# Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand/Chapter 2

EARLY EXPLORERS.
CHAPTER II.
AVING related a few circumstances respecting the earliest days of the Coast, before its lands were trodden by any white man, we purpose here devoting a chapter to some of the earliest explorers, of whose plucky adventures, and of the hardships they endured in the primitive days of the Coast, but little has as yet been published.
The country commencing at Jacob’s River on the south, and extending to Milford Haven on the north, was first visited and explored by whalers and sealers from Otago Bluff and Jacob’s River. Amongst these Reid stands prominent, and Howell has also been mentioned. The country between Milford Sound and Cape Foulwind does not appear to have been visited by these early voyagers. From Cape Foulwind to Cape Farewell, the sealing parties under Green and Toms in 1836 visited several places, and were for some time living on the Steeples or Black Reefs near Westport, where they killed several seals. Toms was on one occasion caught and thrown down by a very large seal, which bit him most severely on the thigh. He escaped death by killing it with a few hard blows from his fist on the nose.
After the advent of the New Zealand Company, Messrs Heaphy (the late Major Heaphy, V.C.) and the late Thomas Brunner, two of the Company’s surveyors in 1845, visited the West Coast, and travelled along it on foot from West Wanganui, near Cape Farewell, to the Grey River. At West Wanganui an old cannibal chief named Niho refused to allow them to proceed down the Coast, unless he received payment for trespass on a country hitherto unexplored by Europeans. They had nothing with which to meet his demand, but they managed to decoy him across the harbour in a canoe, where they left him alone on the beach bewailing his fate and cursing the perfidious Pakehas. They suffered severe privation, having to live on the natural productions of the country. On their return to Nelson they reported unfavourably of the West Coast districts as a field for settlement, and pronounced the rivers as not being fit for coasting vessels to enter. Subsequently Messrs Heaphy, Brunner, and Fox (now Sir William Fox, K.C.M.G., and at that time agent for the New Zealand Company at Nelson) made some trips to the head waters of the river Buller, and the country adjacent to the lakes Rotoiti and Rotorua, and river Tiramuea or Marylea. On one of these trips Mr Fox in crossing a river was washed off his feet, but managed to swim ashore with much difficulty, having been burdened with a swag.
Mr Thomas Brunner shortly after took in hand one of the most difficult tasks which any New Zealand explorer ever essayed to accomplish. He started from Foxhill, Nelson, ​with two Natives; and after innumerable adventures and privations, he managed to successfully follow the mighty river Buller from its source to the sea. So short were the necessaries of life, that they were on one occasion compelled to eat Mr Brunner’s favourite dog, from which incident he obtained from the Maoris the soubriquet of “Kai Kuoi” (dog eater). The traveller who now jogs comfortably along on his horse down the banks of the Buller, from the Rotoiti plains to Westport, no doubt thinks this was not much of an expedition, Brunner having only to travel over two hundred miles; but he fails to remember that the explorer might be for weeks delayed between branch rivers by floods, and that the howling black birch forest, with its innumerable spurs and gullies, is not easy to travel through, when the explorer is half starved, and when, in addition, the country through which he is passing affords but little in the shape of vegetable production or living thing of any description. And be it remembered, the forest was then in its primeval condition, with only a few Maori tracks. There are only two edible ferns, the Mamakau and Katote. The first is only found in country where the soil is of fair quality, but not in black birch forests. The root of this fern when cooked in a Maori oven is considered very good, and will sustain life well especially if an eel can be added to the banquet. The Katote fern is very bitter, and is found in the black birch forests, but is never eaten except in the last extremity. The nikau or cabbage palm is not found in the West Coast districts except in the immediate vicinity of the sea. But to return to Mr Brunner. He next proceeded from the Buller mouth along the Coast to the Grey, and thence travelled south to the Waiho River, which he was unable to cross owing to its being flooded. He then retraced his steps to the Grey. Thence he travelled up the Grey River, on his way discovering the Brunner coal seam. Passing the Mawheraiti junction, he proceeded over the saddle to the river Inangahua, and journeyed on to Buller River, passing through the Rotoiti plain, and thence to Nelson, from which place he had been absent for eighteen months. There he received the congratulations of his numerous friends, who had, from his long absence and want of communication, given him and his two Maori companions up as lost. In acknowledgment of these and other services, Mr Brunner received the medal of the Royal Geographical Society. For many years after this he filled the responsible position of chief surveyor for the Province of Nelson. He died at the comparatively early age of fifty years, his friends believing that his death was hastened by the hardships he had endured in his exploring expeditions.
