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Letters from Early New Zealand

Wellington. August 23rd, 1850

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Wellington. August 23rd, 1850.

My Dear Mother,

Our letters went off on the 15th by Sydney, acknowledging the arrival of the Poictiers, and all our good news, thereby. In a hurry they went at last, as the Lady Clarke sailed nearly a week before the time we had been told; a most unusual circumstance. Perhaps, though, you may get this first, as we are promised another opportunity next week, and nearly direct. The Fairy Queen is going home, only touching for a few days at Auckland, taking back a skeleton company of the 65th; that is, all the officers of one company. The privates are to be discharged here, in obedience to the new orders for retrenchment.

Since we wrote, we might have been very gay, as we have been asked, and engaged, out almost every night, but the throat not being very well, talking, etc. had to be avoided and we did not go to two parties at Government House. All the gaiety here is given about the full moon, for the sake of the light at night. Yesterday, too, was a very gay day—first a party of about thirty, including the Governor and Mrs. Eyre, at luncheon, on board the Acheron to which Arthur, poor child, was specially invited by Captain Stokes, but I am sorry to say was not well enough to be fit to go. I hope it may not last long, but at present he is quite out of sorts. We had a most lovely day and so it was very pleasant; the ladies collected and talked in Captain Stokes' cabin, then those who liked it went over the ship, down into the engine room, and then we all had luncheon in the gun-room. I am very sorry to say that the Acheron is to go out of her winter quarters, and move off to Nelson next week; we shall miss her very much as to the look of the harbour, and the officers are a very agreeable addition to the society here, though we do not individually go out enough to miss them much in that capacity. In the evening we went to Mr. St. Hill's to tea and to meet Archdeacon Hadfield who has been in Wellington for a few page 84days, but was going off the next morning to Otaki. He only comes down here now and then on business to see after the different Maori settlements about the town, and on Sunday last he baptized three adults, whom he had prepared when he was down before, and then left in charge of a clergyman at the Hutt to see how they would go on, as he is very much against their being baptized immediately on their conversion, and without thoroughly understanding what they are about.

We have had three or four most perfect days, and about as warm as ordinary fine weather at home; the sun very powerful and, wonderful to say, no wind. The fine days here are certainly finer, and the bad ones worse, than any I have ever seen before, though of course it is not really so cold, only, as I think I said before, you feel it much more in proportion, from the ill-built houses, and warm days coming in between. To-day is the third of rain and wind, but from the North, so that the thermometer still stands high; it is a fair wind, too, for the Poictiers, which sailed Sunday for Otago, not Port Cooper as intended. Mr. Pollard being the only passenger for that place, the Captain made arrangements for conveying his goods by a small coaster that was going there, and so avoids the possible delay of touching at another port. Aforesaid Mr. P. remains in the ship and goes with her to Sydney which is her destination after Otago. He does not promise very well, and we should not be at all sorry if he took a fancy to some other settlement.

The more we see and hear of other ships and passages the more we are and ought to be thankful for our own. The Poictiers left London, as you know, February 6th, and got in here August 2nd; less agreeable cuddie passengers, and more of them; steerage passengers more ill-behaved, and Doctor, though not drunken, so ill as to be of no use, indeed not expected to live for more than a month. He caught an ulcerated sore throat, and low fever, from someone who came on board with it, and most of those in the steerage had it. A man and two children died, and so did a child of the Doctor's, and another since he landed here. I believe, however, that they were very fortunate in their page 85Captain, and the ship, too, was a much larger and finer one than poor Lady Nugent.

Mr. Bulkeley has just done rather a mad thing. He got two months' leave to go up and see his possessions at Taranaki, and upon this, chartered a little vessel in the harbour, of about ten tons, and into it for a crew he put himself, his soldier servant (a man who came out with us, who was valet to Mr. Ed. Howley Palmer, but spent a year in prison for bigamy just before he came out and who cannot find a place to suit him here) another fellow passenger of ours who has been almost everything but a sailor, and one man who, though not exactly a sailcr, still understands it pretty well; and with this "lot" he has started about a. week ago for a voyage of 250 miles along this most dangerous coast. This gale, too, is all against him, and has been a very strong one. All the papers seem to say that you had a very severe winter, and in particular one very severe gale. "An old lady blown into the Regent's Canal and drowned" and sad loss in shipping. We have a Sydney paper sent to us now, by dint of which we have already read Mr. Adderley's letter in the Morning Chronicle just before Easter. We have seen, too, that the Mariner did sail on April 4th, so we are hoping for her with the first breeze from the South.

