SPARS FROM HOKIANGA
Sir.-Perhaps I ought not to have been quite so dogmatic in stating that Nelson’s Victory could not have been masted with Hokianga spars. Unfortunately, however, all the available con-
clusive evidence seems against such a supposition, though spats were taken from the Waihou (Thames) River as early as 1794. Cook does not mention kauri, and it is known that the trees he refers to at the Waihou were kahikatea. Marmon, according to his own story, though he saw the Bay of Islands several times while on whalers or sealers, did not settle at Hokianga until 1824. When Marsden saw the chiefs at Hokianga in 1819, and told them he wished to examine the mouth of the harbour to see if a ship could come in with safety they "were very much pleased, and expressed their earnest wish that a ship might visit their river," which seems to make it pretty conclusive that such an event had not then occurred. However, surprises do sometimes occur, and everyone interested will hope that Miss Irvine may succeed in obtaining some hitherto unrecorded reliable evidence to support the Hokianga Maofis’ tradition.
A. H.
REED
(Dunedin).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19541217.2.12.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 804, 17 December 1954, Page 5
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194SPARS FROM HOKIANGA New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 804, 17 December 1954, Page 5
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