“JOURNAL OF A RAMBLER”

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 9, Issue 1, 1 May 1976, Page 18

“JOURNAL OF A RAMBLER”

June Starke

JOHN BOULTBEE IN NEW ZEALAND, 1825-1828

A journal kept by John Boultbee, 1799-1854, has recently come to the Library through the generosity of Rev. James Boultbee, Dorset, and Dr Peter Boultbee, Isle of Man. This record of the adventures of a sealer, describes life on the southwest coast of New Zealand in the 1820 s; it deals also with people and other places. The writer made a copy about 1836 of this journal kept “in compliance with the wishes of a dear deceased Father. . . . more for the amusement of my relations and friends than with a view to that of the public.” He visited Brazil and Barbados in 1818-1819, and went to Van Dieman’s Land in 1823. Thwarted in his attempts to make his way to that “Second Elysium” of the South Seas, Otaheite, he was obliged to suffer great danger and privation sealing in Bass’ Straits. After returning to Hobart he proceeded to Sydney and served with the pilot’s crew at the penal settlement at Port Macquarie before joining sealers heading for the southwest coast of New Zealand where he was to remain from 1825 to 1828. Then with Sydney as his headquarters he was engaged in bunkering, salting fish and some whaling before embarking on a vessel which he left at the Swan River settlement, Western Australia. He spent “three wretched years” there, 1830-1833, acting as coxswain to the Governor, Captain James Stirling, amongst other occupations. With £26 in the world he joined a whaling vessel heading for the Timor Sea and later visited Manila before attempting to make his way to Madras by way of Singapore and Colombo where he arrived on 14 May 1834. We have no record of his activities after the end of this year apart from the fact that he died in Ceylon in 1854. This is no simple log kept by a semi-literate sealer but the work of a welleducated man, a keen observer of people, their patterns of life and customs, as well as the flora, fauna and physical structure of the many areas visited.

John Boultbee was the youngest of nine sons of a Marine Officer who served in the American War of Independence and later became estate manager to the Earl of Macclesfield and others. To the detriment of family finances, Captain Joseph Boultbee, 1759-1821, actively maintained his military interests until 1815 having raised a troop of volunteer cavalry in 1806 under the threat of French invasion. He retired from the Royal Marines shortly before his youngest son’s birth at Bunny in Nottinghamshire. Young John passed “through the hands of different persons, from the nurse to the schoolmaster” and was sent to a series of boarding schools from which he regularly ran away “being impatient of control, thoughtless and headstrong.” It is possible that this somewhat insecure

childhood formed the pattern for a chequered life during which he seemed unable to remain in one place or to tolerate the company of one group of his fellows for any length of time. The observations in his journal are those of a man brought up in an agricultural environment. He reveals himself as sensitive and romantic with acute powers of observation, but impulsive and quick tempered and given to introspection while excusing himself for his shortcomings. Forced by circumstances he suffered the perils and privations of a sealer always acutely aware that his manner and education set him apart from, and under the suspicion of, his tough companions and perhaps heightened his affinity with the indigenous peoples in the countries he visited.

After a brief account of his childhood culminating in a short time spent in a merchant’s office in Liverpool, 1817, he launches into a record of his adventures at sea commencing with an account of a voyage to Bahia, Brazil under the care of Captain Walker, a brother officer of Lieutenant Joseph Bage Boultbee, R.N., 1791-1865, who seems to be the brother most closely associated with John and into whose hands the Journal is likely to have come. John returned to England on board H.M. Schooner Congo serving as a clerk. At this stage of research it seems, in spite of the apparent evidence of Navy lists and family belief, that this is the only time he actually served with the Royal Navy although he mentions and enjoys his visits to naval vessels encountered in his wanderings. Next comes a short visit to Barbados where his family hoped he would settle. As always he reveals his skill in passing on vivid impressions. “On arriving at Pool Plantation, my destination, I alighted from my horse and walked up to the house where I found a middle-aged, swarthy, emaciated man, sitting on one side of the doorway, with his feet up against the opposite side, he appeared to take no notice of me, but kept his eyes fixed with a stupid and vacant look, expressive of nothing, but vacancy itself”. In spite of this unpromising introduction Boultbee stayed with the planter and his family for several months and was treated with great kindness until a situation was found for him on a neighbouring estate. However, after spending four months there he departed in disgust at the brutal treatment of the slaves. His first remarks are significant.

