Over the Moketap: explorations old and new

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XVII, Issue 2, 1 October 1984, Page 98

Over the Moketap: explorations old and new

MARIAN MINSON

For a number of years the Turnbull Library has been carrying out a programme of systematically photographing all New Zealand material in its collection of paintings, drawings and prints. The growing file of photographic prints not only protects the originals from use, but allows works which may be scattered in different parts of the collection to be conveniently brought together for initial reference work, comparison, or selection for further investigation. In addition, it has meant that the curators have had the opportunity to study some of the more obscure parts of the collection, and to reassess earlier cataloguing, much of which is inadequate for the demands of a fully developed research collection. In the course of labelling some recently taken photographs of a box of small drawings, I had occasion to look closely at a group of seven undated ink and pencil sketches by an unknown artist showing the Nelson and Marlborough Sounds area, and was struck by the possibility that they could be the work of Charles Heaphy. The handwritten titles were like his hand in some respects, the rendering of people had stylistic similarities, and the manner in which the sketches were numbered was reminiscent of the way Heaphy numbered the material he prepared for the New Zealand Company. Since Heaphy’s work is a major feature of the collection, this was an exciting possibility and made a thorough investigation worthwhile.

The original catalogue cards supplied no clues to the provenance, but their very age suggested that the sketches might have been in Alexander Turnbull’s own collection, possibly amongst the New Zealand Company material he purchased in London in 1915. The fact that Heaphy was resident in Motueka and in Nelson in the 1840 s and was known to have undertaken several exploratory journeys in the area added credence to the theory.

The sketches themselves were all titled in some detail, so that their locations, at least, were specified. They were numbered Ito 8, apparently in a chronological sequence, but sketch number 2 was missing. The numbering and titles showed that the drawings recorded a journey from the hills above Nelson eastward across heavily bushed ranges to the Pelorus River, on to the Kaituna River

and back again. Two showed a pair of European travellers, with broad-brimmed hats, walking sticks, bundles of provisions and guns, suggesting that the artist had at least two European companions, unless he was depicting himself with one other person. From the first sketch it could be inferred that the artist was a

surveyor (again pointing to Heaphy) since its title read ‘View of the Moketap shewing the route up the range. A. The track at present. B. More accesible [sic] for a road. C. The Peak of the Moketap’ 1 (see Figure 1). Sketch number 4 contained a tenuous clue towards date of execution, since its title was ‘View of the Entrance to the Kituna Valley. A. Mawkepawa. 2 B. Kituna Flat dry at low water —Bearing South. C. Anchorage of the Pelorus (Figure 2). H.M.S. Pelorus had explored the Sound, anchoring at this point in September 1838, so the drawing must have been done after that, yet it seemed unlikely that this detail would remain worthy of note many years later. In addition, the style of dress of the two men, the totally uninhabited terrain and the suggestion of yet-to-be-formed roads indicated that the sketches belonged to the early years of European settlement.

Most of the evidence now seemed to point to Heaphy as the artist, yet some doubt still remained. Although he was resident in the area within the time the drawings were likely to have been executed, there was no record of his travelling across this particular route. His other early journeys were fully documented by the newspaper, the Nelson Examiner, and New Zealand Chronicle.

Heaphy was by no means the only surveyor working for the New Zealand Company; the handwriting similarities could be explained away as standard surveyors’ script of the period; stylistically, there were infelicities in the depiction of people and vegetation that seemed unlike Heaphy, and the cross-hatching did not follow his normal pattern.

One problem that required further investigation was the artist’s use of three geographical names that were no longer extant. For cataloguing purposes it was necessary to locate these points as precisely as possible and to provide cross-references. The standard gazetteers contained no references to the three names in question—‘Bishop’s Range’, ‘Difficulty Point’ and ‘Bottle Point’. The Reading Room in the Library’s Reference Section holds two handwritten card indexes to geographical names, including obsolete names. One is Johannes Andersen’s index, the other A. W. Reed’s notes on which he based his Place Names of New Zealand, published in 1975. Neither listed Bishop’s Range. But Reed’s index supplied a breakthrough with the other two names. Under Bottle Point Reed had recorded ‘(J. C. Drake, Bishop & Watts 10 January 1844) “Walked down to the plain & ascended a low fernhill which I called Bottle Point” ’, and under Difficulty Point noted ‘(Drake Bishop & Watts 10 January 1844) “Pushing through a wood, round the face of a very high and steep hill, from which I took a sketch of the Pelorus Valley. Called this Difficulty Point” ’. Suddenly, here

were three Europeans in the right place, at the right time and one of them even ‘took a sketch’! From Reed’s information, it was impossible to tell which of the three had been the artist, but it began to look as though Heaphy might have to forgo the claim.

