NOTES OF AN EXCURSION TO MASSACRE BAY.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 36, 12 November 1842, Page 143

NOTES OF AN EXCURSION TO MASSACRE BAY.

[Extracted from a Letter to England.] [Continued from page 131.] Monday — Tata. — A native woman, who had come in the Nelson Packet, having met with a sister or old acquaintance, I witnessed for the first time what they call a "crying match." The two women seated themselves a little apart from the rest of the natives, threw their heads on each others' necks, and began a low wail or whine, which continued unceasingly for half an hour or more. To my fancy, there was something wild and sweet in this long monotonous chant. Its tremulous sobbing tone, reminding one of an Eolian harp, was strangely in keeping with the wild, lonely coast, so sunny and still. Although no articulate words are distinguishable, they do in fact carry on a conversation in this manner, consisting of mutual inquiries, recollections, and information about old friends and old times. On Wednesday we landed on the coast beyond Tata, to walk to the Motupipi. We kept along the beach for some miles, occasionally picking up curious shells. On reaching the mud flats through which the river winds into the sea, a tempting sight presented itself to our sportsmen; flocks of sandpipers and wild ducks standing by the water's edge, apparently tamer than usual. ____ killed fifteen of the former at the first discharge of his single barrel. A general chase after the wounded in all directions through the mud took place immediately. We crossed the river in a canoe belonging to some Tata Maories — a most uncomfortable conveyance, a canoe being generally half full of water, and swaying from side to side with the least motion of the body. Landing higher up, we proceeded to the spot where the coal is found. It showed itself in a very thick stratum on each side of the stream, and capable of being excavated in great blocks. Thence we passed over a swampy flat of bushes and flax, crossed a shallow branch of the river, keeping outside the woods, and began to ascend some woods inland. Following their ridges, we came upon a beautiful scene. A wide flat lay before us, surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, most part of the plain clothed with magnificent forests. Immediately beneath our feet was the prettiest little lake conceivable, in shape oval, with a projection at one end, like an elegant flask: its colour was the richest blue; and as it lay, a perfect sapphire, exactly at the foot of the mountains, whose declivities rise steeply from the water's edge, it is most likely very deep. The thickfoliaged trees, half surrounding it, slope over and are reflected in it. We noticed particularly the beautiful tree fern and cabbage palm thus doubled, and recalling Tom Moore's description of the date trees " bending Languidly their leaf-crowned heads, Like lovely maids when sleep, descending, Warns them to their silken beds." The violet-blue mountains, with their innumerable dovetailed declivities and dazzling peaks and patches of snow, as usual, bounded the plain; the tree-tops at its further edge, where it joined the mountains, outlined against silvery streaks of water disappearing behind the hills on the right, alternated with long wavy strips of land rising into pyramidal hummocks, here brighl in sunshine, there black as jet in cloudshadows. A native with us, pointing to this part, called it the " Waitap." We followed the ridge of the green hills on the left to a remarkable one (mentioned by Mr. Tuckett), with an abrupt stony face, rocks in irregular strata rising high and shadowed over with trees. Climbing up these, we got a view of part of the Takaka valley, but the trees prevented a wide survey. Returning to the landing place, we found the canoe and the Maories gone. They had left some cold boiled potatoes and brackish water, on which we made a lunch with relish, after the fatigue and heat of the walk. We were now obliged to foot it through the mud and wade the river. It reached to our middles, and was tolerably cold. We plodded along for several sloppy miles, often ankle deep in soft mud or wet sand, occasionally wounding ducks and chasing them with much laughter mid-deep about the fresh currents or salt water pools left by the receding tide. We at length descried the Deal boat, which could not approach within several furlongs of the shore; so we had another wade, this time through salt water. I mention this to show you how much it is the custom for people here to get soaked two or three times a day, and take no notice of it, and generally feel no ill effects from it. Many were the " korreros" about this time with the so-called chiefs of the bay. Here you were not to expect any of the gravity and dignity of your North American sachems, with their pipes of peace and high-wrought figurative harangues in presence of the listening immemorial forests — only a rambling conversation, into which impudent children and chattering women freely intruded. Much time was spent in finding who were to be supposed chiefs, what districts they held or represented, and where they were, the talk generally ending in their claims, though often frivolous and even contradictory, being allowed, and their names added to the list. As much distrust of each other and disregard of the interests of their neighbours was shown by these "children of nature" as could well have been displayed at a congress of European ambassadors, dividing an enemy's spoil among "holy alliances" of selfish sovereigns. Everything having been settled to the apparent satisfaction of all, the Deal boat was employed on Thursday morning in bringing from the schooner bales of blankets (very thick ones, with a broad red border), double-barrelled guns, kegs of flour, bags of sugar, axes, tierces of tobacco, and last not least in native esteem, heaps of clay pipes. The natives were delighted at