... at intervals the crack of the Cowskin (whip) was to be heard, succeeded in some instances by yells, but in more, by sullen, dogged silence. They [the slaves] all saw I was an Englishman, from my colour, being much more florid than those white people born in the country, and remarks were made, sufficiently audible for me, that convinced me they wished nothing more than that they had their master under the lash for a few hours. Here the pattern of affinity with non-Europeans is established and follows

right through the narrative. Boultbee removed himself to Bridgetown and was finally forced to work his passage to Dublin “in a dirty miserable Brig” arriving home penniless.

The next few years were spent with his family in North Wales where his time was passed “unprofitably and unsatisfactorily viz hunting and shooting in the romantic vallies (sic) of Carnarvonshire.” The death of his father, the idle way of life and the unsuccessful courting “of a certain damsel” led him in 1823 to accompany his eldest brother emigrating to Van Dieman’s Land. Edwin, 1790-1868, had a grant of land at Hobart Town, soon prospered and spent the rest of his life there. John, unable to find work, was forced to go “on board a miserable dirty Schooner of 45 tons burthen, going on a sealing excursion to Bass’ Straits”. The crew he described as the “refuse of merchant ships, former convicts, thieves and scoundrels fit for no society, void of every good quality”. Before very long two escaped convicts were to be secreted aboard. Boultbee felt himself to be under suspicion from the beginning. 11l provisioned and unseaworthy the vessel rode out a violent storm during which it drifted 400 miles or so. They cruised up and down the coast of Tasmania landing on various islands and making contact with sealing parties and groups of aborigines. The physical features of islands and inlets visited are described in detail in conformity with a pattern followed throughout the narrative.

He notes that sealers became so wedded to their life that they were unwilling to leave it —“they live very hard, frequently eating shellfish, and fernroot, when they are unable to get other provisions, or to catch fish—they (in the Straits) wear their beards long, and appear to have no inclination to keep themselves tidy; their general appearance is semibarbarous. . . . They wear a kangaroo-skin coat, caps of the same, and mocassins. ... A good dog is worth £5. the women are very fond of these dogs, and I think have a stronger affection for them than for their masters. When a boat’s crew are going on a Kangarooing trip, their appearance is very singular, clothed in skin cloaks, with their woolly headed accomplices and dogs around them. I have seen several of the offspring of these parties; they are a clever, active sort of people and have a handsome countenance, notwithstanding the ugly physiognomies of their mothers; their colour is copper, with a sort of rosy healthy hue, long but not lank hair, and their dispositions are very prepossessing. Some of them have been sent to Sydney for the purpose of being educated at the Government School.” The writer provides examples of the sufferings of sealers frequently made worse by the failure of owners to return with promised supplies. He describes in detail mutton-birding on Preservation Island—these birds forming an important part of the sealer’s diet —followed by an account of seal hunting and its hazards and later in the narrative an account of whaling in the Timor Sea.

After two sealing expeditions on shore at Philip Island Boultbee, “being completely tired out with continued hardships heightened by the disagreeable proceedings of the rascals on board, hunger stricken and disconsolate”, decided to try to live alone on the island. He was landed with “6 lb. of biscuit dust, and 4 lb. of pork, some melon seeds and cabbage seeds and an old dog, of no service only as a companion.” Soon he had to make his way to the mutton-bird rookery on the island. This was a journey of four days, with bare blistered feet as his moccasins quickly wore out. At one stage he was only able to obtain water by making a tube of albatross quills and sucking through them from a little hollow in a narrow rock crevice. On arrival he built a fire to cook a bird, fell asleep before it was cooked and woke to “find the whole island in a blaze;” his feet were a little scorched but his life was saved by the fact that he lay to the windward of the fire—the rookery was burnt out. He ate roasted eggs for several days and then had to hunt penguins for food “fit only for persons who are absolutely starving.” After three months alone and starving he was rescued by his former shipmates and eventually made his way back to Hobart.

