the colony were set aside in
perpetuity for the purposes of religion and education in connection’ with the Church of
England. In the same year the Rev. Thomas Hobbes Scott was appointéd the’ first
Archdeacon of Australia, and from this time the religious interest in the colony may be
said to have been definitely established. The corporation lasted only until 1833, when

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL: 1433

it was dissolved by Order in Council, the trust reverting to Government, and a system
was introduced under which every religious denomination represented in the colony was to
receive support in proportion to its numerical strength. Bitter complaints had been made
from time to time by the adherents of other religions, of the injustice of recognizing
only one church in the colony, and of subsidizing that one by a heavy tax on the
whole of the community—for the expenses of church administration were chargeable from
year to year against the Treasury, until the land-grants became reproductive—while the
others were left at the mercy of the official whim of the hour. The liberal and _ politic
spirit of Bourke was not slow to perceive the anomalous nature of the existing arrange-
ment. He drew up a
despatch for the infor-
mation of the Secretary
of State for the Colo-
nies, Lord Stanley, in
which he set forth the
facts of the whole
question as it offered
itself to his own judg-
ment. After dwelling
on the expediency and

necessity for the pro-

motion of religion and
good Government, that ST. PHILIP'S -ORIGINAL CHURCH, SYDNEY.
the State should extend
its countenance and support to the dispensation of the ordinances of religion, he went on
to lay down the following principles:—That the State aid should be administered so as
not to render ministers of religion independent of their people; that the exclusive
endowment of any one body of professing Christians was impracticable; that instead of
extending State aid to one Church, and casual assistance to two or three others, it was
expedient to extend the countenance of the Government to all the Churches indiscrimi-
nately. He then proceeded to offer a detailed suggestion as to the way State aid
should be administered in future. At that date the Church of England received £11,542
per annum, the Catholic body £1,500, and the Presbyterian communion £600. Bourke
now proposed to give a contribution to every church building in the colony, propor-
tionate to the amount publicly subscribed, and to appropriate salaries to ministers
of religion proportionate to the size of their congregations. Two years were allowed
to pass before any reply was forthcoming to this State Paper of Governor Bourke, and
in the meantime Lord Stanley had been succeeded at the Colonial Office by Lord
Glenelg. One of the first acts of that official’s authority was to accept these recommen-
dations of Sir Richard Bourke, and the State Church of Austialia soon became, practi-
cally, a thing of the past. The public appreciation of Bourke’s Administration took the
form of a statue, which now stands as an‘historic land-mark in the Sydney Domain.

The account thus given of what was done in the early days represents what, in the

judgment of the mother-country, was the religious policy best suited to these young

1434 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

colonies. But when they weré endowed with self-government, that question was handed
over to them, with others, and left to their own determination. The first colony to
move in the matter was South Australia, which, at the very first election under the Consti-
tution Act, returned a majority of members pledged to abolish State aid to religion.
Amongst the early immigrants to that colony there was a strong infusion of the Noncon-
formist element, and that gave
a tone to public opinion on
the question. The decision
arrived at, therefore, was never
reversed, and the other colo-
nies, though somewhat slowly,
followed suit. Saving the
personal rights of old re-
cipients of State aid, all the
Churches in Australia are
now, and have been for many
years, dependent on voluntary

contributions.

The period from the foun-
dation of the colony up to
DR. LANG'S CHURCH, JAMIESON STREET, SYDNEY. 1835 had not elapsed, how-

ever, without certain unmis-

takable developments of the religious systems of the colony outside the Church
of England. During these forty-eight years the Roman Catholic and _ Presbyterian
Churches had established themselves and built up valuable interests. The latter,
under the vigorous direction of Dr. Lang, had rapidly grown into wealth and influence,
as the kirk on the hill to the left of Sydney Cove soon rose to witness. This old-
fashioned edifice still stands, a relic of the early colonial days. Dr. Lang’s immigration
labours had also a very important influence in giving strength to his Church. He saw
what a fine opening the colony afforded for frugal and industrious Scotchmen, and
wishing also to balance the somewhat disproportionate immigration from Ireland, proceeded
to exert himself with great energy and success to promote immigration from Scotland.
The history of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia may be said to have
commenced with the arrival of three priests in 1799, Father James Dixon, Father
William Harrold and Father Peter O'Neill. The three priests named, did not come,
however, as missionaries, but as prisoners. They were transported under the penal laws,
with an Irish Protestant clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Fulton, during the Irish Rebellion of
1798. Father O’Neill was released on a free pardon within six months of his arrival,
and returned to Ireland, but his less fortunate companions, who were also pardoned
after the lapse of some five years, ministered as best they could, during that period
to the prisoners of their faith, the majority of whom had been, like the priests them-
selves, transported for participating in the Irish Rebellion. From 1809 till 1817, there
was no Roman Catholic priest in Australia, and Arch-priest Jeremiah O’Flinn, who

arrived in November, 1817, to undertake the duties of chaplain, was, after a few months,

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1435

sent back by the Government on the ground that he hdd not been “authorized” to
come to the penal settlement. In May, 1820, two legally appointed Roman Catholic
chaplains, Arch-priest John Joseph Therry and Father Philip Connolly, arrived. Arch-
deacon McEncroe and Dr. Ullathorne followed in 1832, and Archbishop Polding in 1835.
The first Roman Catholic church in Australia
was commenced in Sydney, on the site now
occupied by St. Mary’s Cathedral, on the 29th of
October, 1821. At the present day, the Roman

CITY AND SUBURBAN CHURCHES, SYDNEY.

Catholic body can boast of 1200 churches, including 15 cathedrals, throughout Australasia.

The two prominent denominations may be said to have grown up together. The
original St. Philip’s Church was destroyed by fire in 1798, and the second building was
opened’ in 1809. Other Anglican churches sprang up at Windsor, Parramatta, Newcastle,
and elsewhere, and in 1822, St. James’s, Sydney, for many years the principal sacred edifice
belonging to the Church of England, was opened for public worship. In 1820, the
first steps were taken for the erection of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, Sydney.
A meeting was called in the Court House, and all classes in the community united in
subscribing towards the cost of the proposed building, while ‘the Governor promised a
subsidy from the Treasury. The foundation stone was laid the next year by Governor
Macquarie, and the Cathedral was blessed and opened by Archbishop Polding in 1836.
This edifice, upon which £60,000 had been spent, was destroyed by fire in 1865, and

the new building has, up to the present time, cost £150,000. Dr. Broughton, who had

1436 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

succeeded Archdeacon Scott, was consecrated first Anglican Bishop of Australia in 1836,
the ministry-roll, meanwhile, having been added to by the arrival of Archdeacon Cowper.
The foundation stone of St. Andrew's English: Cathedral, Sydney, was laid by Governor
Bourke in 1837. Bishop Selwyn, of New Zealand, arrived in the same year; Dr.
Nixon, of Tasmania, was consecrated in 1842; the first Bishop of Brisbane in the
following year; Dr. Perry, first Bishop of Melbourne, in 1847; and Dr. Short, the first
Bishop of Adelaide, reached his diocese in the same year. The erection of the Roman
Catholic Cathedral in Melbourne was commenced in 1857; Dr. Goold, who arrived in
1838, having been consecrated first Bishop in 1848. The first Roman Catholic Bishop
of Adelaide took charge of his diocese in 1844; the diocese of Hobart Town was
formed in 1842; that of Perth in 1845; and Brisbane in 1859. In the See of Sydney,
Bishop Broughton was succeeded by Dr. Barker, Dr. Barry and Dr. Smith; and John
Bede Polding, the Roman Catholic Archbishop, by Roger Bede Vaughan and Cardinal
Moran, the latter being created first Cardinal of Australia in 1885, a year after his
appointment to Sydney as Archbishop. In Melbourne, Dr. Moorhouse succeeded Dr.
Perry, and was in turn followed by Dr. Goe. Dr. Carr is Archbishop Goold’s successor.
The Presbyterian Church in Australia practically dates from the coming of Dr. Lang, in
1823, although service had been held as early as 1809, on the Hawkesbury, where
a small church had been erected. In 1824, a Presbyterian Church was opened in
Hobart Town, and the first clergyman of that body, the Rev. James Forbes, arrived
in Victoria in 1838. Progress in ,the other colonies rapidly followed the advance
of settlement, until Presbyterianism became the power in the religious world of Aus-
tralia that we find it to-day. The Wesleyan communion was represented in Australia
as early as 1815, by the Rev. Samuel Leigh, although the first recorded class-meeting
dates from 1812. The first service was held in Hobart Town in 1820, by the Rev. B.
Carvossa, and at Port Phillip by the Rev. Mr. Orton, in 1836. Since these dates the
Wesleyan organization also has spread itself over the face of the Australian Continent,
in the religious system of which, as well as the Islands of Polynesia, it plays an in-
fluential and highly important part. |

In the missionary work among the natives of the Islands of the Southern Seas, it
may be stated that a keen rivalry has for many years existed between the Wesleyans
and the Roman Catholics. The work of the Roman Catholic Church in this’ direction
has been carried on during the past fifty years chiefly by the French Order of the
Society of Mary. ‘The missionary field of the Marist Fathers embraces Central Oceanica,
Navigator's Islands and Fiji, with three Vicars Apostolic, having episcopal powers in
charge. According to the -returns for 1891 from these missionary centres, the number of
priests was sixty; the number of nuns in charge of the native schools, fifty; and the
total Roman Catholic population nearly thirty thousand. In New Guinea and New
Britain the work of the missionaries of the Sacred Heart—another French Order—is
under the direction of Archbishop Navarre and two Vicars Apostolic. t

It is impossible to form any just estimate of the social progress .of the Colonies —
unless the influence of the different denominations is taken into account. Originating,
in the first instance, with the most humble beginnings, and fostered by the loyal

zeal of earnest and self-sacrificing men, the religious bodies expanded and grew in

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL.

Ge
™

numbers, and in their influence for good, with the growth of the population, until to-day
we every-where see in Australian cities tall spires. lifting their towers against the sky,

and imposing buildings adding to the beauty of our streets, and proclaiming in the most

EMRE GE, ATR Ae

{
.
i
‘
;
6
.

THE INTERIOR OF THE ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL OF ST. ANDREW'S, SYDNEY.

substantial way the reality of the faith of those who erected these splendid monuments.
The earlier descriptive pages of this book give in detail the results of all this zeal and

enterprise, since in every centre of population we find the religious element variously

1438 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

represented, and the evidences of actively energetic influence on Australian life every-
where apparent. The Anglican and Roman Catholic Cathedrals in Sydney and Mel-
bourne are worthy imitations of. noble examples of ecclesiastical architecture elsewhere,
and many of the sacred edifices in the larger country towns are not far behind these
in importance. If we contrast the state of religion to-day with that of fifty years
ago, the progress and vitality of the Churches must be at once acknowledged.

