ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 83, 16 May 1843, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the New Zealand Colonist. A Coup d’ceil of Wanganui. Mr. Editor, —Chatting a short time ago with a visitor from the “ Company’s First and Principal Settlement,” he said, “ I had no conception of the capabilities of this place ; the Port Nicholson people know very little about it, and still less, those at Nelson and elsewhere.” This is lamentable, if true, and indeed I have no reason to doubt it; our deserts have lacked persuasion. Methinks this might be amended. You have been at Wanganui. You know something of its physical conformation, and fitness for a population; something of the position of our embryo borough. Pray give us a column of long primer, to expedite the force of our merit. “ Majus opus moveo ,” say you ?—which I suppose means in the vernacular, “ I have other fish to fry.” Well, if you won't laud us, let me do so. I will jot down some of my oft “ recurring thought,” and I do so the more readily, inasmuch as I consider that you are not quite in tune for, advocacy. You saw us in our swaddling clothes scarce able to crawl, sent hither unwarned, left to scramble as we best could through the meshes of “ right of possession” “pre-emption” “jurisdiction”—and so forth, and still worse amidst the unlicensed vagaries of an “ out-of-the-pale” society. You visited us when the proposed town was a labyrinth of pig-tracks: you were perhaps jostled by some antagonist of Father Matthew in his “ across and athwart” career, or vexed by some sansculotte shaking his toga “ ’twixt the wind and your nobility.” You saw a raupo hut here and another there, something like pigstyes in architectural pretension: your ear was pained by every hour’s report of outrage on the swinish herd, and your soul was sick at the thought that it was preliminary to your morning, noon, and evening banquet of chops and potatoes. Is it not so ? Well, “ nous avons change tout cela .” We are fast progressing ; we are becoming a well-ordered society. We have the semblance of a town, our Areopagus to mend our morals, our schools, our imports and exports, and we hope soon to have a competent religious teacher, —then shall we need only the Company’s reluctant largesse to moderate our “ grumbling discontent.” But suppose, Mr. Editor, you accompany me to the Queen’s Park — our Acropolis—and while we prate of the whereabouts, “ the mountains and millions of acres,” let your readers *• learn, mark, and inwardly compare with other places, this cheerful sunny spot, as Colonel Wakefield calls it, in one of his despatches to the Broad Street Buildings Divan.

The Queen's Park, from its position in the very centre of the town, and its command of ocean, earth, and sky, mnst be a place of frequent resort. Its broken outline, when planted, and carpeted with the sward which this genial climate must produce, and tessellated with our many exquisitely delicate wild flowers, is just the place for people to saunter on in their idle moods, to grow kind of heart, and feel happy with this fair and blessed world. Let us stretch ourselves on this little knoll, and while we inhale the invigorating sea breeze, and feel the tempered warmth of the meridian sun, we will take a glance at the picturesque. It has been somewhere said, that “ which is picturesque to one, conveys no corresponding sensation to the mind of another, who regards it merely in relation to its capacity for the support of man, and the business of life.” In my small talk, though tinted with blue, there shall be no fancy sketching. It shall he true to nature —not seen through a hundred-acre lens, for alas ! Mr. Editor, my sections are “ far awa.” Pray turn your regards seawards. Is not that a glorious sea-view ? See the curvature of the coast; —those two headlands; the well defined horizon, and that bank of cloud hovering over the Middle Island ; the crested billows, and hark ! the murmur of their dying fall. Look at those fishing canoes, with their fragment of duck, the acquirement of European intercourse, and between those hills where the river debouches, a cutterrigged vessel, the “ Katherine Johnstone ” probably, from Neison with her little cargo of notions. But for that envious hill to the left we should have an uninterrupted view of her progress up .the entire reach. Now