In June 1824 he returned to Sydney still hankering for Otaheite, but worked with a boat’s crew for the pilot at the penal settlement at Port Macquarie for seven months spending his leisure time in solitary rambles amongst the natives, and fishing. Then, luckily for New Zealand: “. . . I was induced to go to New Zealand, to join a party employed Sealing by Messrs. Cooper and Levy, of Sydney. I agreed to serve them in this employ, for 18 months, on a certain stipulated share of what skins were procured, and to receive in advance 5£ in cash, and 5£ value in clothes or any other property.” 24 men, 4 boat’s crews embarked on board a Sydney Brig on the 14th of March 1825. “The contrast between these men and the sealers in Bass’ Straits was remarkable for with few exceptions they were an orderly set of fellows. We were on good terms with one another, and as nothing but goodwill was manifested towards me, I could well pass over those defects of manner common to all people uneducated as they were.”

On April 5 they anchored at George’s Harbour where all the boats and provisions for six months were landed. Boultbee’s boat took provisions for six weeks, three muskets, a dog and their clothes and went about a hundred miles north. They stopped at Milford Haven. ... a wild romantic looking place, abounding in high mountains, and intermediate deep vallies—the woods are abundantly supplied with game; as woodhens, green birds [kakapo], emus * etc —these birds are of large size, they lay their eggs in holes in the ground and in hollow trees and as they cannot fly, they are easily overtaken with dogs.

Later in a general description of the flora and fauna of the southwest coast of the country, an area which was to become very familiar to the writer both by land and by sea he makes further mention of birdlife: The birds are not remarkably musical—the linnets are rather so; The Bell Bird [i.e. tui] is of a purple colour, with a white spot on the breast, shaped like a bell. The Saddleback is a brown bird with a bright red spot on its back like a saddle; these last two species, are about the size of a thrush. There are green parroquets (sic), large hawks, and several kinds of wild duck besides Emus * greenbirds and woodhens, which are birds of an excellent flavour.

Sealing parties were always on the alert for possible attack by parties of wandering New Zealanders and routine precautions were taken. At Open Bay [Jackson’s Bay] Boultbee’s crew of six found tracks of a party of about thirty which attacked them in gathering darkness. This confrontation and its outcome in which no less than eight New Zealanders were killed was to give him a certain standing in his relations with the tribes in the area. The party, reduced by the loss of the Boatsteerer and another, now cautiously made its way to Dusky Bay and were comfortably settled there with the other crews making up the expedition until after 7 months an unnamed brig joined them and collected what was to the Captain a disappointing tally of 290 skins. This period at Dusky Bay was one to which Boultbee looked back with nostalgia, the same sentiment he was to experience when exhilarated by whaling in the Timor Sea. He enjoyed the beauty of Dusky Bay as well as the company of his fellows and describes the nature of their sealing activities in the area going right into caves “sufficiently spacious to admit of 8 to 10 boats,” to hunt their quarry. He mentions in passing the finding of “one of Cook’s Medals among a heap of rubbish on Iron Island, it was a composite piece, of the size of a penny; .... —this I foolishly gave away for a trifle, which lam sorry for as several of my friends would have liked to have had it. . . . There is a simple sketch of both sides of the medal with the journal. Boultbee also sees himself as:

an altered person and changed from the delicate youth, to about as rough a piece of goods as ever weathered the wide world. Notwithstanding I was as hardy and robust as most people, there was something about me, which caused my boatmates to suspect I was a degree or two above their level, and I was often amused at their remarks. One day, as I was sitting writing, two or three of the crew observed ‘he is a regular scholard, and keeps a log of all that is

going on’. One said ‘I think he must be some swell’s son, and he has spent his money, it is a pity such like chaps should come to this . . .’

The boat’s crew now set off to join the brig which had “proceeded to the Straits to purchase flax, pork and potatoes”. Boultbee takes up the narrative: ... We reached Pahee, [Pahia] the most western settlement in Solander’s Straits: As we approached the beach we saw some straggling natives carelessly walking towards the landing place; . . . On hauling up the boat, a white man made his appearance, dressed in a red shirt, and duck trowsers; this was no other than Jack Price of whom we had heard so many stories. He had a girl with him who spoke a few unconnected words of English. When we had secured our provisions and made the boat safe, we sat down to supper; surrounded by the boys, girls and women who remained, (all the men having gone to war with a tribe about 400 miles distant). It was amusing to see these people, peeping into our pockets, pulling up our trowsers, to see if we had good legs, and making other gestures, characteristic of the wild New Zealanders. The young woman who lived with Price was by far the best looking of the whole; her complexion was a bright olive, with a rather round face, black and large rolling eyes, and a luxuriant head of hair curling down in ringlets over her well formed shoulders. Some of the other girls were tolerably well-featured, but not so clean in their persons. However I felt in some degree attracted by those few charms they possessed, and I soon made choice of a female whom I presented with a brass curb, which I told her was an European lady’s necklace! of this precious article the poor girl took special care, rubbing it over with ashes to brighten it, and as it was of brass, it was the more prizeable ... I bought a few mats etc. and after answering their numerous half intelligible questions, the best way I could, I retired to sleep for the first time among natives.