It is important to point out that all the Churches are not only centres of religious
instruction, but of general education and charitable activity. The Sunday-school system of
England has been thoroughly naturalized, and fully two hundred thousand children are
taught in this way, the services of more than ten thousand teachers being enlisted in the
work. Many of the Churches, especially in the towns, have established literary and de-

bating societies attached to

them, besides Bible classes

for special instruction in
Scripture. Attached to all the
Churches, too, is a great va-
riety of societies for relieving
distress, and each Church
prides itself on not neglect-
ing its own poor. Most of
them have agencies for sup-
_ porting their own branches

in the more thinly populated

as missionary societies for sus-
taining religious work abroad.
Taken as a whole, the
Churches are important
agencies in the intellectual,
social and practical life of the
community, and though un-
aided by the State, of which
the policy, as we have seen,
is one of consistent non-in-
terference, they relieve it of
much that would otherwise

devolve upon it.

The general affairs of the
Church of England in the Aus-

tralian Colonies are regulated by a General Synod of the Dioceses in Australia and Tas-

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL OF ST. MARY’S, SYDNEY.

mania, meeting every four years under the presidency of the Lord Bishop of Sydney, as
Primate of Australia. This institution was called into being at a general conference held
‘in Sydney in 1872. Provincial and diocesan synods deal with the ecclesiastical affairs of

the different colonies and dioceses in regard to their own immediate affairs. The Roman

parts of the colony, as well:

POLITICAL AND SOCTATL. 1439

Catholic Church in Australia has at its head His Eminence the Cardinal, Archbishop of
Sydney, who is empowered as Delegate Apostolic to call a plenary council of Bishops
of the various dioceses together, as occasion requires, for purposes of consultation. Diocesan
affairs are managed by clerical conferences and synods. The Presbyterian Churches of
the colonies are all ecclesiastically independent of each other, though their tests are the
same and their polity identical. A Federated Union of the churches of the various
colonies held its first meeting in Sydney in 1886. Each Church is presided over by its
own elected Moderator. The Wes-

leyan Church of Australia has en- =< a
joyed practically independent govern- Pe ~—

ment since 1855, up to which date A

it had been a mission of the British :
Conference. From that time until /
1873, the Church held the sfatus /
of an Australian Conference, but in |

the year named the British Con- |

ference acknowledged. its independ- |

ence by a resolution of that body.
A Triennial Conference
of all the churches
governs the Wesleyan
body in Australia, which
is subdivided into four
conferences, each under
its own elected presi-
dent. The Congrega-

tional Unions of the

A CHINESE “ JOSS” HOUSE IN AUSTRALIA,

various colonies govern
the local affairs of the denomination under the direction of an elected chairman and
a committee. The different colonial branches of most of the other religious bodies
are similarly independent of each other, each pursuing its own work in the light of the
special circumstances in which it finds itself placed. The Jewish Church is represented
by its rabbis in the respective colonies.

It is impossible to do justice to the religious interest in Australasia without advert-
ing to the great gain which has accrued to the social and _ intellectual life of the
colonies from the presence and influence of those leaders of the more important denomi-
nations who have, from time to time, taken up their residence amongst us. The
prominent churchmen, whose eloquence, scholarship and administrative ability have been
placed at the service of the colonies by a succession of fortunate events, are so well-
known that it is unnecessary here to go over the bead-roll’ of honoured names. Our
debt as a people is great, not only to the individuals, but to the organizations which
sent them to labour amongst us. It may be, that in the course of time, we shall desire
to see the higher offices in the different churches, like the higher political and
professional posts of service, filled by Australians rather than by candidates brought

1440 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

specially from Home for the purpose. Such a state of things will, doubtless, come in
due course, as one of the stages of Australian development. But the colonies must
continue to rest under a debt of gratitude for the intellectual aids of growth supplied
by the presence amongst us of scholarly and disinterested men in the early period of

our intellectual awakening.

THE LEGAL INTEREST

it ee legal interest in Australia has been an affair of very gradual growth. When
Phillip landed his party of soldiers and convicts in 1788, one of the first acts
was to proclaim martial law in the Settlement, and though shortly after that a kind of
regular tribunal was established, it remained for some years a military court rather than
anything else. Wild stories have been told of the rough-and-ready proceedings of the irre-
sponsible rulers of these strange early days, but in 1800 the first regular Judge Advocate
was appointed in the person of Richard Atkins, in succession to Captain Collins, the first
“nominal holder of that office. After
the rule of the New South Wales
Corps came to an end by the action
of its officers in the Bligh affair,
Governor Macquarie brought out to
Australia with him a new Judge Ad-
‘vocate, Elias Bent, who arrived in
1809. This official was recalled in
1814, and his successor Geoffrey Hart
Bent, introduced a new Charter of
Justice, which. though crude enough
in itself, was at least a sign that the
affairs of the Settlement were emer-
ging from chaos into some distant
resemblance to order The charter
established three Courts. The Gover-
nor’s Court dealt with civil matters
involving sums of money up to £50,

the Judge Advocate and two magis-

trates adjudicating, The Supreme

SIR JAMES MARTIN.

Court consisted of a judge appointed
under the Sign Manual and two locally appointed magistrates; while the Lieutenant-
Governor's Court sat in Tasmania, under the presidency of the local Judge Advocate,
with two of the inhabitants nominated by the Governor. Judge Barron Field came in
1817, and, on his departure from the colony, was succeeded, in 1824, by the first Aus-
tralian Chief Justice, Sir Francis Forbes. This. notable colonist brought with him the
first real Charter of Justice the colony possessed, and its Jiberal and expansive pro-
visions were due to his own broad sense of public justice in drawing it up—a task

that was committed to his hands by authority before leaving England. The eminent

——_

|
.

STAND.

RACE-COURSE FROM MEMBERS

MELBOURNE CUP.

4 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1441

services of this remarkable man have not yet received their full measure of acknowled

(f-
>

ment, but it is to him that the people of to-day have to look back for the beginnings of
b 5” ,
the social and political privileges they now enjoy. The freedom of the Press and trial by

—é

MOUNTED POLICE AND A BLACK TRACKER.

jury are both directly traceable to his action. On the arrival of Sir Francis Forbes, his

Charter of Justice was formally proclaimed in Sydney on the 17th of May, 1824; and about
¥-P yane} 7 ) 4

the same time arrived in the colony a great many of those whose names have since become

part of the legal history of the mother-colony. In that year, too, the first attempt to

1442 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

separate the professions was made, on the motion of Messrs. Wentworth and Wardell.
This was not effected, however, until 1829, when the barristers and attorneys then prac-
ticing were allowed to make choice of the branch they preferred to follow. The first
Supreme Court Jury dates from 1825. In 1827, arrived Mr. Justice Dowling, afterwards
second Chief Justice of New South Wales, and the next year the Supreme Court buildings
in King Street, Sydney, which had been commenced in 1820, were opened. In the same year,
‘“‘Emancipists,” who had hitherto been excluded from the exercise of the jury-right, were for the
first time here admitted to that privilege, on the ruling of the Chief Justice, although their
absolute right thereto was not formally acknowledged by the Full Court until 1833. In
1837, Judge Forbes retired, having done a work in the colony second to that of no other
servant of the State and of the people. In all matters pertaining to jurisprudence the
colonists, as in politics, worked their way steadily, though not without difficulty, from the
earlier colonial rég’me to the condition enjoyed by ‘their brethren in England. They
always had before them the English Constitution as a model to work to, and they
never rested until society in the colony was established on an English basis,

The first Court was opened at Port Phillip in 1841. The first Supreme Court Judge in
South Australia was appointed in 1839, and the first Supreme Court of New Zealand opened
in 1842; and in 1844, Mr. Alfred Stephen was appointed to succeed Chief Justice
Dowling in New South Wales. Sir William a’Beckett, first Chief Justice of Victoria,
was appointed in 1851; Sir Valentine Fleming was nominated Chief Justice of Tasmania
in 1856; and in 1857, the first Supreme Court was opened in Brisbane, although the
first Chief Justice, Sir James Cockle, was not appointed until 1862, after the separation
of the two colonies. Sir Archibald Caul Burt became first Chief Justice of Western
Australia in 1861. The second holder of the office of Chief Justice of Victoria was Sir
William Foster Stawell, who was on his retirement succeeded by the present Chief
Justice, His Honor Mr. Justice Higinbotham. In New South Wales, Sir Alfred Stephen
retired from office in 1873, and was succeeded by Sir James Martin, on whose death, in
1886, the post—being declined for the second time by the Right Honourable William
Bede Dalley, was conferred on Sir Frederick Matthew Darley. The present Chief
Justice of South Australia is His Honor Samuel James Way. In Tasmania, Sir
William Lambert Dobson holds that position; in Queensland, Sir Charles Lilley; in ~
New Zealand, Sir James Prendergast; and in Western Australia, His Honor Alexander
Campbell Onslow. As soon as the local Bar was strong enough to furnish competent
judges, there naturally grew up an indisposition to the importation of lawyers to fill the
higher offices. For many years past none but local men have been appointed, except in
the Crown colonies of Western Australia and Fiji; and the local Bars have proved quite
equal to the task of providing judges. Western Australia has lately been granted
Responsible Government, and henceforth the custom of the other colonies of Australasia
will doubtless be followed in this as in other matters. Political preferences have, in many
instances, influenced the appointments; but, taken as a whole, the Bench of Australia
has commanded the respect and confidence of the people. The Judges have emulated the
seriousness, the dignity, and the impartiality that distinguish the English Bench. It is
almost unnecessary to say that, except in certain details, the law of the Australian colonies
is in substance identical with that of England,—one of the more noticeable of the

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1443

exceptions being the legalization of marriage, in certain of the colonies, with a deceased
wife’s sister. The peculiar boast of Australians in legal matters is, of course, Torrens’
Act, for the expediting of the transfer of real estate. Sir R. R. Torrens was for some
years Collector of Customs at Adelaide, where his duties brought him in contact with
the shipping interest. He was led to apply the method of the transfer of shipping by
registration to the transfer of land. It took many years to perfect the theory, which was

not definitely accepted by the South Australian Legislative Assembly until the year 1858.

LITERATURE AND ART.

