Transcription from Historical Book (Pages 44-45)
CHAPTER III.
APPEARANCE OF THE WHITE MAN.
On 17th February, 1770, Captain Cook gave the name of Banks to what he considered to be an island “twenty-four leagues in compass” lying five leagues from the coast of Tovy Poenammoo, as he spelt Te Wai-pounamu, the native name of the South Island of New Zealand. As his ship lay a little to the south of Banks Island (now Peninsula), some of the crew thought they saw land to the south-east. Cook thought it was only a cloud, but in order that there might be no doubt, he steered towards it, but after running 28 miles and seeing nothing, he wore south at 7 in the evening, running along the Canterbury coast all night and until noon next day, when he hauled to the westward. A moderate breeze was blowing from the north, but at 8 in the evening it became unsettled, and at 10 fixed in the south. During the night it blew so violently that the canvas was reduced to close-reefed topsails. At 5 o’clock on the morning of the 19th February they bore north-west, with a fresh gale at south, and at 10 o’clock they saw the land at a distance of about 30 miles. At seven in the evening they were 18 miles from the shore, with a depth of 32 fathom water. As will be seen by the course marked on the chart, they tacked on and off. At 4 o’clock on the morning of the 20th they reached a point about 3 miles from the shore, with 13 fathom water. Cook now gave the first description of the coastline, which had hitherto been obscured, as indicated by its being indefinitely laid down on the chart. He said that the surface to about five miles from the sea was low and flat, but it then rose into hills of considerable height: it appeared to be totally barren, and no signs of habitation were seen. They stood off and on during the 20th and 21st, and on the 22nd, at sunset, the weather, which had been hazy, cleared up, and they saw a mountain which rose in a high peak, bearing N.W. by N., and also saw the land more clearly than before, lofty and mountainous in appearance. On the 23rd, they had a “hollow swell from the S.E.” and expecting wind from that quarter, they kept plying between 7 and 15 leagues from the shore, in from 70 to 44 fathom water. In the evening a light breeze sprang up from the north-east, and the course was shaped south.
When Cook sailed west on the 18th, he thought, from descriptions the Natives north had given him, that he would weather the island: they said it could be circumnavigated in four days. He was standing in towards the Waitaki: the country he described on the 20th was probably the coastland of the southern Hunters Hills. On his chart, the coastline is laid down much too far to the west, and this is one of the weakest parts of his otherwise excellent chart. Banks Peninsula was still thought to be an island until 1809, when Captain Chase of the Pegasus discovered it to be a peninsula. The Canterbury coastline, however, was still laid down much too far to the west on all maps until the survey by the Acheron in 1849-50. In September, 1788, Lieutenant Bligh, of the Bounty, sailed past the South of New Zealand, and in November, 1791, Vancouver landed in Dusky Sound. The first sealing gang was stationed at Dusky in November, 1792, being left there by the Britannia on her way to the Cape of Good Hope. At the end of 1794 the first spars were taken from New Zealand at Thames by the snow Fancy. By 1805, several vessels were engaged in fishing about the New Zealand coasts, and trade may be said to have begun in earnest. All the vessels in question came from Sydney. From 1805 onwards New Zealand was constantly visited by an ever-increasing stream of sealers, traders in flax, and whalers. When the South Island was frequented, it was almost entirely the northern and southern sounds, Dusky and Queen Charlotte, and the near headlands, known by Cook. The east coast, especially northwards of Moeraki, was hardly touched, owing principally to the absence of harbourage. By 1830 Banks Peninsula had become a centre for traders in flax and supplies such as pork and potatoes, and in 1835-6 shore whaling was established at Peraki, west of Akaroa Harbour.
In 1831, G. and E. Weller, of Sydney, commenced an establishment for whaling in Otago, gradually extending operations northwards, and during the three years 1836 to 1839 three shore stations were established by them, two being in Otago, the third at Timaru. The station at Timaru was shifted to that place from Blueskin by Joseph Price, or by the captain of the Harriet, of which Price was chief officer. These stations were worked on behalf of the Weller Bros until the end of the season of 1840, when the Wellers failed. They were pushing on operations vigorously in that season, as may be gathered from the fact that they had surveyors at work in Port Levy in September, 1840. A party of surveyors intended for Timaru, was in April, 1840, landed, instead, at Ohahoa, a bay near Lake Forsyth. The Wellers evidently intended laying out land for speculative purposes; but of their extensive claims, comprising over 3,500,000 acres in the South Island, said to have been purchased in 1839, nothing apparently resulted. The exact date of the opening of the station at Timaru is doubtful, but the party ceased work before the season of 1840 was half over, for they were at Price's fishery at Ikoraki, Banks Peninsula, on 1st July, 1840, and next day they were at Hempleman's fishery at Peraki, where they "signed articles." Sam Williams was one of the party at the Timaru station; he acted as storeman, but apparently did not sign on at Peraki with the others; he was whaling for Rhodes at Island Bay in 1844.
