TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 255 



minuteness which astonished me beyond all expression." Nor 

 as a chart was it greatly superseded until 1848, when the 

 Admiralty surveys commenced, under Captains Stokes and 

 Drury, in H.M.SS. " Acheron " and " Pandora." With one of 

 them in his hand the leader of the New Zealand Company's 

 expedition sailed safely into Queen Charlotte Sound, where, 

 in 1839, the practical work of our colonisation began. It is 

 curious that in his chart Captain Cook placed the North Island 

 30' and the South Island 40' too far east, which would place 

 Wellington at the mouth of Tory Channel, and Christchurch 

 at Springfield. These errors of longitude he corrected on his 

 second voyage. We have now to trace the gradual filling-in 

 of those outlines first drawn by Cook's faithful pencil. This 

 is a task of considerable difiiculty. There is an embarras de 

 richesses, from which, to be just, it is impossible or difficult to 

 select. To compress these within required limits is indeed to 

 give but a mere catalogue of names and dates, or to present 

 with rapid succession a list of explorations divested of all 

 those little incidents which give to travel its very soul and 

 spirit. However, in an evil moment I accepted the task, and, 

 rather than break faith, have now to bespeak your consideration 

 for shortcomings which to me seemed unavoidable. 



We may appropriately divide into three periods the 

 history of those discoveries and explorations which have 

 gradually brought our topographical knowledge of this 

 country to its present state of excellence. The year 1839 

 marked a great epoch in its history, and gave it that 

 vast impulse of progress which has ever since been 

 continuous. In that year the real work of colonisation 

 began under the auspices of the great New Zealand Com- 

 pany, working upon the lines of that system devised by the 

 memorable Edward Gibbon Wakefield. British government 

 was established, and thousands of our countrymen flocked to 

 the almost desolate shores, finding there a congenial home and 

 a new Britain. Prior to this, and from the time of Captain 

 Cook, scanty indeed and slowly gained was the knowledge of 

 New Zealand. Some portions of the coast-line were better 

 known and better laid down ; but of the interior an almost 

 complete ignorance prevailed, if we except the northern and 

 narrower portion of the North Island, which, due to the 

 journeyings of the missionaries and of a few other travellers, 

 was fairly well known. But by far the largest part of the 

 Northern Island, and almost the whole of the Southern, lay 

 buried in an obscurity as dark as that of central Africa. A 

 few adventurous whalers fringed the coasts, but neither their 

 interest nor their curiosity tempted them to penetrate the 

 interior, and whatever they knew was known to none besides. 

 Hence that most modern and improved map of 1836, compiled 