HE conditions of colonization in Australia for many years after the date of the

-first settlement were not such as to favour any remarkable development either in
the field of literature or of art. We have seen that fortunately for the material progress
of the colonies, they received the kind of population best suited to do the pioneer
work of colonization, rather than a
cultured or. leisured class with the
time and taste to cultivate the
more polished graces of life. The
rough-and-ready duties which the first
colonists were called upon to dis-
charge, and the lives of toil and
active effort they were compelled to
lead, were more favourable to the
development of a hardy race of practi-
cal men than to the pursuit of those
studies that have their issue in either
literary or artistic performance. In
this, of course, the Australian colonies
only followed the example of the
older countries of the world. It was
necessary that the Continent should
be made habitable by the labour of
men’s hands before a population could
be settled within its borders.

We have seen that the first

comers proved themselves capable of
the discharge of this pioneer duty, ADAM LINDSEY GORDON.

and it was not to be expected that

in the midst of such a population that the finer flower of civilization would show itself until
some time after the preparatory stages had been passed. Wealth and leisure came _ after-
wards. Fathers left to their sons the heritage of the results of their original effort. The
labours that confronted the first comers were passed on to the succeeding generation in
the shape of results ready to its hands, and the sons of those who first reclaimed the

primeval wastes for settlement found that they could enjoy the leisure and means of which

1444 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

the enterprise of their forefathers had laid the foundation. But although this process

of evolution was always oing on, its results did not come either with the first or

g
the second generation. The continual influx of immigrants kept the colony for many
years in its initial stage. The demand in the new country was for employment rather
than for culture, and each decade brought its contribution of colonists who left the old

land and sought the new, not so

much to find the comforts of life
as its necessaries, and to seek

leave to toil for bread rather than

to enjoy those intellectual luxuries

of which literature and art are
the outcome. It would, however,
not be correct to assume that
amongst the new-comers to this
new land there were none _ pos-
sessed of great talents and high
culture. The history of our po-
litical institutions convince one of
the contrary. Leichhardt has borne
witness to the culture of many of
the early pioneers, whose stations
he visited on his overland journeys.
Sir Thomas Mitchell, the cele-
brated explorer, was a man of
varied learning, whose translation
of the Portuguese poet, Caméens,
is still consulted by scholars. Again,

there can be little either of liter-

ature or of art without a strong in-
HENRY KENDALL. spiration derived from national
pride and belief in a_ national
future. Our first pioneers had so little, that one of the most admired productions of
Australian verse, “A Voice from the Bush” voices only a vain regret for the land
where the poet had his birthplace. As, moreover, the social conditions of the mother-
colony evolved themselves, the popular mind had enough to engage its attention in the
formation of its political and legal systems, in the development of its religious institu-
tions, in the adaptation of the machinery of State education to the wants of the
growing community, and, in general, in building up that semblance of nationality which
should one day grow into the empire, whose hopes and aspirations are beginning to fill
the dreams and nerve the efforts of Australian artists and authors. And until these various
interests had time to solidify themselves, the day had not come to look beyond them.
It is our boast as a people that the demands of the masses of the populatign for
educational facilities have ever been met with promptness by the State, and now that

its duty in this respect has been efficiently discharged, we may be said to have entered

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1445

fairly upon that stage of social development when the leisured classes of the community
are called upon to assist by their co-operation and sympathy in the development of fe
higher standards of taste, and in the encouragement of Australian literature and art.

It is only within the past thirty years that even the feeblest efforts have been made
at the production of what may be termed a native literature. The profession of letters,
more than any other, perhaps, lives on the sympathy and interest of the cultivated
classes in the population. Amongst a people whose culture was small, therefore, it can
be readily understood that little or no effort
was put forth in this direction, while the one
or two dreamers, who really made any attempt
at fine literary work, have found the only issue
of their day-dreams in obscurity and wretched-
ness. This is the sad story told of most of
those whose names have come into prominence
in connection with the work of the pen in Aus-
tralia. Now and again men have come to the
colonies—like the Howitts, Henry Kingsley, and
the author of “Orion”—with the capacity, which
they have proved sooner or later, for different
kinds of literary work; but no field for their
talents. existed in these new countries, and
what they have done has gone to enrich the
stock of literary wealth elsewhere. Again, we

have had workers who have cast in their lot

with us, and sought to live by the product of

MARCUS CLARKE,

their pens in the midst of a community en-
grossed with the practical pursuits and business cares of life. These have remained
with us, but no demand offered for the better work of which they may be supposed
to have been capable. Such men as these have been only a degree better in their
circumstances than the occasional man of fine taste and exquisite capacity, who, bred in
the colonies under their then unfavourable conditions, yet showed in several instances
touching indications of the rarest. promise, that were destined to wither under the cold
breath of popular neglect before they had time to develope into something tangible and
real. Among such was the ill-fated Daniel Henry Deniehy, whose literary remains
evidence the possession of a fine critical faculty and delicate scholarship, as well as the
most remarkable range of information that has fallen within the record of Australian
experience. No one who has, by accident or otherwise, been fortunate enough to have
the opportunity of reading the fugitive papers of this frost-bitten genius can repress the
tribute of a sigh to such wasted gifts and ill-acknowledged merit.

As a writer of graceful and sympathetic verse, again, Henry Kendall stands in the
first rank of Australian “¢¢érateurs. He was quite a young man when, having sent
some of his verses to the London A¢heneum for review, that magazine spoke in the
most favourable terms of his talent and of the promise it gave that the silent Continent
would one day have a literature of its own, which might express in some articulate

1446 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

way its unspoken mystery, and pourtray the new life and colour of the antipodes. From
that time onwards Kendall continued to write and to publish volumes of verses. His
“Poems and Songs” and ‘Leaves from Australian Forests” have attained a wide
Australian circulation; and, though wanting perhaps in fibre, they have been taken to
express the spirit of familiar places and the poetic side of incidents known to Australian
life, and to have set their music to lyric words. His latest volume, “Songs from the
Mountains,” was well received shortly before his death, which occurred in Sydney in
1882. His life cannot be said to have been a success, Unfitted for the practicalities
of life in a community where its practical side was necessarily everything, he was
debarred by pressure of evil circumstances from giving his talents their fair exercise; so
that, in common with the rest of the small band of Australian workers, his literary
capacity is a matter to be estimated rather than assessed.

In Victoria, the name of Marcus Clarke is entitled to mention. His novel, “ For
the Term of His Natural Life,” has been extensivély read in England and America as
well as throughout the colonies, and was recently quoted by a critic in the Unzversal Review
as the only work of genius in the whole range of literature worthy of comparison with

’

the immortal “Zes Af%serables” of Victor Hugo; and besides being translated into several
European languages it has been more than once successfully dramatized. Its incident is
taken from that sensational period of Australian history, .the convict times; and the
author's vivid descriptions from authentic records of the penal terrors of early New
South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land and Norfolk Island, are graphic and realistic in the
extreme. Adam Lindsey Gordon, a Victorian writer of spirited verse, has also published
one. or two volumes which have a high degree of merit and considerable popularity
among Australian readers. The topics treated, being mostly what are known as charac-
teristic “bush” subjects, are full of local colour and ‘verve. The career of this writer,
and its termination, present another example of the unfortunate lot of literary workers in
Australia. Gordon committed suicide at Brighton, near Melbourne, without ever having
received any appreciable acknowledgment in his lifetime of the pleasure his verses have
before and since afforded to thousands of readers with an éye for Australian colour
and character in literature.

Besides those writers named, the Australian drama has been enriched by the produc-
tion in London and America of “Captain Swift” from the pen of Haddon Chambers,
a young Sydney writer. In the domain of fiction there are few names better known
among modern novel-readers than that of Rolf Boldrewood, whose “Robbery Under
Arms,” and other works, enjoy almost a European reputation. Mrs. Campbell-Praed,
“Tasma” and “A.C.,” are also widely-read Australian novelists.

There have, of course, been, and are, many others, whose pens have produced good
work, as well as some who have published noteworthy volumes both in prose and in verse.
The columns of the daily and weekly Press in Australia have, from time to time,
contained fugitive pieces of fine literary work, of which the merits have been acknow-
ledged by republication in England and America. Among the writers of these may be
named Mr. Brunton Stephens, of Brisbane, whose “Convict Once,” published in the form
of a volume, has been received with praise by English and other critics. The “ Ranolf
and Amohia” of Mr. Alfred Domett, of New Zealand, has also been well received in

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1447

England. To continue the list of living writers would, however, be invidious. Our

efforts at the formation of an Australian literature, so far, have been tentative,

and

our performance up to the present,

it may be said with all respect, has

not been commensurate with our promise.
The reasons for this have already been
indicated. A great deal of effort has
been put forth in the name of Aus-
tralian literature, partly by local writers,

but still more by casual visitors, which

THE INTERIOR OF THE SYDNEY ART GALLERY.

1448 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

has done more to retard progress than to advance it, and by which outside critics
and observers of our progress may easily be misled into a hasty error of judgment.
Other writers, again, whose education and mental training have been obtained under
other than Australian skies, have settled in the colonies and produced literary work
of varied quality there. They have brought with, them their old habits of thought,
influenced by natural and other associations of a kind entirely different from our own.
These literary producers have never done characteristically Australian work, for this one
all-sufficing reason: and to this cause, indeed, if to no other, may be attributed the ab-
sence, so far, of a distinctive school of Australian literature. The real literary workers
of Australia have been very few, and anything in the shape of an anthology must for
the present be misleading. Any attempt of the kind, therefore, whether proceeding from
want of judgment or a less excusable motive, is to be deprecated by those who desire
to see an Australian literature form itself under fair conditions.

