A PIONEER.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1916, Page 6

A PIONEER.

EARLY WHALING EXPERIENCES. Exacting Ministerial duties have not completely separated tlie Hon. Dr. M'Nab from his literary and historical work. He still finds time to study records of the whaling days. This part of New Zealand is receiving his attention just now, and when his next work is published it will be found to contain much information relating to Canterbury. One of the most interesting historical documents that has come into the sphere of his studies is the journal of the whaling vessel Australia, written by the captain, Mr. Willian Barnard Rhodes, whose name occupies a prominent place in the records of the Wellington province's first developments. This journal is the only document Dr. M'Nab has seen which throws light on the commercial transactions of a whaling vessel, equipped in Australia. The log kept by Hempleman, the whaler, is very interesting, but it deals with a whaling station on land, not with a whaling vessel at sea, and other available journals written at sea belonged to American vessels. In addition, Mr. Rhodes's, journal has been kept in a businesslike way, is written in good English, and is very Readable. One of its most interesting features is a glimpse it gives of the character of the author. He was evidently well educated, intelligent, observant, and devoid of the roughness that stamped many of the men who took part in the whaling industry in those days. The journal and correspondence shows that it was by chance he came to New Zealand. He had sold a vesseT named the Harriet in Sydney and had. arranged to go to England, but' the owner of the Australia asked him to take charge of the vessel on a New Zealand cruise, and he came in Tier to Lyttelton. The harbor then was known as Port Cooper. Mr. Rhodes arrived there in 1836, and remained in New Zealand waters for about two years. The Australia stayed at anchor in the haTbor and at Port Levy for some months. While in the harbor Mr. Rhodes had the trying experience of a mutiny. His crew seem to have been a rough lot. They resented the fact that previously lie was engaged in only mercantile marine, and not in the 'whaling industry, and they did not agree with his whaling policy. His correspondence with other whaling masters places the blame on the men, who, apparently, were not in sympathy with him. He visited Port Underwood and Cloudy Bay, and then went after sperm whales in the Pacific. He touched at the Kermadec Islands north-east of New Zealand. Even at that early date, those lonely islands were inhabited. A family, left there by a whaling vessel, was making a living by growing vegetables for passing vessels' and supplying them with fresh meat. Mr. Rhodfg bought some pigs from the islanders, hut as the animals had been fed on the flesh of fish, the meat was not relished by the sailors. In 1839 and 1840, Mr. Rhodes came to Port Cooper again, this time in the barque Eleanor, in which he brought the first stock to Banks Peninsula. Tlie journal of the Eleanor is not available, but there is a great deal of the inward correspondence and also copies of agreements with the managers of stations in New Zealand. There js an entry m Ml'. .Rhodes's handwriting showing that he brought to Canterbury the seeds of certain plants .which he thought would be useful to the Maoris. In this way, pro.bably, he first introduced some species of alien plants to that province.