Mr Charles Heaphy, after a long career of service under the New Zealand Company and in various official capacities at Nelson, was removed to the North Island, and as a Major of the New Zealand Militia served through the Waikato campaign. The indomitable pluck and courage which carried him through the difficulties and hardships on the West Coast enabled him to win the Victoria Cross. For many years before his death the gallant Major was to be seen walking along bent with rheumatism, the result of the hard life and rough exposure he endured in the surveys and explorations in the early days of the Colony.
Next on the list of early West Coast explorers comes Mr James Mackay. He arrived at Nelson early in 1845, and being then in his fourteenth year, took readily to bush ​travelling and colonial hard work. In 1855, he, in company with the late Mr John Clarke of Pakawau, explored the whole of the mountainous country lying between the head waters of the Acrere, Heaphy (Wakapoai), Mackay (Karamea), and Anatoki rivers, also a portion of the country between the sources of the Pakaka and Karamea rivers. He furnished the Provincial Council of Nelson with an account of the explorations and a sketch map of the country. Early in January 1857, Mr Mackay, accompanied by two Massacre Bay Maoris, travelled by the sea coast on foot, from West Wanganui to the river Buller. Their object was to see some grass plains which the Natives reported existed there, and which Mr Mackay proposed to stock from his run at Massacre Bay, if the country was found suitable. On arriving at the Buller, he was much struck with the appearance of the mouth of the river, and as the bar was perfectly smooth and the weather calm, he proceeded out in a canoe, and sounded the channel, which he found to be navigable for coasting craft of considerable draught. After this they went to the Kara-o-tamatea plains, now known as Waite’s Pakihis, and the party travelled inland to Ngawaitakere now known as Charleston; thence they took to the Coast, and on reaching the Miko cliffs (Jacob’s ladder) near Cape Runney, they found the ladders used by the Maoris so decayed that they had to replace them with new timber. Having ascended themselves, and hoisted up their swags and dog, they were astonished on reaching the summit to hear voices of Maoris exclaiming “He Kuri Pakihi” (a dog of European breed). The dog having run on ahead, a rush was at once made by the Maoris into the bush, and it was some time before the astonished Natives could be led to believe that they were safe to approach the exploring party. The Natives were so overjoyed at seeing a European, none having been there since Mr Brunner’s visit in 1847, that they agreed to defer their trip to the Buller and to accompany Mr Mackay instead, all the way to the Grey. On reaching the Grey, Mr Mackay made arrangements with the Natives to take him up the river in a canoe, as far as Ahaura, for a payment of ten pounds. On getting there they incited Mackay’s two Native companions to refuse to go any further with him, and said he should not proceed by himself unless he paid a sum of fifty pounds, to be divided among all present. Threats were used and personal violence was attempted. Mackay met this by throwing one Maori into the river, and knocking another down in the canoe. Affairs were waxing warm, when the head chief (Tarapuhi) came on the scene, and restored order, volunteering to act as guide himself. Mr Mackay then explored the grass and open country at Ahaura, Totara Flat, and Mawheraita (Little Grey). After this the whole party returned to the mouth of the Grey, where they sounded the bar in a canoe, and found that the river was navigable for small craft. He then returned to Massacre Bay by the Coast. An account of this trip was published in the Nelson Examiner, where attention was drawn to the fact that the Buller and Grey rivers would admit coasting vessels of light draught to enter. It may be here mentioned that Mr Mackay, on this occasion, carried in his swag the first sample of Grey coal ever exhibited to public notice.
The Collingwood goldfield had then become a source of attraction, and as there were numerous disputes between the European and Maori miners (the latter had come there ​in numbers from both sides of the Cook Strait), Mr Mackay, from his knowledge of Maori, was constantly appealed to to settle them. This resulted in his being appointed, in February 1858, to be Assistant Native Secretary, and subsequently becoming Resident Magistrate and Warden of the Collingwood goldfield.
Mr James Mackay then went to Auckland, and the Governor, Colonel Gore Browne, instructed him to return to the West Coast, make ten thousand acres of reserves, and give the Natives £300 or £400 for the seven and a half millions of acres comprising that territory,—the Governor remarking that the country was of no use to the few scattered Natives (one hundred and ten in number all told); but it was his duty to make good reserves, which would, by the profitable occupation of the remainder of the land by Europeans, be of more ultimate value than the whole waste untenanted district then was.
