THE MANUKAU BAR.
To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times. Sir, —In the middle of the month of January last you were so liberal as to find me room in your columns for a long letter communicated by "A Traveller," and which said letter I had pretty • well forgotten , until my attention was recalled to' it a week or two since by the falling in with an told * New Zealander' of the 9th of last March, containing aletter contradicting the inference which I had drawn from the fact that almost all bar harbours, situated as the Manukau harbour js, are subject to great fluctuations as to facility of entrance. lam not about to lead your readers into a geological, discussion upon the subject, begging room merely to -observe that the reverend writer is most'estimable as a man in all the relations of life—most conscientious and active in the performance of his public duties—and a'sound geologist, being one of the'persons to whom Auckland is deeply indebted for the discovery of coal, his discovery being the result of scientific knowledge and not of accident. Of one-passage in his letter I propose.to*make use hereafter. In the mean, time I would call attention to the several consistent Maori traditions; well remembered among them, some of which have been recently communicated to me by a young man well acquainted with the Maori language and the manner of thinking of the people. Their oldest tradition is that the Manukau was a lake and that their forefathers caught eels in it. It may be remarked that there appears to be nothing impossible in this, as none.but very small streams fall into the Manukau, and evaporation might be sufficient to remove the water thus received. Next the Maories affirm that their great canoe, the Tainui —which in Gssianic language may be interpreted the Traveller on the Great Salt Wave—was drawn from the Tamaki over the narrow neck of land separating that inlet from the Manukau, into the latter, and that it thence sailed out between the Manukau Heads for Ka'whia. Then they affirm, and with such apparent certainty and clearness that one is fain to believe them, that there was formally an island off, the. mouth, of.the Manuka,u somewhere about where tn'Q outer,^pit and. .breakers now are, on which their ancestors were in.,.the practice of planting kumeras. Now there js nothing inconsistent in these traditions^ if we can but once allow the possibility of great'changes1 naving'taken place in the Northern Island; since''the;colonization .of this group of islands "by theirpresent Malay inhabitants. That mighty changes have'taken place;in' the terrene appearance of that, island,"since'-the Maories have been here is rendered .probable: t>y the/name which they.have, given. ; to '.the"-Northern! Island. — Eahei no Mani—which- has ameaning something like "hauled up'jfor,.and,belonging. toMaui." They have a tradition that the. God., Maui hauled up the Northern Island from the" bottom of the ocean,with liis .fishing line and . hook. These traditions at all events point with; much consist'eney' to alterations having from'1 time' to'timei-'taken .placein the entrance of the Manukau, all: in the' direction;of improving the accessibility of that port. • -'I--will-now revert to the passage alluded to in the-Eev.. Mr. Purchas's letter, which appears to me to-show a continued amelipration'/from' actual (observation-; remarking first—though somewhat..put., of place—that the steamer Prince Alfred has very recently passed over'the bar at deadlow water, the soundings' giving more than 20 feet on the top of it.' The quotation' which I anr about':to make from Mr. Purchas's letter is-rather a long one, but it is necessary to give it entire, as Captain Wing, from liis. own show-ing, appears to"have-sbeen guilty of a great dereliction of duty; as a surveyor, on whose survey the safety of .much life and property must depend; it was .his duty,to find .the best entry to the harbour that lie couM, arid riot to be content with finding such as ccmld be made shift with. The oblation was 100 valuable to be: laid upon the,altar even of that universally worshipped colonial goddess. . .. . .•"'.'' '
The following is' the paragraplralluded tb^-" Capt. Wing stated to me that it is nearly thirty years since he first surveyed the entrance of the Manukau, ami that he,'believes' it to be unaltered; Although the middle channel, is not ■ ■ laid, dowji in his sketch, Jie saw indications of its existence but did not examine it at the time; the other channels,affording all the facility for ingress and egress then required." The italics are mine. leannot bring1 'myself to believe otherwise than that Captain Wing must have been misunderstood. _ The entrance infa the Manukau has always been difficult, and to a considerable extent so continues. In such a case, how Captain Wing could Lave left the niiddle channel unsurveyed if .he believed it practicable, I cannot comprehend, supposing him to have been an officer at all competent for such a duty. ;' - ; ':■. :V V. If I take a common sense view of the matter, however, I cannot but believe that Captain Wing merely saw indications that another channel was forming, the same indications convincing him that at that present time there was no practicable entrance,
whatever there might be hereafter. The present] channel being the finishing, or perhaps improving," only, of that of which he saw the indications. This question of a progressive improvement of the. entrance of the Manukau is by no means a mere abstract point to talk or write about, for it will be found to have a great bearing immediately upon the prosperity of Auckland; and mediately upon the, facility of communication, and consequently of increased commerce, between that port and the westerncoast of the Northern Island, and all the coasts of the two Southern Islands. It is unnecessary to argue upon the probability of changes taking place in the land and on the coasts of these Islands, particularly the Northern one; and having these changes going forward here, at home, reference is altogether unnecessary to the still mightier operations going on in other parts of the world. I am yours, very truly, A TRAVELLER.
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Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 687, 8 June 1859, Page 5
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1,002THE MANUKAU BAR. Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 687, 8 June 1859, Page 5
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