We have said already that the practical exigencies of life in Australia have to an
extent precluded any hope until very recently of anything like a distinct school of
literature. Another cause has been the absorption by the newspaper Press of most of
the literary capacity of the colonies. Those who desire to live by the pen in Australia
find that the flourishing metropolitan newspapers, which provide so generously for the
reading wants of the people, offer what is really the only market for their literary
wares; and continuous newspaper work is proverbially fatal to characteristic literary effort.
The Press of Australia had its origin in the old Sydney Gazette, published: in the early
stage of settlement. It was followed by the Auwstralian, issued by Messrs. Wentworth
and Wardell in the time of Governor Darling; and the M/onztor, established by Mr.
Sydney Hall, a little later on. The action of these papers brought on a conflict with
authority, which led to several prosecutions for libel, and an attempt to place a_pro-
hibitive tax on newspapers which was frustrated only by the public-spirited action of Sir
Francis Forbes, then the Chief Justice of the colony. Governor Bourke recognized the
freedom of the Press, and shortly afterwards the Sydney Sferald—now the Sydney
Morning Herald—was established in 1831. Other papers continued to appear, and in
1843, the Sydney Gazette, the oldest paper in the colony, was published for the last time.
Among the more noticeable of the new journals was the A¢/as, perhaps the most remark-
able newspaper Australia has yet produced. It was contributed to by the most capable men
of the day, among others being Robert Lowe, now Lord Sherbrooke; Sir James Martin,
late Chief Justice of New South Wales; and the owners of such well-known Australian
names as Forster, Deniehy and Butler. The Lmpzre followed in 1850, edited by Mr.
Henry Parkes, and this journal, afterwards incorporated with the present Avening News, —
engaged the services of the most prominent men of what was known as the Liberal
party of the day. The first issue of the Melbourne Avzgus under that name appeared
in 1846. The Melbourne Age dates frém 1854; the South Austrahan Register from
1837; and the Aresbane Courter from 1846. Other metropolitan papers in the colonies
and New Zealand were founded from time to time. The efficiency of the newspaper Press”
of Australasia, one of the acknowledged marvels of the colonies, is due, in the first
instance, to the enterprise of the proprietors of the great journals of Sydney and Mel-
bourne, and to the high ideal of journalistic achievement at which they aimed. Our

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1449
rapid growth in wealth and increase of population have, of course, fed this enterprise
lavishly, and generously aided toward the realization of the standard at which the
founders of such papers as the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Argus aimed.
But the colonies have been so far fortunate in the fact that the interests of journalistic
enterprise have fallen into the hands of men with large views not only for the imme-
diate present but for the future—men who have ever made it their first endeavour to ensure
a healthy tendency and an honourable tone in the newspapers they conducted, at first with
such varying fortunes, but eventually with such signal success. The chief cities of all
the Australian colonies can, therefore,‘ boast of the possession of influential organs of
_public opinion, of the character of which the two oldest papers just named may be taken
as fitting representative types. Beside the more important metropolitan journals there are
in all the colonies a large number of provincial and suburban papers which cater for
the wants of the reading public in the country as well as in the neighbourhood of large
cities. Every country town has at least one, often two, and sometimes three newspapers
of this kind, many of them efficiently conducted and well printed, and all earnest advo-
cates of the local interests of the town or district they represent. Some of these
provincial organs, like the J/aztland Mercury in New South Wales, for instance, and the
newspapers of Ballarat and Sandhurst, are old-established and valuable properties, com-
manding a wide influence and an extensive circulation. The provincial journal usually iden-
tifies itself with the characteristic pursuit or interest of the people in whose district it is
established. and its first object is, of-course, to provide the desired information on this
particular subject. But to this is added a keen interest in the politics of the country
and an eager discussion of the test questions of the day, among which some phase of
the land law almost always finds a place. In the smaller townships the local paper is
usually conducted by a practical compositor, on somewhat of the same lines that are
followed in parts of the United States, and from very humble beginnings these some-
times develope with their surroundings into papers of considerable importance to the
district in which they are published. In this way the settled parts of the colonies are
well covered by the newspaper Press in one or other of its forms, and even the most
sparsely inhabited portions of the country are not left without some medium of public
opinion. One result of this state of things is to be traced in the lively interest taken
in public affairs throughout the colonies, and the close acquaintance of the people at
large with contemporary politics and the current events of the time.

The causes that have operated to retard the formation of a distinct school of
Australian literature have been equally active in repressing the development of Australian
art, The art of a country is the outcome of its culture and of its leisure, and we
have seen that for the first three-quarters of a century the Australian colonies had but
little of the one and nothing of the other. Artists occasionally found their way to the
antipodes, and some of them, like Sir Oswald Brierley and a few others, have since
won a fame in England that the Colonies could never have given them. But these were
merely fugitive visitors, and their presence in Australia in those days was never
remarked. Yet for many years a good deal of quiet artistic effort went on in an unob-
trusive way, and now and then men of means and culture who had found their way to

Australia brought good pictures to the colonies, and by their taste and appreciation

1450 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

encouraged these silent workers. Art galleries have been founded in most of the colonial
capitals, but they consist in the main of collections of specimens of the work of foreign
artists, with a few pictures painted by some talented Australians; but these collections
of pictures can no more be regarded as evidencing the progress of Australian art, than
the public libraries of the various colonies can be regarded as evidencing the advance
of Australian literature.

The first colony to bring together a noteworthy collection of pictures into a_ public
gallery was Victoria, and for a long while the National Art Gallery in Melbourne was
the centre of artistic interest in Australia. The National Art Gallery in Sydney grew
out of the institution known as the New South Wales Academy of Art, established in
1871, which now and then brought together the works of local men in that and the
neighbouring colonies for purposes of public exhibition. The Government aided it with
a grant of £500 in 1874, and another of £1,000 \in 1875. From the International
Exhibitions in Sydney and Melbourne in 1879 and 1880, however, really dates the
awakening of anything like an intelligent public interest in the progress of art in
Australia. The fine collections of pictures by leading European artists which were then
for the first time exhibited to a colonial public, directed the popular taste in these
matters, and brought those who had hitherto known of the world of art only through
books into actual contact with the foreign artistic achievement of the age, and thus_
stimulated local efforts. The first sign of this awakening of taste was the purchase of
some of the best pictures for the Sydney and Melbourne Galleries, and from this point
‘the National Gallery of New South Wales dates its origin proper. The new institution
absorbed the old Academy of Art, and with the best of its pictures, added to judicious
purchases at the Exhibition, and subsequently of pictures and statuary through a selec-
tion committee of leading artists in England, developed in the course of a few years
into the present promising collection, which is now valued at upwards of £50,000. The
vote of Parliament for Art purposes is administered* by a board of trustees, under whose
authority the subsidy allotted for the purpose is carefully expended. The Galleries in
Melbourne and Sydney are continually ‘being added to by the purchase of new pictures,
and every year these national collections become more valuable and more _ intrinsically
interesting. Several of the other colonies have also made praiseworthy efforts in the
same direction, and some of the provincial towns, like Ballarat in Victoria, have achieved
some progress towards the formation of galleries of art. Here and there in the larger
Australian cities, too, there have for years past been private citizens of wealth and
taste who have given money and time to the collection of works of art, and who have
in times past allowed the public free access to their galleries, or by gifts to public
institutions increased the art-wealth of the colonies. From time to time, also, collections
of valuable pictures have been gathered from the selections at Home and sent out to
Australia, where the opportunity thus offered the people of the colonies to see what is
going on in the art-world has done much to educate the popular taste and cultivate the
artistic perceptions. In this way the work of the development of this side of the
Australian character has gone on, until the prospect of its further development in the
future has arrived at its present promising stage.

A result of this awakening of the artistic taste in Australia has been the formation

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL.

1451

of several flourishing art societies in Sydney, Melbourne, and elsewhere. The artists of

the Colonies work cordially together to advance the interests of their common calling
>

and to develope the public taste in this direction. One of the most popular means to

this end is the annual exhibition held in these two cities, to which art-workers all over
the Colonies send their pictures and other evidences of effort. After a judicious process
of selection by an accredited committee, the best work of the year is exhibited to the
public, and the growing taste of the population is abundantly evidenced by the interest
taken in these annual exhibitions, as well as by the increasing sale which the better
artists obtain for the pictures brought directly under the notice of the people at large,

As in the case of literature, so in art, it has been remarked that so far the work of

3is

ul
<r
oe
b=
es:
rsa

THE INTERIOR OF THE PRINCESS THEATRE, MELBOURNE,

local artists has not yet reflected distinctively the character and colour of life and nature
in Australia. It has been a charge against local painters that their art is largely imita-
tive, and that, so far, they have not yet adequately profited by the novel conditions of
artistic effort in a new country. Every successive year’s exhibition, however, shows that
progress is being made in this direction, as well as in others ; and the chief difficulty in
the way of the more advanced among Australian artists is now the tacit prejudice on
the part of those who might be the wealthy patrons of our Australian art school,
against anything that does not come from the older art centres of the world. Such a
prejudice as this, so long as it continues to exist, cannot fail not only to prove fatal
to the best representative work that might be produced, but to the prospect of anything
like distinct individuality on the part of art-workers in Australia in the future. Just as
it has passed into a by-word that a book by an Australian author must bear the

imprint of a London publisher to have any chance of general acceptance in the Colonies,

1452 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

so it would seem that the tendency of would-be patrons of art in the direction just
indicated will have the result of confining local effort to the mere imitation of Old
World models to the neglect of the true aims of art. A distinctively Australian school
of art can never hope to form itself in the face of such constant discouragement. One
of the best signs for our artistic future is the fact that the local societies make a laud-
able effort to withstand this undesirable tendency, and even at the risk of some temporary
sacrifice, to cultivate their vocation in an honourable spirit of independence.

The Australian is music-loving, and has been so from the time the first settlers
pitched their tents and built their huts. True, the general musical taste has not reached
any high standard, but the spirit of the love of .song is in the people, and every year,
as time goes by, gives signs of a gentle but genuine growth of that keen appreciation
of the higher graces of music which surely developes into fervour and passion. In the
bush, now as of old, the fiddle and the concertina have their honoured places, and
many a night is made merry by happy-hearted singing, while in the centres of popula-
tion, and especially in the cities and prosperous towns, the pianoforte holds sway to an
extraordinary extent, almost every second house rejoicing in the possession of a good
or bad instrument. Musical societies are as “plentiful as blackberries,” the late Mr.
William Cordner, of Sydney, a sound and enthusiastic musician, who arrived in 1854,
being the father of these associations. All the cities and not a few of the towns
of Australia and New Zealand have their flourishing amateur musical societies, and the
example of Melbourne in establishing liedertafels for male voices only has been success-
fully followed by Sydney, Adelaide and Brisbane. Some of the capitals have four or
five societies. Sydney, for instance, has two liedertafels, several choral societies and one
philharmonic society, the aim of the latter being the production of oratorios and other
great works. The Sydney Philharmonic Society, which, under Signor Roberto Hazon as
conductor, has attained the first position in the Colonies, has a chorus of five hundred
voices and an excellent amateur orchestra. There are in the Colonies hundreds of fine voices,
hundreds of naturally-talented players, and with good examples such as the visits of great
artists afford, and patient study, cultivation and development in the right direction are rapidly
doing their work. The soprano voice is the best in the colonies, and the baritone comes
next. Tenors of anything like quality are very rare, and the same remark applies to the
contralto. Of basses, with limited range, there is an abundance. It cannot be said that
Australia has yet given the world any great musical work. A recent visitor, Mr. Fred.
Cowen, an English composer of some celebrity—declared that there was nothing in Aus-
tralia to inspire the musician; but this is mere assertion, for the Land of the Sunny
South, with its mystic past, the romance of its discovery, and the striking beauty and ;
poetic suggestiveness of its scenic characteristics, should surely not be without fascination |
to the genius of a musician in search of a theme. Up to the present, the talent of
colonial musicians has been confined mainly to the composition of cantatas—some of un-
questionable merit—and Masses, the most meritorious among the religious efforts being
the Mass composed by John A. Delany, a talented young Sydney musician. A large |
number of songs and miscellaneous concert-room instrumental pieces, and two or three
operettas have been thrown off during the past twenty years, and in the song-writing