Accordingly, early in February 1860, James and Alexander Mackay, Frank Flowers, and three Massacre Bay Natives left Nelson and proceeded to the Rotoiti plains, the intention being to find a practicable line of road available for a road viâ Upper Buller and Maruia to the Upper Grey at the point where Mackay’s exploration ceased in August 1859. Having heard of the difficulties of Brunner’s Devil’s Grip (a very difficult and almost impenetrable piece of country), an attempt was made to find a better route by crossing the range between the lakes Rotorua and descending into the valley of the Tiramuea or Maryleo. Mr Julius Haast, who had been engaged to report on the geology of the south-west portion of the Province of Nelson, accompanied the explorers in this part of the expedition. Mr Alexander Mackay meanwhile was engaged in exploring a line through the Devil’s Grip, and thence towards the mouth of the Maryleo River. They and their party then explored and marked a track running parallel with the Buller to the river Matakitaki and thence to the junction of the Maruia and Buller. Mr Haast ​remained in the neighbourhood of the Maryleo until a fresh supply of provisions arrived for his party, and also to enable the explorers to mark a track for his guidance. Mackay’s expedition blazed a track up the Maruia Valley through the bush to the Maruia grass plains. They were now almost destitute of provisions, the supplies of native birds and edible vegetables were very scanty, and in order to eke out the remnant in hand, Alexander Mackay and Frank Flowers reluctantly returned to Nelson, leaving James Mackay and the three Natives to continue the exploration and connect by blazed track the Maruia plain with the Upper Grey Valley. The party progressed but slowly, being half starved, and Mr James Mackay having a bad gathered knee caused by being stabbed with spear grass on the Maruia plain. The Maoris became so tired and disheartened that they refused to proceed further, said they were in unknown country probably inhabited by wild men of the woods or enormous lizards, and they had better return to Nelson, or make up their minds to sit down quietly and die in the camp. James Mackay had, however, caught sight of a distant hill, which he recognised as one he had ascended in the Upper Grey in 1859, and he told them they would be in the Grey in two days. He cut and slashed his knee with a razor so as to ease the swelling and enable them to move quicker, and they succeeded in reaching the Grey. They marked the track the whole way from the Maruia plain to the junction of the Brown and Upper Grey Rivers. They shortly after this arrived in country where wood hens and fern root were plentiful, and again enjoyed a full meal. The time occupied in this journey was seven weeks, two of which period were passed in a state of semi-starvation. On reaching the Mawhera (now Greymouth) Native Settlement they found seven Collingwood Natives, and Mr Samuel M. Mackley who had travelled by the coast from West Wanganui, anxiously awaiting their arrival. Mr Mackay’s gathered knee became very bad, and Mr Mackley, having been originally educated to the medical profession, and having a few useful drugs, etc., with him, managed with great care and attention to make it fit for travelling again in the course of three weeks. At this time Mr Haast and his party arrived, after suffering considerable hardships. The schooner “Gipsy,” Captain Charles M‘Cann, which had been chartered by the Nelson Provincial Government to bring supplies for Mr Haast’s party, entered the Grey River. She brought Mr Mackay a private stock for himself and party. The “Gipsy” thus proved the fact of the Grey being available for coastal traffic, the same as the cutter “Supply” had proved the Buller to be. Messrs Mackay and Mackley, accompanied by all the Native residents of the Grey, Teremakau, Arahura, and Hokitika settlements, travelled then by the sea coast to the native settlement at Poherua Lagoon (near Okarito). Here the negotiations for the land purchase were conducted, and it was arranged at the conclusion that Mr Mackay and the leading chiefs should proceed to Jackson’s Bay and lay out the reserves from there to Poherua Lagoon, and then the whole party should return to the Grey, fixing the reserves between Poherua and the Grey as they proceeded northwards. On arriving at Mahitahi (now Bruce Bay) Messrs Mackay and Mackley were closely examined and interrogated by three very ancient aboriginal females who had never before seen any person of European race. Their coats were styled (whare-o-te-tinana) body houses, their waistcoats (pakitua) small body mats, ​their trousers (whare kuwaha) thigh trousers, and Mackley’s boots (parairai), Maori for flax sandals. (Mackay had no boots; he wore flax sandals.) Having completed the marking out of reserves northward to Poherua, the reserves from there to the Grey were next fixed on the ground. On the 21st May 1860, the sum of three hundred pounds (£300) was paid to the resident natives in full satisfaction of all their claims; and the 7,500,000 acres, comprising all the land from Kaurangi Point to Milford Haven on the south, and extending inland to the watershed range between the East and West Coast, finally passed into the hands of the Crown. (See Note, page 21.) On leaving the Grey the results of all this labour were nearly lost, as, in crossing the river from the settlement to the north side (now Cobden), the canoe, in which were Mr Mackay and six Natives, upset. Mr Mackay had the land purchase deeds, field books of reserve surveys, the sextant and prismatic compass, and £100 in gold in a leather despatch bag, but he managed to swim with them until he reached the upturned canoe, and finally landed in safety. The Government afterwards grumbled at the slovenly and dirty appearance of the deeds and papers, but probably had they been aware of the fact that these documents had paid an involuntary visit to the bottom of the Grey River, they would not have complained.
