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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 6 (September 1, 1934)

Ships of the Past

Ships of the Past.

But the phase of New Zealand's story that I, for one, would like to see reproduced thoroughly well, and one that will necessitate more trouble and technical accuracy than most of the other features of the spectacles presented in the living panorama of history, is the reproduction of one or two of the old sailing ships that brought the British immigrants to New Zealand.

The pioneering era may be said to have ceased in this country when the big square-riggers ceased to carry passengers and steam took sail's place. The earliest ships, such as the Duchess of Argyle and the Jane Gifford, which brought the first regular immigrants to Auckland, and the Tory, which pioneered Wellington, were small vessels compared with the clippers of the Sixties and Seventies. It should be possible to have replicas of these vessels, true to period in dimensions and rig, sailing up the harbour and landing their passengers on the beach as they did long ago. There are old laid-up craft to draw upon and reconstruct; or replicas could be built. It would take money, but nothing satisfactory can be done without liberal expenditure, and this is the event of a century—and the outlay would be justified. Auckland and Wellington will attract travellers from all over the Pacific, but particularly from Australia, if really original and dramatic spectacles are presented on a large scale.

One's imagination is greatly drawn by the idea of those old-time sailing-ships landing their sea-weary pilgrims of whom Thomas Campbell wrote in his poem for the Wellington pioneers, that when they'd ploughed the stormy deep they'd plough a smiling land. There are some fine lines in Alan Mulgan's poem of the pioneers, ‘Golden Wedding,” picturing the summer-time approach to New Zealand's shores after the storm and ocean-stress of a four months’ voyage:

“… Watches curve and run
In easy flight under a waxing sun;
The full-flowered masts are towers of
loveliness.
The wind is merciful, the waters bless;
Till one calm eve, blue-robed and
sunset-browed, A white cloud hangs too white and
clear for cloud, God's friendly half-forgotten hills still
stand, And the long loneliness is over—
land!”