August 27th (which is blowing to-day with all its might). My husband had ridden up the Hutt, meeting a soft gale from the North; it changed quite suddenly to exactly the contrary direction, so that he had to ride home, nine miles, against a bitterly cold wind with drenching rain and hail. My only walk was before breakfast, with Arthur, to look at the cauliflowers in the garden; which are already very fine and growing "wisibly" in the last few days. It is quite funny to see the cabbages that we cut since we came here, sprouting up again as high as ever, and having evidently come to quite a different conclusion from ourselves about the cold; so do the weeds. We have daffodils out, and some narcissus; and there are both violets and primroses and crocuses out, though not in our garden. I need hardly say that we keep all our seeds most religiously to plant at Port Cooper.

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I shall be very sorry to leave Wellington, we like so much our little cottage all on the ground floor, with its garden which is quite private and then the beautiful view, and such nice walks in every direction, whenever it is dry. After much rain the Hutt road is the only tolerable place, and indeed it is always the fashionable lounge, specially on a Sunday afternoon, when everyone walks there, from the Governor and his wife down to all the shop people in their best clothes. It is, by the by, rather descriptive of the climate here that the clothes are always quite in the summer style, such as white shawls with large bright flowers on them, straw bonnets with sky blue ribbons, and white cotton gloves; bright colours are quite "the go" here.

I wonder who amongst you all will take pity on our benighted ideas, and send us a chapter on the fashions. Mrs. Eyre in her trousseau, got a year ago nearly, is at present our model. We hear that Mr. and Mrs. Eyre are going next Monday, weather permitting, in the Acheron, to pay a visit to Nelson. We met Captain Stokes in our walk to-day, and he regretted extremely that his "want of accommodation prevented his pressing us to join the party". However he went on to offer, and for the second time, to carry us down to Port Cooper, as he is to be down there about the time we expect to have to move, and that would be a grand thing for us instead of some horrible little coaster, which shall now (D.V.) only carry our goods and furniture, for we must prepare for going into bare walls, with only one shop, about as good as Grijfy Griffy's, but if possible more various in its contents, and all dear and bad. Port Cooper, however, is just now quite the fashion, quite the favourite idea here, so many people want to get land there, and are much disappointed to find that they must write to England to buy what is so near at hand, and so tempting to some people who are getting tired of being so shut up as they say, and feel, in a country like this, all of hills, without any ground where a plough can be used; even in the Hutt they are as yet very little used, I believe from the stumps in the ground left to die down, and which are still in high preservation; and labour so dear, besides the short colonial page 87hours, that digging cannot be made to answer for corn. It all comes from Australia, Hobart town, etc.

One of the applicants whom we should both be glad to satisfy and fix in the district, is Captain Mitchell (of the 84th in India) who has lately (as I told you) found out an overland passage from Nelson to Port Cooper. He is an ardent admirer of this country in general and P.C. in particular, and though he must go back to India for a year, to sell out, etc., he has promised to return (D.V.) in that time, with a cargo of Indian goods, to be disposed of at a great profit amongst the anticipated ladies of Lyttelton, Christ Church, etc. He has been eight years at Calcutta, (knew the Colviles well there) and says now, that he does not wish to go back to live in England after so many of his ties are broken, and so on; and in short is so bent on establishing himself at Port Cooper, that he has gone down there with a stack of sheep and cattle, and materials for a house, with which he means to squat, as the phrase goes, and trust to his luck in getting a good choice of land, when choosing time comes for him. He is very lively, and evidently much used to society, (though I have myself seen little of him) and, if I may say so in the lowest possible voice, a good deal more gentlemanlike than the general run of young gentlemen who have hitherto wished to settle about Wellington.