A check of the Library’s biographical indexes under ‘Drake’, revealed ajames Charles Drake, arriving in Nelson as a survey cadet for the New Zealand Company, a reference from a newly indexed work in the Manuscripts Collection, C. A. Lawn’s The Pioneer Land Surveyors of New Zealand. This volume, completed in 1977, had no entry for Bishop, but was extremely helpful on the subject of both Drake and Watts, indicating that Drake ‘was active in the search for a practicable route for a road from Nelson to the Wairau Valley across the intervening mountain ranges and . . . discovered the Maungatapu Saddle over which a road was subsequently built’. 3 Charles Fowell Willetts Watts was an assistant surveyor to the New Zealand Company ‘sent out from England in 1841 ... to lay out the Nelson settlement ... In 1844, in association withj. C. Drake and W. Bishop, he explored the Pelorus district in an endeavour to find a practicable route for a road from Nelson to the Wairau Plains.’ 4 Lawn adds that Drake had made an earlier foray into the area with a surveyor named Samuel Parkinson and some Maori guides, in November 1843.

With names and dates as a guide it was now possible to turn to the major published history of the Nelson area, Nelson; a History of Early Settlement by Ruth M. Allan. 5 Although she gave but sparse details of the 1844 trip, the author listed the sequence of explorations of the area, revealed that W. Bishop was William Bishop of the Maitai Valley in Nelson, and, above all, provided a major shortcut by giving precise references to the Nelson Examiner articles from which she had gleaned her material.

The Nelson Examiner for 18 November 1843 supplied most of a column titled ‘Notes of a Journey to the Head of the Pelorus by Messrs Parkinson and Drake’. This journey took three days there and back to Nelson, from 7 to 9 November 1843, and did not quite tally with our sketches, although it clearly covered much the same route. It was a disappointingly brief account. However, the Examiner for 27 January 1844 contained a very full account of Drake’s second trip, this time signed ‘James Charles Drake’, and titled ‘Expedition to the Wairau through the Pelorus Valley’. 6 Drake must have kept a detailed journal, for he gave a lengthy description of the trip, making it clear that this was undeniably the journey recorded in the group of sketches, that it took place between 10 and 19 January 1844, and that he was the artist.

It was now possible to date each sketch to the very day it was taken. For example: ‘January 11 —Fine morning. After drying our

blankets, &c., commenced the ascent of the Moketap . . . Took a sketch of the range, the peak of the hill bearing E.S.E. and the Maitai Valley N.W. by W.’ (Figure 1). Or, ‘January 13 . . . Crossed a river running from the southward and continued our course N.N.E. about a mile through high fern. Here we saw a pole on the opposite side of the river, said to have been placed there by the

captain of the Pelorus’ (Figure 2). And, further on, ‘January 15. Leaving our blankets, &c. we walked down to the plain and ascended a low fern hill, which I called Bottle Point. Took a sketch of the entrance to the Kaituna Valley, looking N.W. from the Wairau, White Bluff bearing E., distant about twenty miles, and the north end of the grove of trees E. by N., distant seven miles. After fixing a bottle on a pole to mark the extent of our journey, we returned to our last night’s sleeping place, and continued our journey homewards. . .’ (Sketch number 6, Figure 3). Drake appears to have done his sketches in pencil on the journey and to have gone over all but two in ink later, probably after his

return to Nelson and before handing his work in to his employers, the New Zealand Company. His titles are all ink over pencil but the numbers are ink only, apparently in his hand, and must have been added as an afterthought. Indeed, he appears to have suffered a memory lapse, since the view that he has placed third in the sequence does not quite tally with the newspaper report. Sketch number 3 is called ‘View of the Pelorus from “Difficulty Point” looking towards “Moketap” bearing W.S.W. (distant hills being covered)’. This corresponds precisely with the second-to-last sketch Drake says he did near the end of the journey on 16 January 1844: ‘Kept on our old track as far as Kaituna Point, when we were obliged by the state of the tide to alter our route, pushing through the wood round the face of a very high and steep hill from which I took a sketch of the Pelorus Valley. Called this Difficulty Point’. An

