SAD FATE OF AN EXPLORING PARTY IN CANTERBURY PROVINCE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 140, 18 September 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

SAD FATE OF AN EXPLORING PARTY IN CANTERBURY PROVINCE.

DEATH OE THEEE EXPLODERS —HARDSHIPS OP THE SURVIVOR. (From the Nelson Colonist, September 1.) On Saturday, by tho schooner Mary from the Buller, there arrived in Nelson James Hammetc an intelligent miner, the sole survivor of a party of four who were exploring the Province of Canterbury, and cutting a track to the West Coast by the Teramakau. The party consisted of Messrs. Charlton Hewitt, James Hammett, Robert Little, and Henry Muilis, with two others, ail employed by the Canterbury Government. Mr, Howitt, who was a son of the well-known William and Mary Howitt, had charge of the works, and of the party. Their object was to cut a track from tho saddle down the river Teramakau to the West Coast, by the way of Lake Brunner. For this purpose the six left Canterbury, on the Ist January last, travelling overland with two pack horses to the \V ailui gorge. Mr. Howitt blazed a track in 18G2, and the present party commenced the track inland, about 40 miles from the sea beach, having improved the oh. line as they went on. In April two of the six went home, and the four named above proceeded with the work. Lp to about the middle of June, they had finished the track to Hohono Creek, which is 10 or 12 miles from tho sea. About this time they went to the beach with the intention of getting provisions and then completing the track round Lake Brunner, which had been finished to within two miles of tho proposed distance. Thereafter they proposed going back to the beach and working up—cutting the track as they went, until it joined with that already formed. This course would have permitted them to be supplied with less difficulty, as they could get stores brought by canoes up tho Teramakau. The returned on the 21st June, and again began working on the track ; all going on well until (Saturday the 271 hof that month. On that day Messrs. Howitt, Little and Muilis went across tho Lake in the canoe to go to the Watta, (a store for keeping provisions, built on poles some six or eight feet from the ground, to prevent the rats having access) to get stores, and also with the intention of going to the Arnold river (a large river flowing out of Lake Brunner and falling into tho Grey) to catch eels, as the party had no fresh meat except w'oodhens which, abundant at one time were then getting very scarce, as they appear to migrate from the bush to the plains where food is more plentiful in winter. Mr. Howitt left tho compass with Hammett and instructions that he should walk along and select the best track through a swampy part that they had reached.

On the next day (Sunday) it rained and blew very strong from the south-west. Monday and Tuesday were fair, with a strong wind; Mr. Howitt had not returned, and Hammett was getting very anxious about him and the others. On Wednesday, Ist July, ho resolved to go to the lake in search of them ; he got up on a tree on its banks but saw no signs of the canoe. Returning to the tent for his blankets ho again went to the lake resolving to pass round it; ho passed the night at Little Hohono Creek, and next morning (Thursday) put the blankets on his shoulders and waded towards the Arnold River along the edge of the lake the banks bejng precipitous and encumbered with drift wood. Ho waded till he got up to the armpits, and then constructed a raft of trees, binding them together with flax; with this he navigated by a pole. On Friday, 3rd August, while still going round the lake, he observed, near the mouth of the Hohono, something lying on the beach, which to his dismay ho found to bo poor Mr. Howitt’s swag, rolled up in the little calico tent they had for travelling. The swag had blown ashore. Hammett searched all round the spot but could find nothing else, and saw no vestige of the canoe. He concluded that it had sunk with his three unfortunate mates, during the strong wind which had been blowing the day after they left. The

canoe was very green, and even in smooth water was not more than three inches out of water, so that it would have been very easy capsized. Ho took the swag to the Watta, made a lire, dried Mr. Hovvitt’s papers, and camped, the rain falling fast. It was still raining on Saturday very hard, and Hammett again started round the lake towards the Arnold River, looking earnestly for signs of the presence of his mates, but he could see neither smoke from any fire, nor anything of the canoe. Arrived at the Arnold he made the raft fast at the head of the river, and went down along the banks; hero ho found evidences of their having been there, for the eel bobs and lines they had used were lying on the bank, and there were traces of a fire having been made j he made a kind of hut of flax and camped for the night, the rain still falling heavily and the lake rising very rapidly. On Sunday it was still raining heavily, and after spending a most miserable and sleepless night, Hammett started on his way back to the Watta, the wind blowing strong from the South-east; had it been otherwise ho intended crossing the mouth of Arnold, but could get no soundings with the pole, and fearing the current and wind together would drive him down the river, he was obliged to desist. After a long way poling, he reached the Watta at dark very hungry. Everything was so wet that he could not make a fire.

On Monday, the 6th July,) the rain poured down as if the gates of heaven were opened for another flood. The water of the lake was nearly halfway up the posts on the Watta, and the poor fellow says is his journal, “ I had to content myself with some cold water and a little sugar in it, and I feel thankful I have got that, for if there had not been a little flour, and tea and sugar left there to carry us back over the saddle, I might have starved, for every place is flooded, so that it would be impossible for me to get to the Grey or even in the bush to search for wood hens, for all the lo w lands are under water and so must make ray little stock of flour spin out as long as I can.” On Tuesday he writes:—“Touring down as hard as ever, and I feel lonely and miserable and cold enough, with no fire and nothing to eat but a little flour and water.”