August 29th. Yesterday came news by a Hobart town paper of the new little prince1 on May 1 st, to be called after the Duke, which I am so delighted at as to be nearly reconciled to the idea of another at all. One of the merchants here, a Mr. Bannatyne whom we know a little, has lately had out a case of new books of which he has given us the run. We have read "The Caxtons" and begun some more, as it is of course a great treat to my husband who devours books, now that he has time to read, as I do bread and butter. It will sound very old and stale to you, but we like "The Caxtons" very much, though some of the characters are unnatural enough, and some imitations of Tristam Shandy might have been left out with good effect. There is "Shirley" too among them, Lamartine's "Revolution of' 48", and a good many more that were rather new eight months

1 Prince Arthur, now Duke of Connaught.

page 88ago, and, what is more to the purpose, that we have never read.

Great excitement to-day in the poultry "interest" as one of the new hens has begun to lay and "Peggy", as Arthur calls one of the oldest, "gives notice" to sit, His mustard and cress, etc., are coming up famously under the hot sun (though we had a white frost last night) thereby shaming the dilatoriness of a solitary pea which he procured and planted at the same time, about a week ago, and which is still dead to the worlds to his great surprise. We have magnificent cauliflowers, planted by our predecessors, and some rhubarb coming on; gooseberry trees very green, and the honeysuckle in full leaf.

I am sure you would laugh if you could see the Maoris with their tops, not of the humming kind either, which are pretty amusements for anyone, but. regular whipping-tops; men with grey beards, women, and children, are all equally excited about them, and now that roads are getting dry the pathway through the town is really alive with them, more men, too, than children, laughing and talking about it in the greatest excitement. As the soldiers marched by the other day with the band, a full grown woman (dressed in nothing but a garment of brown cotton, like a pinafore with sleeves, and sewn up behind) was following them whipping her top along as an English child would a hoop. All the girls, too, are capital performers, and generally with pipes in their mouths, and so are the tiny children of six or seven, who are very funny figures, with a piccaninny of the smallest size on their backs, a little blanket over both, and the little bare brown limbs slipping out as they work away and scream with delight. A peculiarity of the Maori babies is that they don't cry; I did once hear a child of about two, that seemed ill, crying, and that is all. There is a Maori pah about a mile from the town and two more almost in it, being at each end of what is called "the Beach", that is the long street (about a mile and a half) if street it can be called, that has houses only on one side, and runs along by the sea, One pah is quite a large one, and we saw it quite in its glory the night before last, coming home from our walk; they were receiv-page 89ing a visit from another tribe and there were an immense number of them about. Oh! how we did sigh to be able to draw them. They were all quite in their best, even the canoes in which the visitors had arrived were drawn up on the beach, dressed out most elaborately with feathers. All over the enclosure were dotted down groups of men and women, in their newest blankets and cotton gowns, and in the centre of each group a large black iron pot, full of boiled rice which is a great delicacy, and a basket full of potatoes. I need not add, no spoons, or other implements than their fingers. Near the spot where we stood to watch them, (close to the kitchen, I should guess, from the number of black pots and loaves of bread tidily arranged) a Maori was striking on the ground with his weapon, and calling out very loud, apparently to invite those who were hungry to come for more. Then came a woman to shake hands and rub noses, with all those squatting rounds as theydo when friends meet; the crying was over before we got there. When the old lady, who was evidently of a lively ardent temper, had finished her greetings, she boldly stood out, shouting out a kind of recitative, her weight thrown on her foreleg as if she was going to fence, or dance a war dance, and striking her hand on her side at every instant. Wishing to be very correct, she had procured for the occasion a black stuff gown, and a green scarf, thrown over one shoulder and tied under the other arm; but as the gown was much too long, and had been made to fit a waist of much more slender proportions, it did not after all look so very well, as the top hook behind, round her neck, was the only one that would meet, and consequently much was left to wonder at, of her internal arrangements. Her wig, though, was the masterpiece. It was made of tufts of hair intermingled with feathers, which stuck straight up, the whole put on in the form of a wreath à la Norma, and with her ugly face, and blue tattooed lips, made her so absurd-looking that even the Maoris seemed to feel it; at least, they turned a deaf ear to all her blandishments, and no partner could she find. The men are much better looking than the women; some are quite handsome, and most of them very lively, and fond of a joke. The other day we had gone into a pah to look at page 90them and were trying to talk, as well as we could, to a crowd of them all round, when one man caught sight of my bracelet, and then they all flew upon it—"gold? how much?" meaning "did it cost". So I took it off, and shewed them the hair at the back and pulled a bit of my husband's, to show it was his. There was a general cry of delight at the dodge, which was evidently quite new to them, and then the man who first saw it burst out laughing at his own notion, and made us understand very plainly by words and signs that when he was underground, the wahine (me) would pull it, the hair, out and throw it away. A rude enough joke certainly, but it seemed very sharp, coming so readily from a face tattooed with every conceivable line, and ornamented with a large green stone earring! Their great delight is to point to my little chain hanging, and ask "what o'clock" to show that they know it means a watch.