Veer rolmd as if you were heading h " nor’west coorse:” There is St. John’s Wood, the boundary west of the town, —our bouvelards —,• farther on is Norwood, and between both is a very pretty dell, rich in ferns and lichens and mosses, and the outlet of Virginia Water, one of our many inland lakes. Now shift your helm a little to the east of north. Ay, well may you exclaim, “ how very, very beautiful!” There is the Wanganui, graceful in its windings, ample in volume, and gentle in its course ; the scattered forests ; that amphitheatre of hills with their table summits* and the wavy outline of those in the distance, “ floating in a mist of mantling blue;” the general verdure of all, and far beyond the snow-capped Tongariro. The view to-day of Mont Blanc is somewhat dim: in some states of the atmosphere it is beautifully distinct, and at sunset, when tinged with a golden radiance, and its canopy of clouds edged with crimson and gold, the scene is the very spirit of beauty. When the plains on both sides of the river have “ a garniture of waving grass and grain,” and the hills are mantled, and the air filled with the fragrance of the spreading vine, the almost certain result of a few future years, who would desire to wander in fair Italy ? Now look beneath you at the town, facing east, unhappily called Petre, “ a name unmusical to many ears, and harsh mayhap to thine.” It begins to look like a “ rus in urbe,” place. It is judiciously planned, but if it were half the size, it would better suit our means and appliances. The fenced-in portions are half-acre allotments, each with its house “ and appurtenances thereunto belonging,” as the legal'phrase hath it, and little plot of garden : some of the houses have claims to your commendation. See what an ample river frontage, sixty feet wide ! and its regular line of fence—an absolute liippodrame. How I long to see on it a quay-like bustle, and the hissing of steam pipes ! That long street parallel to it, is Ridgway Street, already beginning to have its frontages—these, and a few of the diverging streets, have been partially opened and levelled, that short-sighted people, like him ye wot of, may not be obliged everlastingly to take heed to their steps. Yonder hill is Cook’s Gardens, another of our places of unbending and recreation, and at its base, the Post Office; the solid slab building with the peaked roof, and cheveux des/rises outworks, is the gaol; that segregate house on the river frontage is the Court House, and these are the only official buildings. As a sample of statistics, we have two licensed houses ; one store — but in fact every house is more or less a store, in so far as each settler has his little stock, which he willingly barters with his neighbours ; —artisans of various kinds, who, as the preacher saith, trust to their hands, and each is wise in his own work ; three physicians by diploma, but agriculturists in practice, who would doubtless exercise their profession on an emergency, but hitherto sickness, disease, and death, have not visited us. Somehow or other the wheels of life run on without the doctor’s aid ; some casualties by drowning have occurred, but no chronic disorganization. If I say the wind “ sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away,” do not imagine that we are in such a vortex as Wellington, where they levy a deodand on boats that are blown out of the water (your Coroner will tell you this is a fact), nor is it quite so bad as on the west coasts of Ireland, where a netting and stones are needed to keep the thatch on —nevertheless there are violent but transient gales ; knowing this, we need only take thought ere they disturb our equanimity. As a corollary to this subject, I may mention that now and then there is un tremblr.ment de terre (I hate the English word, it gives such horrid ideas of “ gaping voids,” of “ fiery shapes and burning cressets”). We hear the grumbling, and feel the vibration, hut our chimney stacks are not rent, nor is our modicum of wine spilled ; we chat cheerfully about it as a phenomenonre ferrable to known causes,without apprehending more evil than from that “ spectre of the skies,” the comet. t

I have been rambling along without regarding that stumbling-block, the Native claims. After Mr. Commissioner Spain’s visit, my hopes of a speedy arrangement of this vexed question are sanguine. With, I bplieve, two exceptions, the Chiefs are quite willing to part with the land for a con-si-de-ra-ti-on, as the Dominic said. The reluctant Chiefs do not materially interfere with the selected lands ; besides, Mr. Clarke, their Protector, thinks they will be likely to yield with the majority, after a bit of a bounce. The question is now between the Commissioner, the Protector, and the Company’s Agent, and without anticipating any difficulties between these plenipotentiaries, we may consider the matter as on the eve of adjustment. This subject at rest, our next important look-out xis the attainment of a port of entry. I understand tne matter has been placed before the Government in such a position*, as leads me to hope that ere long the boon will be granted. The so-much dreaded bar at the river’s mouth vanished before the energy of Captain Matthieson, and though the channel is narrow, it was thus proved deep enough for a vessel of 200 tons, so that it only needs a few buoys to render the entrance more easily attainable than some vaunted ports in New Zealand. That little happy-go-lucky cutter, the “Katherine Johnstone ,” has, during the last twelve months, entered some sixteen or eighteen times—at high and low water, by night and day, with every wind but a' gale from the north. The river affords vast facilities for trade and intercourse, from its lengthened course, and the numerous tribes of Natives which people the banks. No regular soundings have been taken, but from appearances, it is navigable beyond the limits of the block for vessels drawing ten or twelve feet water. From its frequent bends, and the configuration of the hills, the winds are very perplexing; a broad flat-bottomed steamer, such as may be seen on the many rivers which fall into the Ohio and Mississippi would be an incalculable advantage ; it would lay open the whole upper country, and tend more to a union of mind and interest, to conciliate and civilize the Natives, than decades of missionary labours. Wood is so abundant that its maintenance could not be very great. I know that in America such small steamers only ply when the rivers are full, and yet pay, whereas here a steamer may run every week in the year. There is but little difference in the perpendicular height of the river throughout the year; what it loses in summer by evaporation and absorption during its long course, is supplied by the dissolving snows of the distant hills; the current is gentle and easily stemmed; after heavy rains there is a freshet, but it does not rise to the level of the banks, as just above the block, the bed of the river enlarges, and it flows with a diminished current. These freshets bring down immense quantities of wood (by the way, Colonel Wakefield, in one of these same despatches, says, that it only brings down pumice!) and plenty of ooze to fertilize the low grounds; nevertheless snags are few, and chiefly in-shore, rarely in midchannel.