earlier sketch of the Pelorus Valley was done, but it should look out to sea, not W.S.W. towards distant hills. In the afternoon of 11 January, Drake says, ‘After an hour and a halfs scrambling, we reached our old spot on the ridge of the Moketap, from which there is a view of the Pelorus Valley, Blind Bay, &c . . . After a hasty sketch, continued our course winding down the hill .. . Since this is the second sketch Drake mentions, and since number 2 is

missing, we can postulate that the missing sketch bears the title ‘View of the Pelorus Valley, Blind Bay, etc.’ 7 Further information about the artist is sparse. He was a survey cadet for the New Zealand Company and arrived in Nelson on 1 February 1842, aboard the Fifeshire, as a New Zealand Company cabin passenger ‘aged 21’ according to the ship’s passenger list, giving a birth date of 1819 or 1820. He is known to have walked to

the mouth of the Pelorus River with others from the head of Queen Charlotte Sound in March 1843, 8 hence his familiarity with the spot where H.M.S. Pelorus had anchored. His explorations across the hills from the Maitai Valley in November 1843 and January 1844, discussed above, were part of a series of attempts by the New Zealand Company to assail the hinterland of Nelson in the hope of finding a more direct route between Nelson and the head of the Pelorus Sound and on to the Wairau Valley. As the Examiner had expressed it, in an earlier article, ‘The grand desideratum now, therefore, is the discovery of a practicable communication between Nelson and the head of the Pelorus; an object which probably merely requires a little investigation to be proved readily attainable’. 9 As Drake’s explorations resulted subsequently in the building of a road over part of the route he had discovered, his trip had more than passing significance.

Frederick Tuckett, Principal Surveyor to the New Zealand Company, had been Drake’s employer in Nelson, and in April 1844 Drake joined other New Zealand Company employees under Tuckett, who moved to Otago to decide on the future site of Dunedin. Between 1844 and 1847 Drake surveyed large tracts of land in and around Dunedin in preparation for the Otago Settlement. By 1851 he was in the Wellington area and in January 1863 was a member of the Canterbury Provincial Survey staff, preceding the opening up of the West Coast. These slight details of

his later life conclude with the enigmatic observation that ‘Years afterwards Mr Drake was drowned in one of the streams between Collingwood and Takaka’. 10

Artistically it cannot be claimed that Drake’s drawings are remarkable. Like most surveyors in the pre-photography era he would have been trained to record his observations in the field in a sketchbook or, in this case, probably on a block of cream wove paper, since the sheets are all the same size and show no signs of having been disbound from a sketchbook. Furthermore, the paper size is 174 X 259 mm—slightly larger than most sketchbooks. His work is that of a competent amateur, with a sound grasp of perspective, and a concern for making a faithful record, giving these drawings an historical rather than aesthetic significance.

As a postscript, this account began with Charles Heaphy and will end with him. One of Drake’s travelling companions depicted in these drawings was William Bishop. Bishop was about Drake’s age and had arrived in Nelson two months after him, on 10 April 1842, as a New Zealand Company cabin passenger on board the London. By 1844 he owned land in the Maitai Valley and had probably completed building his house there, so it is quite possible that the exploring party left from his home in the early hours of 10 January 1844. This charming house is depicted in a watercolour by Heaphy (Figure 4), handed down in the family to Bishop’s grand-daughter, Miss Helen Nicholls of Waipukurau. By an odd coincidence, on the same day that it was discovered that William Bishop was one of the travellers shown in J. C. Drake’s drawings, Miss Nicholls wrote to the Library offering to donate her watercolour of her grandparents in the garden of their home in the Maitai Valley, along with a second work by Heaphy, a portrait of her grandmother, Anna Bishop (nee Fife). The offer was accepted with delight and the watercolours have now become a valued addition to the Library’s major collection of Heaphy’s work.

REFERENCES 1 ‘Moketap’ was the early European version of ‘Maungatapu’. 2 ‘Mawkepawa’ is correctly ‘Mahakipawa’. 3 C. A. Lawn, The Pioneer Land Surveyors of New Zealand, p. 79 (qMS LAW ATL). 4 Ibid., p. 286. 5 Ruth M. Allan, Nelson; a History of Early Settlement (Wellington, 1965). 6 Nelson Examiner, and New Zealand Chronicle, 27 January 1844, 393. 7 I am indebted to Mr Tony Ralls for this observation. 8 Allan, op. cit. , p. 405. 9 Nelson Examiner, 25 March 1843, 222. 10 A. D. Dobson, Reminiscences of Arthur Dudley Dobson (Auckland, 1930), p. 57.