the sight of these treasures— young girls pulling out figs of negrohead tobacco and brandishing them exultinglyin the air, and the men bending: with ostentatious laboriousness under the pleasing weight of the various and to them unusual delicacies. In the afternoon Captain Wakefield and I strolled across the little sandy inlet at the back of the hill beneath which stands the pah, and at the further horn of this curve, formed by rugged rocks overgrown with trees, we came upon large patches of a coal stratum, as glossy and hard as any we had seen. They were visible from low-water to above high-water mark. Two others of our party, who walked further along the coast, found coal at another place, which they described as of superior quality even to what we had seen, and visible to a greater extent. We had now seen coal at Taupo, Tata, the Motupipi, and the Takaka. Our evenings on board the good ship Elizabeth at this time were very agreeable, and not without joviality. Infinite were the discussions on colonization, banking, political honesty, expediency, public faith, uses of the press, and German philosophy. There was the everbeaming Miso-porcus the Gold-finder, with his usual animation, enlightening us on monetary systems and the mysteries of currency, flinging a luminous glance (rendered keener by toddy) over the vexed imbroglio and sea of perplexities and embarrassments, spreading ever wider and wider around the world of English trade or the epidemic madnesses of speculation, accommodation, &c, which fever young colonies into plethora and precocity, and end by reducing them to debility and atrophy. And there was the Merovingian —

_With berd and here (hair) that hangeth long adown That never yet felt nose offensicun Of rasour ne of shere," as Dan Chaucer- hath it— in whose foot long flowing locks a shallow observer, especially if tinged with Conservative weaknesses, would doubtless have discovered "division of property," and in his pointed beard at least "community of women," and incontinently have rushed home to do his "possible" to secure his strong box and solace his wife; although a more cautious examiner, with sneaking affections for phrenology or physiognomy, could not but have read in the broad, capacious brow and considerate eye, reasoning power too vigorous and judgment too cool for entanglement in such flagrant absurdities, -— there, I say, was the Merovingian, rushing rapidly aloft into the thin ether of subtil first principles and keen abstractions, until honest Miso-porcus would be obliged to resort to a quicker stir or stronger replenishment of his "toombler," lest the weak wings of logic should refuse to lift him to that height, and, melting away, drop him, Icarus-like, out of the blinding metaphysical blaze. And there, too, was the Commodore, with his most temperate glass and often-tapped yet still temperate snuff-box, bringing the quietest, clear common sense and solid practicality to bear on the tossed and tumbled argument, clipping off the shreds when it began to fray into too theoretic and fanciful subtilties, and gently smoothing it down or stretching it out where it showed symptoms of the crumples and creases of prejudice.

But all hail, and God bless thee, Miso-porcus Philo-toddy-des ! Centre and sun of our system, oh most convivial of Gold-finders! Thou not " broth of a boy," but — turtle-soup of good fellows and mulligatawny of mankind ! — thou who couldst discern Potosies in fern-covered mountains of Takaka and later Pactoluses in clear-flowing streams of Hauriri,— thou hast indeed a far better gift, a more profitable alchemy, and dost outdo that ancient King who turned all he touched into the " precious metal," for all the objects and incidents thou seest or meetest canst thou not straightway change them into yet more-precious material— into bright sources of hope and glad occasions of festivity ? And are there not credible men among us — individuals, on the whole, of sceptical of mind — respectable personages, who pay taxes on all that they drink (their tendencies not being water-ward) to a Government that returns them nothing therefor— and are lawful possessors of swamps or guineas sufficient to entitle them to votes municipal— who are at this moment willing to make affidavit before a magistrate and testify to a miracle of thine— deposing that thou, of thy mere contagious conviviality, or peradventure some animal or spirituous magnetism informing thy frame, didst in the shortest space of time seduce and decoy our worthy skipper - a rigid teetotaller— into a second or third glass of diluted alcoholic consolation — nay, almost excite him to utter abnegation and abandonment of cold-blooded aqueous credos and ditchwater decalogues— ay, well nigh move him forthwith to " sell all that he had " (of congou and bohea) and follow thee, the new apostle and more attractive Father Matthew of some hitherto unimaginable TODDY-TOTALISM? [To be continued ]

The present spring has been unusually wet, and all the water-holes, lakes, and creeks, have been filled to an unprecedented height. The floods on the rivers have been very strong, and rendered travelling exceedingly dangerous. AImost every ford and crossing place has been the scene of some disaster, and the damage to property has been considerable. On Wednesday last, four fine bullocks, the property of Mr. Read, were drowned at Manifold's Ford, on the Marrible, and the only way in which travellers can take their horses across, is by towing them by ropes passed round trees on the brink of the river. Should the present unsettled weather continue, the shearing operations of the settlers will be very seriously hindered. — Geelong Advertiter, Sept. 19.

The unusual inclemency of the season at this period of the year leads us to the supposition that the ensuing summer will be early, hot, and prolonged.— Port Phillip Gazette. -