The aim of settlers here ought to be Agriculture : our plains, and undulating hills, and uplands, and the adaptation of the soil to the purposes of husbandry, are boundless means to this end. Stock may be kept to any extent; the indigenous vegetable products, and the luxuriance of their growth, give us beef and mutton such as would not suffer in comparison with the high fed and

carefully stalled cattle of other countries. Probutum est, as the Cook’s oracle saith. You look doubtingly at those bullrushes and towering flax, on the low grounds. I admit that they look swampy, but you know roses have thorns about them; it is but surface wet. I have seen none of the flats that a ditch of a few feet deep would not thoroughly drain. Generally speaking, their upper surface is a mass of decayed vegetable matter, and under this a stratum of clay, through which the water cannot percolate. Being open to the dew and air, they quickly dry, and do not generate miasma, however admirable they may be as fostering places for mosquitoes. In summer you may walk over them without wetting your feet. Our mineral treasures can as yet only be guessed at. There must be the usual volcanic products ; hot waters are in the neighbourhood of Tongariro, which though probably an extinct volcano, is indicative of inflammatory colic. Pieces of coal, and of sandstone, are sometimes met with, but they cannot be referred to any known locality. The sluggish streams are turbid with a reddish floculent matter, and they have, as Sam Weller says “ a wery strong flavour o’warm flat irons.” I don’t give it as a source of commercial wealth, but a tincture of galls added to this water, gives a very readable ink. If Sinbad’s magnetic island was near us, the sandhills south of the town, would be reduced at least one third, so great is the proportion of iron particles. The natives use a blue and a red pigment as an outward hideousness, but which we shall doubtless find to be a means of decoration when we become oil and colourmen. Excellent lamellar building stone may be obtained from up the river, but Ido not know the precise locality. It appeal’s here in one chimney built by the late catechist Mr. Matthews. In the present absence of this, we have a never foiling resource in our clay formation ; it is admirably adapted for bricks : as yet our only attempts at bricklaying, are chinney shafts ; our modeller in clay was neither very apt, nor very temperate, and the business of course gave him up. A good steady workman would soon begin to net his gains. When the land question is at rest, we shall need Capitalists and labour. We have the elements of a useful community, but the forced inactivity of the past three years has prevented us from attaining an encouraging stability. For the monied man there is an immeasureable field, and for labour we must demand from the Company, the fulfilment of their engagement, that it should be in proportion to capital. Will it be believed that to this hour, not a single emigrant has been sent to Wanganui. The holders of upwards of 25000 acres paid their proportion of an emigrant fund, and of course are claimants to that amount. Hitherto the want has not been extensively felt; we could occasionally obtain some sinewy fellows, but only at an exorbitant rate. The wages of working men on the survey was fixed at fifty pounds a year and rations—hear this ye miserable cottiers of the United Kingdom who labour for twelve hours in the day for a pittance of six, or eight, or tenpence ! and this became the market price. Settlers who must have had help “ will ye nil ye,” were obliged to pay this sum, and soon their labourers retired from service and became freeholders. Other settlers of small means and gentle birth not having a Gibeonitish nation to task were compelled to be their own “ hewers of wood and drawers of water,” and these had not even hope to refresh their labours—their anticipated possessions was a dream —the assurances of Mr. John Ward, mockery—and they saw daily disappearing the conveniences and comforts which months of anxious thought, and almost griping economy, enabled them to accumulate for future years. Mr. Editor—l began this letter half-jestingly, but I close it in sad seriousness. We have been cruelly and shamefully neglected, our just rights have been withheld, and our remonstrances disregarded. A heavy responsibility attaches to the New Zealand Company, and assuredly it will be demanded. I know not, and care not through what agency this Company was misled, but to them we must look for redress. We trusted in their judgment and integrity, we believed their confident assertions—and they must recompense us. K.