198 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. VII. 
The expected surveying vessel, the Cuba, had made a 
very long passage ; and, after touching ineffectually at 
Kaipara and Port Hardy, had come on to Kapiti, 
where those on board heard from the whalers that 
Colonel Wakefield had fixed on Port Nicholson as the 
site of the first settlement. They had accordingly 
arrived here on the 4th of January. Captain Smith, 
the Company's Surveyor-General, had preferred the 
lower part of the valley of the Hutt to Thorndon and 
its neighbourhood for the site of the town : as the 
whole 1100 acres, with sufficient reserves for prome- 
nades and other public purposes, could be laid out on 
perfectly level ground in the alluvial valley; while the 
hilly nature of the country at the south-west extremity 
of the harbour precluded the possibility of placing 
much more than half the town and reserves on flat 
ground. He had, accordingly, neglected the instruc- 
tions given by Colonel Wakefield to the man whom 
we left here, to have the town laid out at Thorndon, 
and had proceeded with the survey on the banks of the 
Hutt. The dense forest and swampy nature of some 
of the ground had impeded the rapid progress of the 
necessary measurements; and these temporary allot- 
ments had therefore been made by Colonel Wakefield 
on the proposed boulevards and public park of the 
town, which were intended to include the scrubby and 
sandy ground near the sea and a broad belt along 
either bank of the Hutt. 
Colonel Wakefield's opinion still remained unchanged 
as to the proper site for the town ; but, imagining from 
the instructions of the Company to Captain Smith that 
that gentleman was entitled to carry out his own opi- 
nion in this respect, he had refrained from stopping 
the surveys already commenced. 
J I found, however, among several of the landholders 