Sir William Robinson, Governor of Western Australia, and ex-Governor of South Aus-

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. , 1453

tralia, has specially distinguished himself. The only compositions of any note which
Australia can claim, though not strictly the work of her own sons, are the opera of
“Maritana,” by William Vincent _ Wallace, partly written in Sydney in 1840, and two
oratorios, “ David,” by Charles Horsley, and “The Crown of Thorns,” by Charles Packer,

Catherine Hayes, whose rare gifts were only equalled by her great public generosity,
was the first really great singer who visited Australia. Her concerts in 1854 and 1856
were wonderfully successful, and it is told of those triumphs of hers, in the days of the
gold discoveries, that in place of the conventional tributes of flowers small nuggets of
gold were sometimes showered on the stage. After Catherine Hayes, there was a succes-
sion of fine vocal artists, and old colonists recall with pleasure the names of’ Sara
Flower the contralto, Madame Bushelle, Anna Bishop, who was the first to introduce
oratorio music, Farquarson the baritone, Madame Carandini, Madame Simonsen and the
Howsons. Later came Agatha States, IlIma De Murska, Carlotta Patti, and Sussini the
great bass, Antionette Link and Herr Elmblad, and, in 1889, Charles Santley, the eminent
baritone, commenced his twelve months’ brilliant tour, Madame Patey following in 1890.
The two great English singers named, achieved their completest successes in oratorio, nota-
bly in “Elijah” and “The Messiah.” Among the celebrated English and foreign instru-
mentalists who have won fresh laurels in the Colonies, may be counted Wilhelmj, Remenyi,
Lady Hallé (Norman Neruda), Camilla Urso, Martin Simonsen and Horace Poussard, vio-
linists; De Munck, the ’cellist; Bochsa, the harpist; Levy, the cornet-player; and such
pianists—taking them in the order of their visits—as Arabella Goddard, Robert Heller, Paolo
Giorza, Carlotta Tasca, Henry Ketten, Henri Kowalski, Madame Olga Duboin, Max
Vogrich, Madeline Schiller and Sir Charles Hallé, the latter making his first visit
in 1890. In the way of’ organists we have had men of exceptional talent in
Charles Horsley, William Cordner, John Hill, W. T. Best and Augustus Wiegand. To
William Saurin Lyster, a Dublin man, the most enterprising of managers, belongs the
credit of introducing English and Italian opera, though it must be admitted that the
Carandini Company had led the way, with H. Lavenu as conductor, in 1859. Lyster’s
first company—he brought out four or five afterwards—was composed of Henry Squires,
a tenor who has never been excelled on the Australian stage, Lucy Escott, Mdlle.
Georgia ‘Hodson, Madame Rosaline Durand, Madame Ada King and Mr. Fred. Lyster.
The Lyster Italian company which followed included Vitelli, Devoti, D'Antoni and
Bertolini. To this spirited manager, who mounted the operas in a style worthy of
London, the Australian public were indebted for the privilege of hearing not only all
the old favourites but such modern works as “Lohengrin” and “Aida.” Three Italian
companies have been brought out by other managers since Lyster's death, the last in
1889. Two prominent London composers and conductors have within the past five years
paid the colonies professional visits—Mr. Fred. Cowen, who was specially engaged to
conduct the Melbourne Exhibition Orchestra, which included a number of English players,
in 1888, and Mr. Alfred Cellier, who conducted a series of operatic performances. Mel-
bourne has been accorded the palm for practical appreciation of music. There they have
a permanent “national orchestra” of professional musicians for regular concerts throughout
the year, maintained partly at the public expense and partly by private subscriptions,
and the conductor, Mr. Hamilton Clarke, who was brought out from England, receives

1454 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

a handsome salary. In Melbourne, too, the munificent dedication of £20,000, by the
Hon. Francis Ormond to found a Chair of Music at the University, has led to the
appointment of Mr. G. W. L. Marshall, late of England, at a salary of £1000 a year.
A noteworthy Australian musical event was the opening of the great organ in the new
Town Hall of Sydney, in August, 1890. Mr. W. T. Pest, the veteran organist of Eng-
land, on a special engagement, “opened” the huge instrument, which is the largest in
the world, an audience of over 4000 people being present at the first recital. This
organ, built by Hill and Sons, of London, has six key-boards and one hundred and
twenty-six stops. The sixty-four feet pipes are a feature. In the Melbourne Town Hall,
a building holding over 3000 people, there is an organ, the second largest in Australia,
with five key-boards and sixty-six stops. Both in Sydney and in Melbourne city organists
are appointed to give weekly recitals, the Sydney salary being £500 a year.

That Australia is under an immense obligation to the gifted and experienced artistes
who have from time to time visited the colonies is a matter beyond dispute. The Aus-
tralians acknowledge their indebtedness, and they have begun to give their own native
talent to the older countries in return, Some few years ago, Amy Sherwin, “the Tas-
manian Nightingale,” gained her laurels in England and Europe, and now a Melbourne
lady, Madame Melba (Mrs. Armstrong), who won her way to the front in two years,
occupies a position in the operatic world second only to Adelina Patti. John Kruse, a
young Victorian, has made a name in Europe as a violinist, and two Australian “ phen-
omenons,” Elsie Hall and Bessie Doyle, who were sent to Europe by public subscription
while mere infants, have given evidence of astonishing talent as instrumentalists. Several
young singers hailing from Victoria and New Zealand, it may be added, have success-
fully opened professional careers in‘ London. .

The history of the Stage in Australia is rich in the records of great names and-
performances of commanding excellence. Curiously enough, the drama has a place in the
first chapter of the story of the settlement in Sydney, for it is set forth, and not with-
out a touch of humour, that the first theatrical performance was in celebration of the
Sovereign’s birthday, on the 4th of June, 1789, the play being Farquhar’s “ Recruiting
Officer,” and the actors a number of prisoners. A species of “free and easy” theatre sprang
into existence in 1796, but on account of certain abuses it was suppressed by the Governor )
in 1798. The year 1833 saw the first legitimate play-house—the Royal—opened in Sydney,
and the Victoria was built five years later. Melbourne made its start in this direction
in 1845 with the Queen’s, and George Coppin’s theatre was in evidence in 1854. A
review of the drama in Australia calls forth a splendid procession of men and women
who trod the stage during the period extending from the fifties to the nineties, and on
the lives and genius of nearly all of whom the dark curtain has been rung down.
Standing out most prominently is the imposing figure of Gustavus Vaughan Brooke, the
gifted Irishman whose powers in tragedy and comedy were equally great, and who was
the first man in Australia to read Shakespeare “by flashes of lightning.” Brooke, in
1855, whose name has become historic, gave the legitimate drama its first real start, and
with his memory are associated remembrances of Fanny Cathcart, Julia Matthews—an
Australian, by the way, and a celebrated actress—Francis Nesbitt, G. H. Rogers, Mrs. C.

Jones, Mrs. Guerin and many other sterling actors. After Brooke, in the legitimate walk,

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 14

DAY.

”

ON ‘CUP

LAWN

FLEMINGTON

a
S

THE

aI
ul

Ml
i |

|
Mh

1456 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

came Barry Sullivan, Charles Kean and Mrs. Kean, Joseph Jefferson, Dillon, Anderson and
Walter Montgomery. A later period brought the famous Adelaide Ristori with her
Italian company; the German actress, Jaunescheck, at the same time wooing the favour of
Australian audiences. Then we have had Miss Cleveland, J. B. Howe, Herr Bandman,
Henry Neil Warner, Adelaide Bowring, Edwin Adams—the American tragedian—Alice
Lingard, B. Fairclough, William Hoskings, Mary Gladstane, William Creswick—the
last of the old English tragedians—George Chaplin, Augusta Dargon, George Rig-
nold, James Bartlett, Mrs. Scott-Siddons, and within the past few years Wybert Reeve,
Alfred Dampier, Mrs. F. Bates, Helen Ashton, Ada Ward, Genevieve Ward, William
Vernon, Charles Pope, Louise Pomeroy, Signor and Signora Majeroni, Janet Achurch,
Olga Nethersole. William Rignold, Charles Cartwright, Kyrle Bellew, Mrs. Brown-
Potter, W. E. Sheridan—the great “ King Lear”—and George C. Miln, the two last
named being the finest Shakespearian exponents of later times. The year 1891 will be a
memorable one, for it witnessed the artistic triumph in the Southern World of Sara Bern-
hardt, the most powerful of the modern French school of actresses.

Were Comedy to wave her wand she could summon among her supporters in Aus-
tralia, in spirit at least, for many of them have passed away, Charles Matthews, the
first and the greatest of the merry band, Sir William Don, Dunn, Drew, O'Neill and
Rogers—the prince among the stage “old men”—George Coppin, Dick Stewart and Charlie
Young, William Andrews and G. R. Greville, Wheatleigh and Hydes, Thorne and Appleby,
Frank Bates and Phil Day, Horace Lingard and Sothern, “Teddy” Royce, Roberts and
“Billy” Elton, John L. Hall, Sam Emery, H. R. Harwood and Grattan Riggs, John L. Toole
—who made his tour in 1890—and George Anson, the latter the reigning favourite. Among
the miscellaneous “stars” who have visited the Colonies, the late Dion Boucicault, whose tour
in 1885 was a phenomenal success, shines out, and the names of Charles Warner and Jennie
Lee may be bracketed, the former making his great hit in “Drink,” and the latter in “Jo.”
Maggie Moore and J. C. Williamson had a sensational run with “Struck Oil,” a play
which has been several times revived. The advent of the London Comedy Company in
1879, with Blanche Stammers as the leading lady, and poor Fred. Marshall, the master
of a hundred parts, as the leading comedian, marked a new era of the dramatic art,
and the representation of the finest of the old and the best of the new comedies has
since been carried on with sustained success both in Sydney and in Melbourne by the
admirable company organized and directed by two clever actor-managers—Robert Brough
and Dion Boucicault—the latter a son of the late veteran of that name. Mrs. Brough
and Mr. George Titheradge merit special mention for their large share in the work of
popularizing modern comedy of the “society” order in the Colonies. Australia has had
two visits—in 1888 and 1891—from the London Gaiety Company, with Nellie Farren and
Fred. Leslie as the leading lights.