Then follows a detailed description of the settlement comprising about 40 to 50 houses some about 30 feet long. . . The walls are about 2 feet high, but the roofs are lofty, being nearly 20 feet from the wall-plate to the ridge pole which is placed in a slanting direction, the highest end being next to the gable end where the door is. . . . On each side are platforms of a species of bamboo, which are elevated about 3 feet from the ground; on these the people sleep, or sit at work when they are making mats etc. The passage between the platforms is about 2 feet, and extends the length of the house.” They now proceeded to “Ruaboka” [Ruapuke] Island and it becomes

apparent that the Captain of the unnamed brig which returned to pick up the sealing party at Dusky Bay was John Rodolphus Kent (d. 1837). The writer mentions “there were likewise 2 of our brig’s people here, who were left on the island by Capt. Kent to procure flax for him in his absence . . .” Kent was undoubtedly in the area in 1826 with the brig Elizabeth in the service of Cooper and Levy. Within a few weeks our hero left his party and with another of his group and a New Zealander joined Jack Price who had bought a leaky, 4 oared whaleboat. Now commenced another period in which Boultbee was to suffer great privation and to look back with sentiments of nostalgia on conditions he had left behind. Be that as it may Jack Price is most vividly depicted and his reputation for “rashness” substantiated. There is a description of Price and his party returning from a mutton-birding expedition in their leaking boat in high seas with the two women bailing. “I must not forget to mention that one of the women screamed out lustily at this time, but Price’s companion bore it with the utmost coolness; she had been with him before in many a gust and many a critical situation, which his rashness had placed him in. As to the native man he threw 9 bags of birds overboard, and in his fright so far forgot himself that he was on the {joint of going to throw the oars overboard but was prevented by us.” The two women were “Nefitteea”, Price’s wife, daughter of “Pohu”, a chief and brother of “Taattooa”, “headman of Otargo”, and Boultbee’s woman, bought from her father for a musket—“our little seraglio”.

Captain Kent felt threatened enough by Price’s activities to have had an unsuccessful attempt made on his life by a party of natives at Ruapuke which Boultbee describes in detail. He also records the loss in the fray of his papers and books including his Bible, wanted by the natives to make cartridges. More important he sets down the causes of the animosity between the two men describing Kent’s approach to the New Zealanders, his knowledge of the language, his partiality with the people. He created the impression of being “a Rangatira Nui (great chief) so that a great part of the natives swayed by self interest, and credulity, considered him as a man of consequence.” Price, under the protection of “Nefitteea”, spoke of Captain Kent as a “tourekka”, or “cookie” of no note. Boultbee notes that “Nefitteea’s” family ties would have more influence over the natives than “Kent’s persuasions”. It is interesting to note the reaction of a young chief, “Topoi”, who had been to Sydney, who told Kiroro (Price’s attacker) that if he had killed a white man his own life would have been forfeit and “he would have been scouted by even the natives themselves, who for their own interest ought to encourage them, as their trade depended on them.” Boultbee himself shortly before leaving New Zealand was to become “the white man” of Otago tribes and is under no illusions as to the reasons for their gifts and

promises to him. He notes in passing “sometimes they would ask me to shew them how to write, which I did, on the sand.”

SETTLEMENTS IN SOLANDERS STRAITS

Now a New Zealander’s character springs to life when Boultbee meets at Ruapuke, “Tarbuka”, [Whakataupuka, (Taboca)], principal chief of the “Straits natives” who became his friend and protector. He describes the meeting

He saluted us by touching noses, and told us to stay with him,—he took particular notice of me, and called me Onee (Sand) from my having sandy whiskers. I was struck with admiration when I first saw Tarbuka, he was the most complete model of strength, activity, and elegance I had seen combined in any man. He was in height 5 feet 10 inches; his muscular well formed arms and handsome falling broad shoulders, well turned limbs, and erect stature, together with his active, lively gait, were such as could not be witnessed by any one without exciting their notice. His countenance was not exactly handsome, but very prepossessing, and bespoke a quick intelligent mind and all the Physiognomists in England in spite of their pretended knowledge, could not find out a feature (in his calm state) expressive of ferocity, or that blood-thirsty disposition which he has given evident proofs of possessing. ... I have seen him with the white people playing and joking with him in as careless a manner as if they were amongst their countrymen, but only once, saw him show any sort of anger. . . .

