No. 15.
Mr. Mantell to the Private Secretary.

Sir,—

In obedience to the instructions of His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor, I do myself the honor of reporting my return to this settlement, after having set apart reserves for the Natives of the districts stretching from the Peninsula to Kaiapoi, the boundaries of the Ngaitahu Purchase.

In my communication of the 6th instant, I have alluded to the obstructions thrown in my way by the Natives. Next to their vexatious and dishonest attempts at repudiation, was the refusal of some to give the names of places and tribes, and the misnaming of them by others, although I eventually succeeded in obtaining correct names of rivers, woods, &c. Their aversion to give information respecting the tribes or hapus, added to the suspicion with which my every act or word was watched, made me think it unadvisable at this time to attempt to fill in the census forms. This duty, so far as regards the Peninsula and northward to the boundary, I have now intrusted to a Native, Tikao, who has engaged to complete it by my return.

I was accompanied to Kaiapoi by many Natives belonging to that place, but now resident at Pigeon Bay, Port Levy, and Port Cooper. These Natives say that they almost all belong to Kaiapoi, a statement which, from all I can collect, I believe to be true of as many as 200. They said that the Peninsula having been sold to the French, they would no doubt be compelled to leave it when ordered to do so by the proprietors. They therefore wished sufficient land to be reserved in their native district to allow them at once to gather their numbers together there. Their demand was for a tract of country bounded by the Kawari and Waimakariri Rivers, to extend thence, of the same width, across the Island to the West Coast. I have, with their almost universal approbation, reserved for their use a block containing about 500 acres of bush, and 2,140 acres of open land, old kumera gardens, and swamp, enclosing all their cultivations and kaikas.

In my final report I shall dwell more fully upon the great difficulties with which I have had to contend, and to which I have now so briefly alluded, as I conceive, in such ad interim reports as I may from time to time have it in my power to forward to you, His Excellency will simply wish to be informed of my progress in my mission, and the number and extent of the reserves I may have set apart for the Natives.

I have further guaranteed to the Natives that the site of the ancient pa "Kaiapoi" shall be reserved to Her Majesty's Government, to be held sacred from both Europeans and Natives. Circumstances which it is unnecessary now to narrate, rendered it unadvisable for me to wait for a, survey to be made of this place, which I therefore, with the universal consent of the Natives, disposed of in the manner before described.

On my return from Tuataire Sound (my encampment on the Uoerse), I remained a day at Waimakariri, on the south bank of which stream were resident two men, Tainui and Tipora, with their wives and families, about ten individuals, in all. In consideration of their abandoning their dwelling place, and the two maras which these people cultivated, I at their request, and after considerable deliberation, reserved an ancient pa of about five acres on the north bank, explaining to them that they must not regard this reserve as made for themselves alone, but for the Natives generally, and that they with the others must regard the No. 1 Reserve as their land for cultivation, and the second, Kaikanui, as the site of a kaika in which they may one day reap the advantage of neighbourhood to an English settlement, should one be formed on the Waimakariri. I have in each of these cases left plans with the resident Natives, and others with Solomon Jenikau for the great body of the Natives in the district now residing on the Peninsula.

In conclusion, I may add a few words on the country over which I have lately travelled. I remarked that in the plain near the sea the open land is in general remarkably good, with, of course, occasional swamp, and a very small proportion of forest, and even this is in process of destruction by the fires which run annually at least across the country. As Port Cooper is the nearest harbour to the page 215plain, and almost destitute of wood, I made a point on my return of visiting a hill at the head of the port where I was informed that coal was to be found.

As on all the surrounding mountains I had found none but igneous rock, I was much inclined to doubt the correctness of my information, and was not surprised to find the supposed coal to be a bed of decaying obsidian.

I purpose leaving to-morrow for the South, and hope to arrive at Otakou in about two months.