On August 31st we were again asked to Government House, "no party" but to see something of us, so at last we went, and found, as they said, only Mr. Ormond, Mrs. Eyre, and a 65th officer, Mr. Ewen, who, happy man is going home next week in the Fairy Queen. Mrs. Eyre sings well, and plays unusually well on the guitar and on the pianoforte (and harp, I believe, but that I did not hear). She is too, as I said before, very good-looking, and very well got up, and it was quite a treat to me to hear the music, and sit in a room so much like a drawing-room at home. But though I began by being quite certain that she was herself charming, I am obliged to qualify the term now a little. She is so very gracious, and talks such nonsense, with her little fine lady airs, that I am at last falling, in spite of myself, into the colonial vice of want of love to our rulers; while my husband has taken quite an antipathy to her, and thinks her "insufferable". She is, though, in every way so much the first person here, besides all the admiration due to a very pretty bride, that some allowance should be made for her head being a little turned. She so evidently thinks it such a very fine thing to be wife of the Lieut.-Governor of N.Z., that it would be a pity she should be undeceived, especially as appearances rather favour the report that Mr. Eyre would not have been "the happy man" he is, if his "Excellency" page 91had not softened her heart. They go to-morrow (D.V.) to Nelson, for a few days only, in the Acheron.

September 2nd. Exactly a month after the Poictiers in came the Mariner, bringing many pamphlets in a big box, and Laura's invaluable journal. I wish she could have heard our intense admiration and gratitude, for she may suppose how fully it was appreciated, as it was the only letter of any kind that we either of us got. She mentions Mrs. Godley ill at Dublin, but I hope it is nothing bad, she had been unwell from cold, before they went up. Silence gives consent to all the others being well, I hope, excepting Aunt Anne. Influenza is so bad a thing for her, but the letter goes on some days after she was mentioned, and so I hope we may think of her as better. Arthur's recollections of her are still extremely lively, and he likes of all things to get me to tell over again about Paris, the Bois de Boulogne, and his feeding the fishes in the Tuileries Garden fountains. He still remembers Elliot too, very well, and Aunt Sara, and Aunt Charlotte with the little baby, but when he goes back to Grandmamma, Portman Square and even Stokesley, he is apt to make mistakes, though he fancies he remembers you all perfectly. I am thankful to say he is much better, eats and sleeps capitally, and is I hope going to grow fat on cod's liver oil, of which he drinks up a teaspoonful every morning, in milk, with the greatest delight, and he has left off meat for the present.

September 3rd. He and I had a tea-party, in honour of the day, but it was too cold to have it out of doors, in spite of a very hot sun early which made us dream of it (vide a fresh stock of chilblains), and now we hope to do it on the 16th (D.V.) for Aunt Sara. We were rather sad at getting not a single letter through the P.O., no Spectators, etc. My husband specially was hors de lui at hearing only not very encouraging hints about Canterbury from the journal, and not anything official or detailed. He has been picking the brains of all the passengers in the Mariner who knew anything about it, specially a Mr. Mackworth, who is I believe eventually for P. Cooper, but is now only waiting till a vessel is ready to take him to the Auckland Islands, in which Adventure he has shares. He assures us that Mr. page 92Fitzgerald not only is coming out but hopes to do so by almost the first ship, which we should of course rejoice at, now, but I still think it would be a pity for himself in many ways.