Boultbee made a simple sketch of Taboca, aged 34 [ca 1826] which survives with the Journal. Taboca showed Boultbee the measure of his friendship by saluting him and even placing his little daughter in his care as hostage as evidence of his protection when an ugly situation arose when the sealers reported the death of the chiefs only son, Golok; it was he too who persuaded Boultbee to place himself under the protection of the Otago chiefs “Tiaroa” and “Curratio”. “Tarbuka told me, if I would leave my own way of clothing and dressed in a “ cokatoo ” [kakahu, cloak] I should be well liked, and as long as I staid amongst New Zealanders I should not want. He said the white people were too selfish.” However Boultbee gives more than one example of Taboca’s great barbarity. Referring to his utter grief at the death of his son and the ceremonies related to the event he observes that “these rude sons of nature know no medium: in their anger; joy; friendship or sorrow, they are either one extreme or the other”. This is followed a few pages later by an account of the chief’s horrifying murder of a poor woman, the exposure and removal of her limbs etc from the body and its final burial by white men who could endure the situation no longer. The writer continues “I saw her head,

it was preserved, but the features were shrunk and her face had none of the round form which it possessed when alive.” Elsewhere he names another head, that of a murderer Koura, and tells of the circumstances of his killing and the cooking and eating of his body. “. . . I saw the head of Koura sometime after at Ruabuka it was adorned with feathers, the hair remained and the whole of the face as when alive, except that in the place of the eyes, bright shells were fixed in their sockets, the teeth were visible. I cannot give you any account of how they preserve their heads.”

All the time Boultbee was in the South it is quite evident that the New Zealanders were concerned with inter-tribal wars and continually threatened by the possibility of retaliatory raids. When he first went to Pahia he noted that all the men were at war. On their second visit to the settlement, which Price looked upon as his home, they were given an account of this fight at “Ackalore or Kikoura” by an old man “Poree Pahbah” “a stout, tall fellow with a bushy beard, and his face and hands were stained with the juice of Etootoo . . . the redness of which might easily be taken for blood.” He reported that 70 of the enemy had been killed by the Straits natives who had not lost a man by violence although a chief “Towiwi” had died of some ailment. As Price and his party made their way from settlement to settlement Boultbee recorded the ceremonies arising from the death of this chief and heard of the cruelties practised on the raiders’ captives “. . . Several of [the children] were tied up in lots and hung round the sterns of the canoes so that as they went along, they were choaked (sic) by the waves . . .” Significantly Boultbee notices near the end of his stay in the Straits area “the natives began to be alarmed at the report of ‘Temiranue’, coming to avenge the outrages committed by them, the last war (or massacre, rather,) at Ackalore. His coadjutor “Rowbulla”, [Te Rauparaha] a chief at Cabbooti [Kapiti] Island, in Cook’s Straits, had also threatened them, so that the natives of the Easternmost settlements were abandoning their homes, and forming fresh settlements in different places Ruabuka, South Cape etc.”

Seasonal movement of native parties occupied in food-gathering is recorded especially as regards mutton-birding. On arrival at Bluff on one occasion the party saw 11 canoes and about 200 natives who had made their way from the “Eastward” to collect this essential commodity. Boultbee carefully describes the canoes and their sailing capacity. Each chief had a particular island of mutton birds which he and his tribe kept for their own use and where during the season they lived for about a month. Here “they skinned the birds and took out the principal bones, after which they roasted them and put them into large bags, made by splitting immense sheets of kelp which abounds here —these bags being fastened up and kept air tight to prevent the birds from being tainted,

and I have eaten them after they have been 8 months in these bags and found the meat as fresh as when put in. It is by these means the New Zealanders, preserve their other articles of animal food.” Methods of fishing for barraeouta, planting and cultivating potatoes are noted. These latter were introduced by Captain Cook and by this time formed an important food as well as trade crop together with flax for dealings with the sealers and ships trading in and out of Sydney. There is comment on “Etootoo” (Tutu), the juice of which made a pleasant beverage in season. “When I was at Pahee I used the juice with a little gunpowder mixed as a substitute for Ink; and wrote a brief Journal of my adventures . . .”

