HISTORY OF TARANAKI.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 328, 8 June 1878, Page 2

HISTORY OF TARANAKI.

We acknowledge receipt from the author —Mr Benjamin Wells, New Plymouth—of a creditably printed volume, of over 300 pages entitled “The History of Taranaki.” The author claims for it the position of a standard work. The following extract from the preface will explain its nature : “The Establishment of the European Settlements of Taranaki was attended with no ordinary difficulty. Not only had the heroic pioneers to contend with the primeval wilderness which received them when they landed on the Taranaki shores, and a barbarons and turbulent race of aborigines, but also with the inability of the Plymouth and New Zealand Companies to fulfil in a satisfactory manner the work of colonisation which thev had undertaken. The records of these proceedings are few and and very scarce, death has removed some of the chief actors in them and age has dimmed the memories of others ; it seemed therefore right to me, having a love for the work and having more than ordinary opportunities for its accomplishment, to collect, arrange, and publish all the more important documents and traditions relating to these affairs. iVly labours having - been brought to a doss, lam able now to present to my fellow settlers a lasting memorial of those truly heroic deeds in which a majority of them have taken part, and which have happily resulted in the foundation of a beautiful home for us in a fertile land and under genial skies, a’nd in adding another Province to that Empire on which the sun never sets. I am persuaded that this little work will be generally welcomed in the Province whose history it relates, and that it will have the use of all history by extending the lives of its readers into the past by leading them to the sources of existing things, and therefore to a deeper comprehension of them, and by examples of heroism and patient endurance incite a repetition of such virtuesA ful 1 index of contents which has been compiled makes the volume handy for reference. To any one who has not previously taken the trouble to learn the past history of Taranaki we should say,. speculate in this volume. It will well repay perusal, and is worthy of a place in the library of every settler. Some of the earlier incidents witnessed by the .pioneer settlers aye of startling interest ' and are graphically described, as also leading incidents of the late war. Pateacomesin for a considerable share of notice, and many of its present settlers will find their names recorded. The volume is published neatly bound in cloth at 7s 6d ; and in French raorroco with frontispiece at 10s.