September 4th. A lovely hot day, and the band began again playing on the flat, which makes a sort of promenade for everyone (who likes music) between two and four. Next day came a gale so bad as to wake us often in the night, and which still continues.

September 6th, promising another boisterous night. Acheron still here, as it is too bad for her to sail, or steam, off. We are daily expecting the Government brig from Auckland and hope to get some more letters by her, as we think the Lord William Bentinck, which sailed for that place a few days before the Mariner may somehow have got our letters; neither Mr. Fox, nor anyone in the Acheron, got a single letter either, and we hear the same from many others; but no one cares so much as we do, either from being more used to it or from having less "valuable" friends at home. Mr. Fox is a very old friend of John Burdon's, who came, I dont know how far, to marry him to his frightful little wife, a Miss Halcomb of Wiltshire, near Marlborough, who, by the by, was at school at Bath with Lola Montes! Two of her sisters came out to her in the ship before us, one so ill in consumption that she is since dead, and about the time that she died, Mrs. Fox was dreadfully ill, brain fever I believe, so that she was delirious for days and in a great state of excitement (at least) for much longer. Mr. Fox had a sad time, for the other sister got very ill too, and Mrs. Fox was quite unmanageable, and full of fancies; he seems quite a husband à la Tom Cocks, that is as near as he can, with a devotion worthy of a better cause. We are hoping very much that you have just about got our first letters from here by the Woodstock;

May 6th. Four months should be enough (D.V.) for a direct passage home. I wonder when, and if ever, you got those we wrote near the line. I suppose not before the Mariner sailed, or Laura would have mentioned it. The Fairy Queen is now announced to sail on Monday, 9th September, and "Ensign Ewen" has offered to take a parcel for us, so I hope to send a small collection of nothing, letters, etc. page 93enclosed in a flax basket made for me by a Maori woman (it is quite new but they can't do things cleaner than that) which perhaps Frances can find some use for…. I find we cannot send the parcel for reasons not worth explaining, but I enclose in this a warm bonnet cap made of albatross down for you in the winter, like the one that I wear (for clean tulle does not grow here), and is much admired by the Maoris. I have put too, a little more of the material in case of its not being large enough, or of anyone liking a ditto. Arthur too, is sending a letter to C. Pollen, and a picture to Dicky, which were not ready when I wrote to her three weeks ago. Pray look at it, for it is just what we see from our window and then will you send them on to her? Another is going to Laura. I am a little afraid of ruining you in postage, but feathers are not heavy. I asked Sara in my letters, three weeks ago, to send me out some silk stockings. I am afraid I must now ask for a few gloves (seven Courvoisier at Waterloo House) a dozen short ones, if you please, two pair black, four rather dark, and six quite light, and three pair of long white; for I left all mine at home, little expecting to want them, except one or two cleaned pairs that came by accident, and they are things you cannot get here, and that it is a bore to be without. I am sorry to give the trouble, but I find I wear more gloves than I expected, being so much out, and then it is such fun getting a parcel of anything, I ought to say that unless the gloves are in tin (any old canister) they will mildew with the sea air. And any nice little book for Arthur I should be very glad of, if you will be so kind as to ask1 Tom Cocks to repay you which we hope he has money to do. I am most anxious to hear how Sara's nursing went on and whether she had to give it up altogether, or only for a time, which Laura's letter did not quite settle, but I hope the first ship from Auckland will bring us that much of news, and now I must begin to fold up as the Fairy Queen is to sail in two or three hours. The Acheron is smoking away, just going to start too, so we shall have an empty harbour, comparatively. I need not ask you to give our great love to everybody, and to Stokesley, where we

1 Messrs. Cocks & Biddulph were the family bankers; hence the references to payments.

page 94were this day last year! Powles has been writing to Coombes. I wonder what she says of the place, etc. She is quite as good a cook as ladies' maid, but I don't like having people "out of their place". I am always afraid of something coming that she don't like, and may take offence at. You think servants a bore at home, but it is worse here, much. William goes on very well and is really a treasure to us, though I don't like to boast. I must say Goodbye, God bless you all, my dear Mother.

Your very affectionate,

Charlotte.