Messrs Mackay, Mackley, and the ten Collingwood Natives then went on their way up the coast towards West Wanganui. On reaching the Buller (now Westport) they found a party of twenty Europeans who had arrived in a vessel from Canterbury in search of gold. (Mr John Rochfort had found it during his survey.) They were dissatisfied with the prospects obtained, and wished to return to the civilised world again. Mr Mackay, having completed the fixing of the reserves at the Buller, agreed to pilot this party up the coast to Massacre Bay. With two or three exceptions in the shape of old bushmen, the Canterbury grass plain men were very bad travellers, and Mackay, fearing they would meet with some accident on the dangerous rocks and rugged precipitous points between the Wakapoai River (Heaphy) and Kaurangi Point, determined to strike overland from the mouth of the Heaphy River, crossing the saddle between it and the Aurere (Collingwood River). This journey was safely accomplished. Each man carried fifty pounds’ weight of provisions on starting from the Buller, but it was found necessary to consume the loads of some weakly members first, in order to enable them to keep pace with the remainder of the party. Mackay, Mackley, Small, and one Native led the party, and carried their fifty pounds of provisions per man, besides blankets, etc., intact, from the Buller River to the saddle as a stand-by in case of need. On sighting Collingwood all hands were put on double rations. The Provincial Government of Nelson gave Mr James Mackay a bonus of £150 for defining the track from the Rotoiti plains viâ Maruia to the mouth of the river Grey, which enabled Mr Julius Haast (now Dr Von Haast) to travel through and report on the geology of the country.
At the end of 1860 James Mackay and Major John Lockett did a considerable amount of exploration between the head waters of the Takaka-Karamea (Mackay) and ​Wangaro Rivers, and discovered Mount Lockett, Mount Peel, and the Diamond Lakes, although in the month of December they were caught in a snowstorm and had to retreat. The furthest point south attained in this expedition was in a straight line (if prolonged) with the general direction of the Waimea mud flat.
Mr James Mackay’s last exploring expedition to the Coast was in 1862 in company with Messrs John and Arthur Knyvett, when they blazed a saddle track line from the Upper Aurere (Collingwood) to the mouth of the Heaphy River. On this occasion Mr Mackay left his companions at the river Karamea (Mackay) and marched from there to Westport in one day.
Mr Mackay paid some visits to Westport afterwards as Resident Magistrate and Warden, but finally left the West Coast in July 1863, on the outbreak of the war in Waikato. Since then he has done little in the exploring line. His services during the Waikato war were principally confined to getting rebels to surrender, taking possession of rebel arms and ammunition, capturing some Maoris for various offences, and subsequently opening the Thames goldfields to the general public. Mr Mackay, after an absence of twenty years from Greymouth, again held the office of Resident Magistrate and Warden for that district in 1880 and 1881.
Mr Alexander Mackay, who accompanied and assisted his cousin on two of his exploring expeditions, held the office of Native Commissioner until 1883, when he was appointed Judge of the Native Lands Court.
Mr Samuel Meggitt Mackley, who accompanied Mr James Mackay in 1860 along the coast south of the Grey, settled in 1861 at Waipuna plain in the Upper Grey district, where he took up a sheep and cattle station. He was the first European occupier of land in that district, and is now the holder of a valuable homestead and property, and is as comfortable in every respect as a good settler can be, and as he deserves to be, as the pioneer of the agricultural interest in that portion of the Colony.
Mr John Rochfort is by profession a Civil Engineer and Surveyor. His first colonial experience was gained on the Australian goldfields. He then came to Nelson with other members of his family, and settled at Rewaka. Mr Rochfort in 1859 entered into a contract with the Provincial Government of Nelson to perform certain surveys on the West Coast. In that year he accomplished a feat unparallelled in the history of surveying in this Colony, that is, he managed for many months to carry on his work in a dense forest country without stores and provisions, other than the indigenous natural productions of the district. In surveying the Buller River he had the misfortune to lose all his stores by the upsetting of a canoe, but nothing daunted by this accident, he successfully completed the duty he had undertaken. Mr Rochfort was the discoverer of the coal seams at Mount Rochfort, near Westport, and he also was the first to find gold in the Buller River bed, and on the West Coast. Mr Rochfort was for some time attached to the Canterbury Survey Department, but of late years he has been connected with the Survey and Engineer departments at Nelson.