The writer’s interest in the customs of the New Zealanders is revealed throughout the narrative but he says the “. . . strange custom of ‘tabooing’ I do not understand, further than that it is a law strictly observed.” He cites several examples of its operation with regard to the violation of a chief’s head, food gathering near an abandoned house and its application in relation to fire etc. He also provides a simple answer based on native superstition which would account for the fact that there were no further incidents of the nature of the massacre of the crew of the General Gates which took place in December 1822.

Boultbee was to be disappointed more than once in his endeavour to return to Sydney. This led him to join the Otago chiefs for a little time but he finally went to Bluff and joined yet another sealing crew for a further season. Now followed once more a period of hard work and hunger made notable for posterity by a visit to Pegasus Harbour. “[Here] we found a shipwright named Cook, 8 men and 9 women from the Bay of Islands, they had been greatly distressed for food and we were unfortunately unable to assist them.” He describes Cook’s contract with the Commander of the Prince of Denmark, William Stewart, to build “a vessel of 100 tons burthen” at Pegasus. The party was provisioned for six months but had been there for twelve and had abandoned the project to forage for food—“cockles, muscles (sic) and fern root.” He noted the contrast between the lean and haggard men and their plump women. Each man lived with his woman in a two-roomed house “Cook had 3 or 4 children; his eldest boy could write, and spoke English very perfectly. The women washed, mended clothes etc —and they seemed to be much more expert at making mats than those natives in the neighbourhood of the Straits and far tidier in their persons.” Boultbee made the most of his time here as is indicated in his vocabulary appended to the account of his New Zealand experiences. There he notes more than one variation in speech between the New Zealanders of the Bay of Islands and the Straits. The sealing party returned some months later and found Cook and his people in great distress. “They had begun to build a small craft of about

25 tons to take themselves to the Bay of Islands: they had no iron or nails and were going to fasten her together with trunnels[?]. The women set to work cheerfully to make mats for sails and ropes of flax. This makeshift little bark was expected to be ready in 10 months time.”

Boultbee finally made his way to Sydney as a stowaway on board the Samuel on a voyage which probably ended there with a cargo of sealskins on 8 March 1828. To his account of life in New Zealand he adds a list of Settlements in Solander’s Straits and another of Men’s names and characters, comprising chiefs and other New Zealanders encountered on his wanderings including “Tuaviki” (Tuhawaiki, 1805?-1844), called Bloody Jack by the sealers, “Brother [i.e. nephew] both in blood and in disposition to Tarbuka.” Women have their place in the list. There is also a vocabulary and comment on singing with examples of chants. He includes simple sketches: Whakataupuka aged 34, canoes including a double canoe, both sides of the Cook medal found at Dusky Bay, New Zealanders’ houses, their weapons etc.

All the above comprises little more than half the adventures of John Boultbee but the second section continues with the same keen observation and detailed description of his many adventures. He departed from Hobart Town in 1830 on a rundown whaling vessel, the Ephimina, heading for the Timor Sea. His relations with the Captain and crew became so bad that he insisted on his discharge at the Swan River settlement, Western Australia. He paints a grim picture of a colony which barely survived, becoming established in “a dreary, sandy and barren looking hole;” where food and other basic commodities became increasingly scarce and payment for work done was to be made in local paper money —“one might wear this makeshift rubbish away in one day, by chaffing, in one’s pocket”.

After three years of fluctuating fortune he sailed from Swan River in January 1833 on the Sir Francis M’Naughten, a whaler smuggling a cargo of muskets to Capang [Koepang] in the Malay Archipelago. Some time was spent here and Boultbee left “with some regret, for my newly acquired partner on shore, had attracted me more than I could have believed.” While journeying through the islands of the area the tale is told with dated entries and many vessels encountered are named (a notable omission in the New Zealand section). Comment is made as before on the many facets of life in the area—the people, their way of life, customs and politics, geographical details, vegetation, crops etc. Boultbee reveals his strong preference for the native peoples as contrasted with their Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish overlords with particular prejudice towards Roman Catholic missionaries and their converts.