On Thursday and, Friday the rain fell less heavily, and the flood in the lake was somewhat abated by Saturday, when the wind shifted to the south-east, although the quantity of water in the lake was so great that the decrease was difficult to discover. “ Thank God,” says the prisoner, “ I have managed to get a tire at last and can get a drop of warm tea.” On Sunday the weather improved and he went round the lake to a point in the bush to look once more for his mates, but could see nothing of them, and so he says, “ I fear they are lying at the bottom of the lake.” By Monday the lake was greatly fallen, and the old raft being so soddened as to be hardly fit for floating, he went round the edge of the lake by the bush opposite to where he picked up the swag, but still saw no signs of them or the canoe. “ I feel,” he says in his journal, “ very anxious to get their bodies if that were possible, if they are really drowned, and so I shall wait to see if they will rise, and keep myself on as small rations as possible that I might wait the longer. But I fear they must have got entangled in some of the trees, which lie sunk in the lake. I have given up all hopes of their being alive, for if they had they would have made their way along here before now, for food.” On Tuesday evening the rain began again, and on Wednesday it fell as hard as ever. On Thursday there was rain and snow, and all the hills were covered ; and “ I have now,” he says, “ a worse prospect than before, for my raft is waterlogged and I must make another before I can move from this place. However, I can manage to keep a lire yet.” By Saturday the rain had nearly raised the lake to the old height again. On Monday, 20th, the weather gave promise of improvement, and he took the raft round to a swamp where there was a white pine, and made a new one to get away on, as his flour was now nearly done and he could get no more till ho got to the Grey River. On Tuesday went on the new raft to the Arnold once more to search again before leaving as he writes, “my flour is done and I must ti'y to get to the beach. I have a long way to travel before I can get there and have done all that man can do in searching for them, and must now look to myself.” On Wednesday he wrote a notice and nailed it to one of the posts of the Watta, stating the supposed fate of his friends, and that ho was going back to the beach, it being impossible to go over the saddle. Next day he went round the lake but saw nothing of them. On Friday, 21th July, he writes—“l started again this morning on my lonely way. I find it weary work paddling the raft, and the water is so deep I cannot get bottom with the pole. I got back to the little Hohono Creek and made the raft fast. I have now given up all hopes of ever seeing them again.” On Saturday ho left the raft in the creek and started through the bush for the campon the lake, where ho found everything as he left it. On Sunday he dried his blankets, and having been 23 days on the lake without seeing a human being, he felt sure now his friends had perished because they would have made a raft if they could not have walked round. On Monday ho took his swag, including Mr. Howitt’s tin of maps and papers, and started for some Maori diggings at poor fellow’s feet began to swell like a person suffering from dropsy, through his having been so long in the water. On Tuesday he got to the Big Hohono River and camped in the rain. After passing the junction of Greenstone Creek ho reached the diggings on Friday, 31st, but to his great sorrow found them deserted, but only the day before, for the ashes of the fires were still warm. He found some flour in Simon’s wharc, and stopped there all night. After passing through six miles of the “most horrid bush he had ever seen,” worse, he says, than 26 miles of ordinary walking, he got four miles down the river, and found himself so knocked up that ho could not walk, his feet being frightfully swollen. On Sunday, 2nd August, he got to the beach where he found some Maoris who were very kind and gave him tea and dinner and told him that Mr Sharon, a storekeeper,

was on the other side of the river. The Maoris ferried him over, and they met Mr. Sharon in a fine large canoe on the lagoon; he took Hammett to his whare and treated him with great kindness. Here ho learned that Sharon’s brother and some more men were to go down to the Waitaka and they would see him safely over the saddle. He staid hero till Thursday, 6th August, being kept by rain and a fresh in the Paora, a rapid river between the Tcramakau and the Grey. Tjeaming that Peter, a Maori, and a white man were to start from Grey to the Buller next day, Hammett set off alone, reaching the Paora at 10 p.m. I''caring to ford it alone at night, he camped on its banks, and next morning as he was wading through it ho saw two men coming towards him, Mr. Townsend and the chief Pearapuah. The latter rushed into the river, carried his swag, and then offered to carry himself. This chief has a great name among the pakehas for kindness of heart, and Mr. Hammett believes he “ would risk his life or share his last potatoe for any white man without a thought of recompense.” The weary explorer set out on Monday, the 17th August, for the Buller, with Peter and another Maori. They had a very difficult journey, in many places having to jump from rock to rock, sometimes with the surf completely rolling over them as they passed, and having frequently to watch the receding surf, and then make a run. They moved on their painful journey, climbing rocks here and there, and passing through very bad bush where they had to leave the° beach, occasionally meeting a slight stretch of good sandy way, which by-and-bye would be stopped by a largo cliff, up which they climbed by means of flax ropes put there by the Maories. Crossing streams, climbing rocks, skirting the coast, and toiling through bush, often having to walk without shoes, which impeded their progress, they come to Tuesday, the 18th. Previously, at a stream called Paraiah, they passed a ship’s jolly-boat, quite uninjured. Hammett was so knocked up and ill from diarrhoea, that ho had to remain behind. It set in to rain in torrents ; he had no food, and had lost his knife, and could find no shelter. On he caught two woodhens, which came close to Him. On Friday, the weather improved, and he got a fire lit, and cooked his birds, and slept in his wet blankets as ho says “like a prince in a bed of down.” Next day, Saturday, he moved on towards the Buller in the rain which had again commenced, fortunately found the track, and saw four men who had come in search of him, Mr. Waite having sent them on with supplies for several days, on hearing the report of his companions, who had preceded him. He safely reached the Buller settlement, where he was very kindly treated, and arrived here by the Mary on his way to Canterbury, for which place he left last night by the Lady Bird.