Dr Julius Haast can hardly be looked on as a West Coast explorer, as he merely ​followed Messrs Mackay and Rochfort’s tracks, but he with his assistant, the late Mr James Burnett, land surveyor, contributed materially to our knowledge of the geological formation of the West Coast districts. Dr Haast has since resided at Christchurch, where he has rendered good service to the cause of science. He recently received a medal from the Royal Geological Society, London, in recognition of his Alpine explorations.
Messrs Waite and Martin were the first settlers at Westport in 1860; and immediately thereafter the Buller goldfields became an established fact. The Grey district was visited in 1863 by R. A. Sherrin, who found gold there, and it was occupied by miners shortly afterwards.
Messrs Lee, Dobson, Harper, Walker, and Hewitt of Canterbury, paid visits to the West Coast at various times between 1858 and 1863, but their explorations were of small extent, and not to be compared with the services rendered by Brunner, Heaphy, Mackay, and Rochfort.
Note.—Having had an opportunity of perusing the Deed of Purchase from the Natives of the 7,500,000 acres of land on the West Coast for the sum of £300, referred to in the foregoing chapter, I append a copy of the original document, which reads as follows: —
This Deed written on this 21st day of May, in the year of our Lord, 1860, is a full and final sale conveyance and surrender by us the Chiefs and people of the Tribe Ngaitahu, whose names are hereunto subscribed: And witnesseth that on behalf of ourselves, our relatives and descendants we have, by signing this Deed under the shining sun of this day, parted with and for ever transferred unto Victoria Queen of England, Her Heirs, the Kings and Queens who may succeed Her and Their Assigns for ever in consideration of the sum of three hundred pounds (£300) to us paid by James Mackay, junr. on belalf of the Queen Victoria (and we hereby acknowledge the receipt of the said moneys) all that piece of our Land situate in the Provinces of Nelson, Canterbury and Otago, and named Poutini, Arahaura, the boundaries whereof are set forth at the foot of this Deed and a plan of which Land is annexed thereto, with its trees, minerals, waters, rivers, lakes, streams and interests whatsoever thereon. To hold to Queen Victoria Her Heirs and Assigns as a lasting possession absolutely for ever and ever. And in testimony of our consent to all the conditions of this Deed we have hereunto subscribed our names and marks. And in testimony of the consent of the Queen of England on her part to all the conditions of this Deed the name of James Mackay, junr., Commissioner, is hereunto subscribed. These are the boundaries of the land commencing at the seaside at Piopiotai (Milford Haven), thence proceeding inland to the snowy mountains of Taumaro, thence to the mountains, Tioripatea, Haorangi (Mount Cook), Terao-o-Tama, thence to the saddle of the source of the river Teremakau, thence to Mount Wakarewa, thence following the range of mountains to the Lake Roteroa, thence to the source of the rivers Karamea and Wakapoai, thence by a straight line drawn in a southerly direction. The sea coast is the boundary of Piopiotai (Milford Haven) where the boundaries meet.
There are certain lands within this block reserved from sale, these are described in schedule A and B attached to this Deed.
(Signed) James Mackay, Assistant Native Secretary.
Then follow these signatures, the Maori names in each case signed with a mark, thus + Kinihi, Kerei, Kawiri Mokohuruhuru, Pako, Wiremu Parata, Puaha-te-Rangi, Taraphi-te-Kaukihi, Mere-te-Aowangi, Werita Tainui, Hakiaha Taona, Purua, Makarini Tohi, Arapata Horau, Rewai Kaihi. Witnesses to the payment and signatures—James Mackay, junr., Assistant Native Secretary, acting for Land Purchase Commissioner; Samuel M. Mackley, settler, Nelson; James Burnett, surveyor, Nelson; Tamati Pirimona, Collingwood; Hori-te-Kirama, Collingwood.
Received this 21st day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, the sum of £300 sterling, being the £300 consideration money expressed in the above written Deed to be paid by James Mackay, junr., on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen to us.
Witnesses—James Mackay, junr., Assistant Native Secretary for Land Purchase Commissioner; Samuel M. Mackley, settler, Nelson; James Burnett, surveyor, Nelson; Tamati Pirimona, Native Chief, Collingwood; Hori-te-Kirama, Native Chief, Parapara, Collingwood,; Tarapuhi, Werita Tainui, Hakiaha Taona, Makirini Tohi, Arapata Horau, Kiwai, Kaihi, Kinihi-te-kau, Kerei, Kawiri Mokohuruhuru, Puaha-te-Rangi.