A lively account of whaling in the Timor Sea is given. This was not a successful venture in terms of whales captured but was memorable to

the writer because of the sense of well-being created by the exercise in the boats and the fresh sea air. He contrasts this with a relative state of lethargy experienced when leading a shore life. The vessel, completely unseaworthy, was forced to put in at the island of Ternate in the Moluccas. Its “burning mountain” was just beginning to explode for the first time in 16 years as they entered the harbour. They stayed here for three months until their ship which could not be repaired was auctioned. Boultbee found this a pleasant place, a centre of trade with a variety of peoples—“ Malays, Arabs, Chinamen, Bengalis and some slaves from Papua or New Guinea”. There were also 500 Dutch troops and 2000 Malay soldiers. Here he felt and described an earthquake and spent a period of confinement in the watchhouse “but it was my own random temper that caused it . . . During my exile I passed my time in committing to paper the Malay and English words commonly used which I wrote down according to pronunciation.”

On 20 August 1833 Boultbee took a passage to Manila on a Spanish brig. “We were greatly crowded and the chattering of the garrulous Chinamen and “Skretching” (jfc) of 600 parrots was deafening.” These birds were to be sold at Manila for a high profit. He records disastrous fires at Manado, Dutch Celebes, and having contracted “a sharp attack of fever and ague” there he was to lie gasping in the brig’s hatches for a month or more. In spite of great weakness he enjoyed his brief stay in the Philippines where he was cared for by kind friends and treated as a person of importance in spite of his penury. He now proceeded to Singapore arriving on 17 March 1834. “A month’s dissatisfactory life” was spent here as he tried to obtain a passage to Madras where he hoped to find his brother George. His adventures as a rambler come to an end with an account of a voyage to Ceylon. The vessel was heavily rigged and under-manned with “2 weak and 1 sick man” who soon became exhausted. They anchored in the Colombo Roads on 14 May 1834 “after six weeks boisterous passage and attended with thunder, lightning and rain.”

Boultbee brings the Journal of a Rambler to a close in a characteristic fashion. “I left the vessel determined to quit a life with which I had grown quite disgusted. I resolved in future never to subject myself to the annoyance of upstarts, mates, skippers etc whose insolence of office entirely satisfied me that I should never be able to reconcile myself to a seafaring life, in a subordinate situation, and I had no friends to interest themselves for my advancement.” He was befriended and cared for by a “native born Dutch descendant” and his family. Having abandoned his attempt to reach Madras on hearing of his brother’s death there two years before, these friends introduced him to an English merchant who apparently employed him. In fact evidence within the manuscript points

to the possibility of his having remained in Ceylon for the rest of his days hopefully enjoying the settled life he sought. Time and research will uncover Boultbee’s later activities but in the meantime the reader may wonder what was the source of his later information from New Zealand especially as regards the wrongly reported death of Tuhawaiki, “Bloody Jack”, in a confrontation with Te Rauparaha in 1836. There are a number of clues which strongly suggest that this copy of his journal was written shortly after his arrival in Ceylon and later revised in his and perhaps two other hands. This may well be supported in his use of unusually rough and porous paper perhaps made from jute and quite devoid of any watermark with the exception of one gathering signed C. Wilmott and dated 1833; inky thumb marks throughout the manuscript could indicate that the writing was done in humid surroundings. Incidentally a hand-stitched sailcloth cover has survived the ravages of time.

This deeply perceptive record of a man’s thoughts and experiences in an occupation where his upbringing and education placed him apart from his fellows must be unique at least in the field of sealing where, apart from handicaps of illiteracy, men were too occupied simply surviving. There is much of interest to all students of the many facets of New Zealand’s early history but recognition must equally be given to Boultbee’s comment on the peoples of the islands of the Malay Archipelago and the Far East. The reader comes to know a man with great interest in people many of whom befriended him in his times of need. He always seemed to come out of his expeditions penniless even to the extent of once having to stowaway on a vessel (the Samuel) carrying sealskins which he had laboured without any reward to obtain. His downfall lay in his pride perhaps, and certainly in a quick temper which, with a vivid imagination, carried him from situation to situation. John Boultbee, his friends, associates and mere passers-by, and their many ways of life, step right out of the narrative to add substance to the bones of history.

* My italics. The layman cannot but wonder if Boultbee was in fact referring to the small bush moa.