Conspicuous among those who have made and left their mark in opera—the legiti-
mate and comic—apart from the Italian companies, may be counted Fanny Simonsen,
Rose Hersée, Annis Montague, Lillian Tree, Emily Melville, E. Soldene, Clara Thompson,
Edith Pender, Pattie Laverne, Leonora Braham, Elsa May, Alice Barnett, Louise Lablache,
Marian Burton, George Snazelle, Charles Turner and William Verdi. In this connection,

some colonial operatic arécstes who have held their own against the importations from

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1457

abroad should be mentioned—they are Nellie Stewart, who made a successful visit to

CRICKET-GROUND,

MELBOURNE

AT THE

RACE

BICYCLE

ISLE EP

London in 1891; Alice Rees, Colborne-Baber, Frances Saville, Flora Graupner, Edward

Farley, Armes Beaumont, Howard Vernon, Charles Harding, John Forde, Henry Stock-

1458 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

well and John Gourlay. While touching on colonial talent, it may be recorded that
besides giving the English dramatic stage Shiel Barry, one of its best character actors,
Australia, from amongst her own children, has contributed to the ranks of the actresses
of acknowledged merit Julia Matthews, Eleanor Carey, Kate Corcoran, Florence Colville,
Maggie Oliver, Hattie Shepherd and Essie Jenyns. The extent of the support extended
to the drama may be gauged by the fact that in all the chief cities there ‘are
several flourishing theatres—Sydney alone having eight—while almost every important
country town boasts a temple of Thespis of some sort. Several of the buildings are
costly structures, and in point of size and architectural attractions compare favourably
with similar edifices in other parts of the world, Her Majesty's, in Sydney, and the
Princess, in Melbourne, hold the first places in these cities. The public taste may
be described as “omnivorous,” every form of entertainment receiving liberal patronage.
Comedy in drama and in opera, especially in the latter, is extremely popular, but
“the legitimate” in the dramatic and lyric art does not pass without full recognition.
Shakespeare, when well acted and properly mounted, pays, the two latest revivals on an
elaborate scale of “Julius Casar” and ‘“ Anthony and Cleopatra,” in Sydney and in
Melbourne, being completely successful. Among colonial playwrights those best known
are Haddon Chambers, Marcus Clarke, Walter ‘Cooper, H. T. Craven, George Moreton,
Garnet Walch and J. L. Farjeon. The drama in Melbourne owes much of its success
to the veteran Mr. George Coppin, who introduced Brooke in the fifties, and whose
enterprises have extended over several hundred thousand pounds,

Wealth and leisure have come to Austtalia now, and the prospect both for litera-_
ture and for art gives fair promise of being a bright one. Fortunately, for the interests
of the former at least, there have always been men of gentle tastes and a wide range
of sympathies who have extended a noble aid to its early efforts. Certain names of
prominent Australian citizens, to whom literature in the colonies is especially indebted,
easily suggest themselves here, and claim the tribute of that recognition they so worthily
earned. In Sydney, the late Nicol Drysdale Stenhouse was for many years known as
the Mecenas of Australian literature, a distinction nobly earned by his generous
sympathy with all intellectual effort under its then existing unfavourable conditions. The
late Right Honourabie William Bede Dailey, P.C., was not only a literary worker him-
self, but a genuine and sincere colleague throughout his popular career of all who
laboured in literary fields. In Victoria, the late Sir. Redmond Barry was one of
the foremost to advance the same interest by his sympathy and aid. To him was
largely due the foundation of the present Melbourne Public Library and National
Gallery, on the lawn of which institution a statue now stands to his memory.

It is to men like Barry, Stenhouse and Dalley, men of culture and refinement, of
broad sympathies and artistic tastes, of accomplished scholarship and ripened experience,
that we chiefly owe such small progress as we have already made. They supplied, in
some measure, the counteractive of that public indifference which proceeded from the fact
of the popular mind having been exclusively occupied with what are known by way of.
distinction as practical things. The evolution of social conditions is, however, bringing
to the surface a more desirable state of affairs. That tangible aid of an active interest

on the part of the public in what is being done, and in what is being aimed at, is

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1459
becoming day by day more definitely felt. The State has hitherto shown little or no interest
in its literary workers, or in the cultivation of an Australian school of literature, and no
attempt has been made to foster anything of the kind in the way adopted in other countries.
One notable exception to this blank record of indifference was, indeed, provided in the case

of Henry Kendall, who was appointed to an honourable post. in the public service. of

New South Wales. But, in a general sense, it may be mentioned as a singular fact—and

RABBIT COURSING IN AUSTRALIA.

one which may, perhaps, tend to throw considerable
light on the problem of the public indifference, until
recent years, on the subject of literary culture and taste—
that the Governments of the Australian Colonies have made no effort to foster, by the judi-
cious use of the unlimited patronage placed at their disposal, the development of anything
like a distinctive school of Australian literature. Other countries, and particularly the
United States of America, where the democratic sentiment is at least as powerful as it
is in Australia, have followed a wiser and more liberal policy in this regard. When it is
fully recognized how much of the intellectual life of a people, outside of its mere
material prosperity, depends on the encouragement and sympathy, on the part of the State
and the public, for the efforts of literary and artistic workers in the Colonies of Austral-
asia, it will be time to look for definite and characteristic results. The year 1891 saw
the first attempt on the part of purely Australian painters to gain recognition abroad.
The courage thus shown met with its reward, for the works of three young Victorian
artists, Arthur Streeton, Longstaffe and Fox, were honoured by acceptance at the Paris

Salon and the Royal Academy, London.

SPORT AND AMUSEMENT.

HE equable temperature and pleasant climate of the Australasian Colonies are
eminently favourable to out-door pursuits of all kinds, and it would be strange if
a young country so favoured, and inhabited by people remarkable for their healthful

1460 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

energy and enterprise, had not distinguished itself as one famous for its taste for sport
and popular out-door amusements. There is no winter in Australia in the sense the
term conveys to those who come from older lands; snow is a curiosity for most of the
native-born; there is no rainy season, properly so-called, and all through the year the
sunshine and clear air invite the young men of Australian cities to the sports of the
field, and to the cultivation of all that pleasant business of recreation which in England
can be pursued only during three or four months in the year. If the observant
stranger, who makes one of those flying visits to the Australian Continent from the
Old World that are every year of late becoming more and more common, were asked
to name the distinguishing note of Australian character, as it superficially struck him on
a first acquaint-
ance, he would
probably be
found giving an
enthusiastic pre-
dilection for sport °
and out-door
amusements un-
hesitatingly the
premier place.
Our national love
for certain forms
of sport has made
‘the Australian
name famous all
over the world.
Our cricketers,

our foot-ballers,

occasionally our
PARADING A ‘“‘CUP” WINNER. race-horses, and

last, but not least,

our scullers, have contested with the best material that could be brought on the fields, the
race-courses and+the rivers of England and America, and if they have not always won first
place, they have, at all events, carried away the palm often enough to make their prowess
respected, and their merits enthusiastically acknowledged. Team after team of representative
cricketers has at various times gone to England to compete with the best players in the
very home of English cricket; and more than once they have come home bearing the
spoils of victors back to Australia with them. Foot-ballers from New Zealand have followed
their example, showing that, in this respect at least, the most distant colonies have very little
to learn from the mother-country. The most popular of our sports, that of horse-racing,
has not yet reaped many laurels abroad. In June, 1891, Mons. Meg, a purely Australian
horse from New South Wales, won the Queen’s Gold Vase at the Ascot Heath meeting;
this being the first colonial win in England. But in aquatics we may justly claim to have

borne the palm of the world away, and our successive champion scullers have, one after

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1461

HAKBOUR.,

SYDNEY

RACE

A YACHT

Un.
a

SS SSS SSS

1462 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

another, taught the rowers both of England and America that they have yet a great deal
to learn before they can hope to stand against the material Australia has to show. The
consequence of all this is, perhaps, that we have a tendency sometimes to boast—unkindly
critics may say, to boast overmuch—of our victories in the fields of sport, But it is a
characteristic of healthy sport all over the world to be proud of success, and to enjoy
in the fullest measure the keenness of the race of emulation in the first instance, and
the reality of victory when the course is run, This is the very essential element- and
true aim of all sport, and after every allowance has been made for the disappointment
of defeat, the worst outside critics can say of us is that our healthy enjoyment and
whole-hearted appreciation of our victories are as genuine as the struggle we make to
excel and to avoid being beaten. The first sign of our decadence as a sport-loving people
will be the decline of the pride we take in the triumphs of our representatives; and all
who look on athletics, or field-sports of any kind, as, the best means to develope a hardy
and manly race of future Australians, will see in the pride we take in their achieve-
ments the best hope for the perpetuation of the old sturdy type of the energetic
manhood of the country.

To speak of sport in Australia is to imply horse-racing, and to suggest at once
the famous breed of Australian horses. In this connection the mention of the turf
associates itself in the most intimate way with Flemington and all the glories of “Cup

”

Day.” This is the greatest of Australian festivalk—the season when the representatives
of the fashion and the wealth of all the Colonies gather by scores of thousands on the
principal Victorian race-course at Flemington, just outside Melbourne, to witness the great
racing event of the year in Australia. This magnificent race-course is the best of its
kind in the Colonies, but its well-appointed grand-stand and reserve, with the spaces
known as “The Flat” and “The Hill,” are taxed to their utmost capacity by the masses
of people who crowd to see the “Cup” race, and each other, on that day. At Caulfield
there is another well-known race-course, while Randwick and Rosehill in New South
Wales are the corresponding courses in that colony. To describe ‘Cup Day” at Fleming-
ton, and to give the history of the Australian turf in detail, would require a volume of
itself, while even to name the horses of the various years, and tell the story of their
triumphs, would be a lengthy task. Horse-racing is the national sport of Australia, and not
only every metropolitan city has its race-course, and its regular meetings at stated periods,
but almost every little township and hamlet can boast of its local race club and its
periodical gatherings for this popular sport. The following are the fastest times on
record in Australia:—Half-mile, 48 seconds; five furlongs, 1 m. 1% secs.; six furlongs,
Im. 14 secs.; seven furlongs, 1 m. 2734 secs.; one mile, 1 m. 4o secs. (run by Boolka and
Kingfish); one mile one furlong, 1 m. 55% secs.; one mile and a quarter, (run by Car-
bine in 1890) 2 m. 7 secs.; one mile and a half, 2 m. 35% secs.; one mile and three-
quarters, 3 m. 4 secs.; two miles (run by Carbine, “Melbourne Cup,” 1890,) 3 m. 28%
secs.; two and a quarter miles, 3 m. 59% secs.; three miles (run by Trident), 5 m. 2534
secs. The fastest time for the “Melbourne Cup” (two miles) was by Carbine.

