Southland Institute. 459 



In perusing the addresses of gentlemen who have had the honour of election to 

 presidencies, I perceive that it is a common practice to confine themselves to one topic 

 with which they are specially conversant, with your permission I shall therefore follow 

 their example and treat on this district before settlement had taken place, following it up 

 by the more enlarged subject to which it naturally leads. 



It was in September, 1856, that I started from Dunedin to select the sites for the 

 principal townships of the Southern districts — at that time known by the general public 

 as the Bluff Country, or by Maori experts as Murihiku. There were no metal roads in 

 those days, and at that time of the year the tracks were a continuous mass of quagmire. 

 On arriving at Popatuna, these even disappeared, and the remainder of the journey had 

 to be made over an untrodden wilderness. At Tuturau we came upon a small native 

 settlement, and were thrown on the hospitality of a Maori named Reji.o. His accommo- 

 dation was scantj^ nor were the usual lively torments of the native hut less abundant ; 

 but we made the most of it, and our host, in order to wile away the long hours, enlivened 

 them with a war dance, which yet to my memory appears to be the most horribly savage 

 and revolting episode I have ever witnessed. 



We had great difficulty in crossing the Mataura, which was at that time in flood, nor 

 were our difficulties at an end on the plains, spending, as we did a whole day in attempt- 

 ing to cross the long blind swamps which intersected them. 



As it turned out, with ail the expedition we could use, it took us eight days from 

 Dunedin to reach the embouchure of the Pooni Creek, where it joins the Waihopai es- 

 tuary, on which point the principal part of the town of Invercargill is now built. 



The great southern plains of New Zealand were at that time in a state of wilderness, 

 and it is now curious to note the subjects which were at that time of interest, but which 

 have long since been forgotten, and are now despised as trivial in the more advanced 

 state of our civilization. 



In illustration of this state of things, one or two extracts may be made from my old 

 journal : — 



-Pooni Creek, Waiopai, 15th January, 1857.— Drummond brought me some gold 

 scales, mixed with iron sand, which had been washed out of the sands of the Mataura ; 

 the former I tested by aqua regia. Various parties have been digging in different parts of 

 the Waiopai Plains, and found earth giving indications of gold. In passing, it may be 

 noted that this was four years before Gabriel Bead's great discovery. 



Waiopai Plains, 29th January, 1867. — To-day I noticed on the path a Maori oven, 

 and this may be a good opportunity to take notice of the relics of by-gone days, as the 

 kettle and pot of Birmingham have taken their place. The oven consists of a round 

 hole dug in the ground about four or five feet in diameter, and the same depth. Around 

 the edges pebbles and stones are arranged. The system of cooking in t^iese ovens appears 

 to have been the same as often described by voyagers in Polynesia, so need no remarks 

 at my hands. What I have to do with is the oven, a remnant of by-gone days. These 

 with the mounds of earth — another feature in the landscape thrown up amongst the 

 roots by the fallen trees of the forest seem to be the only surface monuments of the past 

 of New Zealand, at least in this southern portion of it, and pigmy as they may appear 

 when considered by those who have viewed the coUosal monuments of ancient EgyjDt and 

 Eome, yet to the present occupier of this distant corner of the earth they read a lesson 

 fraught with the most intense interest. The mounds of red earth to be seen all over 

 the prairie lands, in every state of preservation or delapidation, from the freshly prostrate 



