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THE eagerness of the
Wakefield group of colonisers and the
activities of the Church Missionary Society put an end at last to the
lethargy of the English Government. New Zealand became in fact as well
as by inference a British Colony. The
execution of the Treaty of
Waitangi early in 1840 had
been preceded by the arrival of the main body
of immigrants at Port Nicholson.
These settlers of the New Zealand Company included competent
surveyors and artists (very often the one individual combined the two
attainments) who played an important part in exploration.
The first task of the
Wellington survey parties was to
cross from the Manawatu to the Wairarapa, which C. H. Kettle described
as ‘ the Plain of Rua-mahunga,’ a ‘ vast English park on a
magnified scale.’ His party completed their trip by crossing the
Rimutaka Range to the Upper Hutt Valley.
Dr. Ernest
Dieffenbach, a practical scientist, was the
first European to visit parts of the thermal country in the North
Island. The exploration of the
Lake
Taupo section of the interior of the North
Island was made by
Captain W. C. Symonds, who later suffered the
frequent fate of the pioneer— death by drowning.
The Tararuas with their dense
bush and turbulent rivers were for
many years an effective barrier between the coastal plains near
Otaki and the Wairarapa
sheep-runs.
In Canterbury the surveyors
were concerned with a practicable route from Lyttelton to Christ-church,
with the Rangiora swamp, and general transport expedients, rather than
with the development of the interior of their province. F. Tuck-ett’s
reconnaissance in Otago determined the Scottish pioneers in their
choice of Dunedin. His memorable expedition by sea and land took him
from Nelson to the Bluff. An earlier explorer in the south, Edward
Shortland, Sub-Protector of
Aborigines, gained from Maoris the first knowledge of the great
lakes of the interior.
When Edward Shortland was travelling through the
south Island in 1844, one of his Maori guides, the other chief
Huruhuru, drew for him this map of the interior which he published in
his book 'The Southern Districts of New Zealand' (1851). The inland
lakes and even a few trans-alpine passes were well known to the Maori,
although these districts were no longer inhabited.
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A pencil sketch by
Charles Heaphy of the 'Tory' and the 'Cuba' meeting in Cook Strait in
1840. These ships were chartered by the New Zealand Company to take a
preliminary expedition and a survey staff respectively to Wellington.
Captain Symonds accompanied by
Dr. Ernest Dieffenbach from whose 'Travels' this illustration is taken,
is seen listening to the chief, Te Waro. Te Waro was so anxious to
obey the laws of the white man that he wished to give up justice to
his only daughter, shown in the picture. She had committed a murder of
revenge, perfectly permissible according to Maori law and tradition.
This engraving from a drawing by
Sir William Fox is printed in the Canterbury Papers of 1851; it shows
an exploring party crossing the Waimakariri River. In the distance is
the Torlesse Range.
The Brigantine 'Deborah'
which conveyed from Nelson to Otago Frederick Tuckett, the New Zealand
Company surveyor.
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