The history of Australian cricket dates from the first intercolonial match between
New South Wales and Victoria, played in Melbourne in March, 1856. From that time

these intercolonial matches were repeated every year, with alternations of success from
.

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1463

Sydney to Melbourne and back again to Sydney. The public interest in these contests
developed until they became at length matters of general attention, even outside the
circles of those immediately connected with the sport, However, it might be a difficult
matter to find many people in Australia not interested in cricket for its own sake, for
the love of this truly British game was transplanted to the Colonies at the very begin-
ning of settlement, and it has continued, together with horse-racing, one of our most
characteristic popular sports ever since. Up to the last intercolonial match, in 1891,
the totals stood at twenty-three victories for New South Wales and twenty-three for
Victoria. English cricketing teams began to visit Australia in 1862, the first being
Stephenson’s in that year. Since then ten’ other teams have visited the Colonies,
including those of W. G. Grace, Lord Harris, the Honourable Ivo Bligh, Shaw, and
_other captains of more or less note.

Foot-ball is a favourite sport in the Australasian Colonies in the winter season, and
although no unanimous agreement has been arrived at as to the rules under which the
game shall be played, a good deal of interest is taken in the performances of the
various metropolitan and other clubs. New Zealand players have long held a leading
reputation as foot-ballers, and that colony has sent several representative teams to Aus-

tralia, as well as to England, where they have

distinguished themselves by their successes. In

—————— —— or

A YACHT RACE ON THE DERWENT, HOBART, TASMANIA,

New Zealand the game is played strictly according to the Rugby rules, as well as in
Queensland, The consequence is seen in the excellence of the representative teams the
former colony is enabled to put into the field, while the players in New South Wales
are divided into three different sections, according as they elect to follow the rules of
the Rugby Union, the British Association, or those of the Australian game. Victorian
players prefer what is called the Australian game. In Melbourne, the game holds a high
place in popular favour, and it is no uncommon thing to see a gathering of twenty

thousand people at a big match.

1464 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

The game of bowls is played in most of the Colonies, but in Melbourne and
Sydney clubs have been formed, and the game is taken up with enthusiasm by the
elders of the population. Some of the provincial towns have also their local clubs;
and a friendly rivalry existing between Sydney and Melbourne has resulted in an inter-
colonial contest every year since 1880.

Foot-racing and pedestrianism in its various forms have always been popular
branches of Australian sport, and here, again, the climate of the Colonies is found specially
favourable to this description of athletic exercise. Walking-matches, hurdle-racing and
other sports of the kind have always been actively encouraged in Sydney and Melbourne.
Pedestrians from England have at different times visited the Colonies, and revived the
interest in the pursuit of these popular forms of amusement. Bicycling has hundreds
of votaries throughout Australasia, and the principal contests of the season are always
looked forward to with a lively interest.

Within the past ten years boxing has obtained a great hold in all the Colonies, and
professional and amateur contests for large stakes are almost as numerous as in the
United States. Most of the cities have well-managed boxing clubs.. Two Australians,
F. P. Slavin and W. Murphy, in 1890, carried all before them in England and America,
Slavin defeating the English champion, and the other colonial representative winning the
feather-weight championship of Americas At New Orleans, in the beginning of the
year 1891, the New Zealand boxer, Fitzsimmons, defeated the American middle-weight
champion, Dempsey, the holder of a hitherto unbeaten record. Peter Jackson, the
coloured champion, also hails from Sydney.

Aquatic sports have found a field for their exercise on the Parramatta and Nepean
Rivers and Sydney Harbour in New South Wales; on the Yarra River and Albert Park
Lake in Melbourne; and on the harbours of most of the other important Australian and
New Zealand cities. In this connection it is almost unnecessary to mention the victories
of Trickett, Beach, Searle, Kemp and Stanbury, who have obtained a world-wide reputa-
tion, and earned for Australia the aquatic championship of the world. The achievements of
these, and other famous New South Wales scullers, have brought the Colonies prominently
before the Old World, thus indirectly attracting population and contributing to the de-
velopment of the country. The victories of Australian rowers in England have also brought
ex-champions to the Colonies in search of their lost honours, and their unsuccessful efforts
to re-capture the laurels which had been carried away from them, drew the eyes of Europe
and America in this direction. The case of Hanlan, for years the world’s champion, is an
instance of this; the results of contests in which he was engaged on the Nepean and
Parramatta Rivers were flashed to all English-speaking peoples within a few hours of the
events themselves. Yachting, also, has always been a favourite recreation in the Colonies.
The romantically picturesque Harbour of Sydney is in the season white with the sails of
various craft, gliding to and fro across the bright waters of the bay like the white wings
of graceful sea-birds, and making the pleasant scene instinct with life and movement. In
the Centennial Year a gold cup, valued at £500, and known as “The Hundred Years’
Challenge Cup,” to be won twice by the same yacht, was offered by the Government of
New South Wales. For this trophy the Ara, Magic, Mistral and Wattange: competed,
the first-named being the winner. The most important regatta of the year takes place

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1465

in Sydney Harbour on Anniversary Day. On the Derwent, in Tasmania, and on the rivers
and harbours of the other colonies this branch of sport is also enthusiastically pursued.
There is little fox-hunting in Australia, but in some respects coursing and kangaroo-
hunting may be said to do more than supply its place. This latter is truly a national
Australian sport, and one which to be appreciated must be shared. A kangaroo “ drive,”

however, is a different affair. The marsupials are destructive. to grass, and interfere

IN THE BRISBANE BOTANICAL GARDENS.

considerably with the squatter’s flocks and herds. From time to time, therefore, a dattue
is organized, and the kangaroos destroyed by hundreds. As many as eight thousand
have been recorded as the result of one of these “drives.” In the old days of coloniza-
tion no new-comer was considered to have been properly naturalized until he had killed
his kangaroo.

Speaking generally, it may be said that there are few forms of out-door amusement -
that are not popular in the Australian Colonies. It is sometimes said, as a charge
against the Australian character, that our people are over-fond of sports and amusements,
to the detriment of more polished studies and more noble occupations. It is, however,

an old aphorism that those who play well work well, and our devotion to sports and

1466 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

amusements during the period of the growing nation’s adolescence may perhaps be taken

as a promise of earnestness in working out the problem of Australia’s future.

CON CLISES Pow:

HE results of-the hundred years of Australasian story may be very briefly sum-
marized. The preceding pages present the outcome of what has been done in the
Southern Ocean since the way was thrown open by the early discoverers, and to
the philosophic observer of the world’s growth, or the student of the development of
social and political conditions, no more pregnant chapter could be laid open in the world’s
history. From small beginnings the Continent of Australia, silent for many centuries,
and adding nothing to the sum of the world’s knowledge or its people’s happiness,
has developed into what we have described it as being to-day—an open field for the
world’s surplus energy, in which the mistakes of Old World legislation can be corrected _
under new conditions. The future Australian States have the lesson of the past before
them, with nothing in the way of the free application of its moral whenever it may
make itself apparent. All of the Australasian Colonies to-day enjoy Responsible Govern-
ment. Each controls its own affairs through an Executive, consisting of the Governor
and a Cabinet of Ministers, chosen from a Parliament composed of two Houses of Legis-
lature, of which one is always elective, and the other either partly nominee and partly
elective, or wholly nominee. During the thirty-three years since Responsible Govern-
ment was inaugurated there has been formed a distinct political class in each colony,
capable of supplying to its public life the material from which responsible Ministers of
the Crown may be drawn. Many of those who made _ political history in Australia
during its first generation of. legislative life are passing, or have passed, away. To
Forbes, Wardell, Bland, and others who prepared the way for the first free Constitution,
and to Wentworth, Cowper, Donaldson, Plunkett, Deas-Thomson, Martin, Murray, and
others who won it, all Australia is indebted, whatever the differences of opinion may be
as to the scope of the Constitution these latter framed. The names of those who have
administered it are familiar enough to Australian ears in all the Colonies: among them
may be mentioned Donaldson, Cowper, Parker, Forster, Robertson, Dalley, Martin, Parkes
_and others, in New South Wales; Haines, O’Shanassey, Duffy, Nicholson, McCulloch,
Higinbotham, Francis, Service and Berry, in Victoria; Finniss, Torrens, Reynolds, Water-
house, Ayers, Boucaut, Hart and Blyth, in South Australia; Herbert, Macalister, Macrossan,
Lilley, Palmer,, MclIlwraith and Griffith, in Queensland; Champ, Whyte, Dry, Fysh,
Douglas and’ Giblin, in Tasmania; and Sewell, Bell, Fox, Stafford, Atkinson, Domett,
Whitaker, Weld,, Waterhouse, Vogel, Pollen, Grey, Stout and others, in New Zealand.
It would be easy: to add to this list of names, but those given will suffice to mark
the stages in the history of Australian political development.

We are now within a month’s steam of Europe by sea, and within a few hours by |
telegraphic communication. Year by year the facilities for travel became easier, and the
ends of the world are drawn nearer together. The advantages offered by Australia as
a field for the investment of European capital, and for the settlement of the thousands
who are ever and again crowded out of the Old World, are day by day becoming more

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL. 1467

practically recognized. Capital and population are still the chief wants of the Australian
Continent, which is capable of carrying many times the number of people at present
found within its borders. Now that the facts of Australian progress have been clearly
set forth, and its story has been fairly told, we may expect to see the rate of develop-
ment progressively increased, and the problem of the future worked out with accelerated
energy. No reader of these pages can repress the thought that the future of Australia
must be a great and brilliant one—such a future, perhaps, as the history of no country
in the world has yet recorded. We have everything in our favour. Far removed from
international jealousies and the turmoil of European complications—set apart in a pleasant
sea to work out our destiny untroubled by the distractions of contemporary politics—
all favouring circumstances would seem to have combined together to usher in the
second century of our history under the most auspicious conditions. The Centennial
Exhibition held in Melbourne, in 1888, was not only a notable witness to Australian
progress in the past, but a gauge of prosperity in the future, and a landmark in_ its
history from which the past as well as the years that are to come will be measured.
The Colonies have yet to unite upon a common basis of federation before the full
measure of the results of Australian development will be attainable. But the signs of
the times point to the day when a united Australia will evolve itself from the Federated
Colonies, directed by a central representative authority in their national affairs, and auto-
nomously governed by their own elected Parliaments so far as the internal policy of
each is concerned. This is still a dream of the future. That it is not an over-sanguine
one the chapters of an Australasian story which have been successively told in these
volumes will sufficiently attest. For the most daring flight of prophecy, and the most
dazzling vision of the wonderful future that is to be, could do no more than rival in
audacity the dreams, so magically realized, of the argonauts of those adventurous argosies

of little more than a hundred years ago—

Sailing in search of some new continent.
Whose rushing keels made music as they went

= ——~ ss
Sy, i.
NACOGurs EuZKHETD ST

ma PPE ND ies

THE GROWTH OF POPULATION TO THE YEAR 1861.

HE history of exploration in Australasia is also the history of the expansion of
settlement, the development of the Continent’s resources, and the growth of popu-
lation. The early colony was shut in and circumscribed by the apparently impassable
escarpment of the Blue Mountains. The settled portion of the known Australian conti-
nent was represented by a part of the county of Cumberland on its eastern coast, and
for a period of about a quarter of a century after the arrival of the “First Fleet”
man sat down dismayed before the blue-looming barrier that cut him off from the
smiling plains and rich pasturage that stretched for fertile leagues into the luxuriant
country beyond the bold bastion of the Great Divide. Again and again he essayed its
conquest. Settlement spread slowly from the coast to the feet of the mighty hills—but
spread no farther. Rewards were offered for the discovery of even a sheep-walk; but
every effort to storm the citadel of the mountains ended in a repulse. Foveaux des-
pairingly wrote that the colony could never become of very great importance—Nature
had too rigidly defined its boundaries; once the limit was reached of production in
Cumberland’s fertile county progress was eternally barred, and settlement must stand still
for ever. But in the year 1813 the mountain heights were captured, and a glimpse
flashed on the mental vision of the men of that time of boundless possibilities for
the future—of development and expansion immeasurable. From now henceforth march
through the pages of Australian history, achieving conquest upon conquest, those
pioneers of settlement—the explorers. Fast in their wake follow the flocks and herds,
drought-driven, of the early squatters. The boundaries spread out before the ever-swelling
stream of enterprise, the horizon widens, the massy wall of forest-growth falls to the
music of the settlers axe, the shy natives fall back yet further into the dim recesses
of the bush, and the silent and leafy wilderness disappears to make place for the
clearings, the smiling farms, the fruitful gardens and orchards, the mills of miller and
sawyer, the villages and towns and complex civilization and organized society of a later
date. |
Australasia began in a little penal settlement on the shores of Port Jackson some-
what over a hundred years ago. A little more than a thousand prisoners and _ soldiers
all told formed the nucleus of ‘a southern empire which to-day contains close on four
million souls. During the lapse of that century Australasia has in her experience epito-
mized the progress of ages. In one hundred years this latest comer among. nations has
bridged the gulf separating the earliest days of rude and adventurous settlement from
the modern time of advanced progress, replete with all the appliances that characterise
the civilization of the eon-historied lands beyond the seas. And this compressed historic
life—comprised within the brief period of a little over a century—is a survey of the

history of the earth, or rather of the annals of man upon its surface. The earliest

APPENDIX. abe

settler to these shores was the blood-stained buccaneer, flying in hot haste from the
fierce pursuit and just revenge of the lawful mariner to mangrove-mantled creeks and
verdant bights for shelter and security. Then came the sentenced out-law, the exile
from the old lands anxious to rid themselves of their criminal off-spring; and then the
voluntary immigrant desirous of finding in a virgin soil the garnered increment. of
unused energy, in a primal civilization the scope and freedom denied to him in the land
of his birth. Next came the shepherd, snatching from the uncropped pasturage a novel
and a nomad wealth—far different from, far distancing the experience of the elder-
settled earth. Gold was discovered—and a hurried rush set in from every quarter of
the globe, bringing thither, besides much that might have well been spared, the errant
brawn and brain of Europe and America, The next stage in our development is repre-
sented, therefore, by the digger delving and diving into the mysterious crypts and secret
places of the earth, his cheek reddened with the hectic flush of the gold-fever, and his
sleep oft tortured with tantalising visions of deep-buried treasure caves, elusive in his
waking hours. By and by in this train of progress appeared the farmer, legitimate son
of Nature, reaping only where he had sown, gathering only that which he had strawed,
content with a just increase. The procession grows now rapidly denser. Successive
links in this chain of modern development they throng—the merchant, the worker at
the loom, in the quarry, the workshop, the factory, the counting-house, the teeming
dockyard, the palatial emporiums of commerce—there appears no limit to the manifesta-
tions of the young sap of that tree whose shoot first broke the crust of Austral soil
but littke more than a hundred years ago. This is the history of the whole earth; but
in the old lands it covers centuries. Here in this New World the great transition
between the impenetrable and unknown forest trodden only by savages, and the busy
streets, the crowded wharves, the close-thronged palaces of commerce and of industry, the
temples sacred to art and to faith, the legislative halls consecrated to liberty, the cattle-
dotted plains, the teeming flocks and herds, the ship-lined quays, the sail-flecked Saboars:
the luxuriant vineyards, the acres of golden grain, in short, the youthful energy of a
new-born nation, are all found summarised in the brief epoch between the year 1788
and that of 1891. The two following tables present, in all the eloquence of figures, a

panoramic view of the growth of population in Australasia during this period :

The population of Australia from 1788 to 1824, according to the statements of the musters made in New South Wales,
Van Diemen’s Land and Norfolk Island, as prepared by the Government Statistician of New South Wales in the General
Report of the Census of 1891:

Year Population Year Population Year Population Year Population
1788" 5 966 1799 Wa 5,963 1807 $4 9,180 1816 : 17,091
1790 re 2,239 1800 He 5,911 1810 «» 11,952 1817 .. 20,806
1791 ce 4,059 1801 ds 6,490 1811 «» 11,525 1820 .» 29,339
1792 Rae 4,213 1802 is 8,013 1812 -» 12,023 1821 .. 35,489
1794 Pi: 4,684 1804¢ 8,628 1813 .. 13,568 1822 ... $84,261
1795 oe 4,258 1805 Bie 8,541 1814 «» 14,105 1823 .. $89,701
1796 of 4,906 1806 ave 8,603 1815 .» 14,864 1824 . — |]45,965

* From 1788 until the year 1813 the population of Norfolk Island is included in the totals of population of New

South Wales.
+ Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen’s Land, was settled in 1804, and the yearly statements include the inhabitants

of that Island up to the year 1825.

t The years 1822 and 1823 are given inclusive of the military; the years 1820, 1821 and 1824 are given exclusive of
the military. The statements of all the other years from 1788 to 1817 include the military.

|| The yearly statement for 1824 includes the few inhabitants at Moreton Bay.

1470 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED.

The population of the Seven Colonies from the foundation of Tasmania in 1825 until the year 1891:

Year. | N.S. Wales.| Tasmania. |W. Australia.| S. Australia. |New Zealand.) Victoria. Queensland. Total.
*1825 ¢38,229 14,192 me =p vis see os 52,421
1826 ey 14,992
1827 ee 16,833
1828 ¢36,598 18,128 2 54,726
1829 eee 20,015 W. A. founded :
1830 wh 24,279 850
1831 aN 26,640 “x
1832 apt 28.903 1,511 f
1833 ©60,794 34,328 (1,511) ee vs cy ats 96,633
1834 vs 37,688 as
1835 eae 40,172 +o5
$1836 €77,096 43,679 (1,600) 546 os “3 8 122,921
1837 aay 42,698 1,830 a
1838 ay 45,764 AR 6,000
1839 bab 44,033 aaa AS
1840 oe 45,999 2,354 14,600 $2,050
1841 £130,856 £50,216 (2,354) (14,600) 5,000 4 ve oe Ee 203,026
1842 os ‘es 3,476 a 10,992
1843 =e? 75 as €3,853 “f 11,848
1844 eas say 17,366 12,447
1845 eee ose 12,774
1846 189,609 nor 22,390 13,274
1847 me €70,164 ty) eee 14,477
1848 te ave €4,622 eas 17,166
1849 | we = aes 7 19,543
1850 oe sae oe = 22,108
185 I £190,999 79, 13° (7,800) £63,700 26,707 €77;345 = 436,681
1852. | ase Bd x sey 27,633 iss
1854 | ot af 611,743 ee 32,554 £236,798
1855 | te ee 85,821 37,192 a6
1856 | 269,722 fe & 45,540 tas
1857 one c81,492 $i nee 49,082 c410,766
1858 oe as ee 659,413 Sad
1859 ae vee 614,837 ix 23,520
1860 | a a4 ie x pee vd 28,056
1861 £350,860 89,977 (15,691) €126,830 c99,021 £540,322 - €30,059 1,252;760
1864 / Bay Ee AS; €172,158 ss 61,467
1866 te As rs €163,452 dea ise #71
1867 oy 218,668 a oa
1868 on far €99,901
1870 ie £99,328 624,785 ai se oe ea
1871 503,981 (99,328) (24,785) " €185,626 €256,393 731,528 ¢120,104 1,921,745
1874 rr ea at ree €299.514 ans Pee
1876 te i A 6213,271 sie €173,283
1878 ¥en ‘- ee mA 6414,412 <a st ;
1881 €751,468 115,705 29,708 279,865 489,933 862,346 213,525 2,742,550 :
1886 = Ae oH se 578,482 ae 322,853
1891 €1,132,234 146,667 49,782 £320,431 _ £626,658 €1,140,405 €393.718 3,809,895

* The statement for New South Wales in 1825 is inclusive of the Military.

+ From this year, 1836, until the date of separation in 1851, the population of Victoria, then known as Port Phillip, is included in that
of the mother-colony.

{ The population of New Zealand is given exclusive of the Military and the Maoris.

¢—denotes a census year.

. at
*
a *

*_. ua = —_— EES Fe oe

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