Transcription from Historical Book (Pages 45-47)
Shore Whaling
The usual equipment of a shore whaling station consisted of a pair of shears, for hauling up the flens or strip of blubber, when cut from the carcase of the whale; try works, with furnace for melting blubber; a storehouse furnished with supplies; and from 3 to 5 well-built and well-furnished boats — the total cost from £1,000 to £1,200. The scale of payment to the hands was as follows:
chief headsman, one-thirteenth; second headsman, one-twenty-eighth; boat steerer, one-sixtieth; boatmen, one-hundredth; cooper and carpenter, one-seventieth. The boats might pull from six to eight oars, including the boat steerer, who was also harpooner, so that a shore station might employ thirty men or more.
The take of a season, which lasted from May till October, might be worth, including oil and bone, £1,000 or upwards. The men, who were in a great many cases runaway sailors, were paid at the end of the season, and during its course were debited with the supplies obtained by them from the station stores: the cost of these was deducted from their earnings at the end of the season, and, in addition, a share of the cost of any gear lost; so that it often happened that when the end came the men would be in debt to the station.
An indication of the prices paid by the men for various goods may be given by quoting prices ruling at Peraki in March, 1837:
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Tobacco, 4/6 a lb
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Soap, 3/- a bar
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Twilled shirt, 7/6
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Boots, 15/- a pair
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Shoes, 9/- a pair
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Stockings, 3/6 a pair
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Flushing trousers, 12/- a pair
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Duck trousers, 5/- a pair
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Red shirt, 5/-
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Drawers, 5/- a pair
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Duck or guernsey frock, 5/-
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Scotch cap, 2/6
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Comforter, 2/6
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Blanket, 15/-
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Canvas, 2/6 a yard
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Calico, 1/4 a yard
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Skein twine, 1/-
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Thread, 7/- a lb
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Pocket knife, 2/-
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Scissors, 3/6
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Cards, 5/- a pack
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Pipes, 1d each
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Pannikin, 1/-
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Tin pot, 1/3
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Tin plate, 1/3
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Iron pot, 19 lbs, 15/10
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59 lbs potatoes, 2/8
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Sugar, 5d a pound
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Pepper, 2/- a lb
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128 lbs. flour, £1 18s. 4d
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95½ lbs. beef, £2 7s. 9d
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Tea, 3/- a lb
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Pork, 6d a lb
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Rum, 3/- a quart, 3d a glass
No literature; no writing materials quoted, and only one musical instrument — a Jew’s harp, 1/6.
It is nevertheless certain that there were men of superior birth and breeding amongst the mass of rude, unlettered sailors and whalers, whose musical promptings could find adequate expression in the twanging of a Jew’s harp, and whose literary instincts rose no higher than the thousand and wild nights of the devil’s duodecimo — that certain forerunner of misfortune, with its four unlucky thirteens.
The man who kept Hempleman’s diary during 1842 was evidently one of these superiors sorted with inferiors. The usually laconic entries are by him considerably amplified, and contain many touches of humour or satire. The season of 1842 was a bad one; the hands were insubordinate, and desertions were plentiful. The writer of the diary is weary of the bickering and uncertainty, and meditates leaving the station. He quotes Byron, not quite correctly — “Farewell! and if forever — still forever fare thee well!”
He also closes his entries with three stanzas that read like Moore: he was evidently in touch with contemporary singers — for he was a singer himself; and the most interesting entry occurs on 9th August, 1842. “Men preparing to be off,” he says; and then he breaks into verse:
With whalers, and whaling, there’s always complaining,
Like a boat or a mill out of tune;
While the whales are in Bay the men run away—
And we’ll have a clear stage of it soon.
This stanza, with its local colour, appeals as an original production; and if it be so, it is the first recorded verse written in Canterbury.
No record has been found of the names of the men at the Timaru station, though it is known that Sam Williams was boat-steerer at any rate of one boat, and Phil Ryan was cooper in 1839, when he left for Banks Peninsula. The station must have been of a very temporary nature, for there were no buildings of any permanence other than rough huts; probably the old Maori huts were used in part. The try-out pots were fixed at the head of Caroline Bay, in the gully beyond the second viaduct: one of the well-burnt fireplaces was exposed and washed away by the heavy seas of May, 1882. One of the old try-pots was found to be actually in use, though not for its original purpose, in 1912. Ribs and bones of the skull were plentiful along the ninety mile beach, and many of the former were used for gate posts and archways in Timaru homes, where some still stand: the vertebrae also found on the beach were often converted into children's stools.
Lookout was kept on the cliffs; and any whale captured was towed in on the high tide, so that it was left high and dry on the tide going down, and flensed before next tide, the blubber being tried out, and the oil stored in casks until called for. The party worked for some time in Caroline Bay, and afterwards for a shorter period at Patiti Point.
Whale Creek received its name from the fact that the carcasses were towed in at that part of the beach for stripping. The boat that called for the oil at Timaru was the Harriet, Jos. Price being chief officer. He left the boat in December, 1839, and started whaling on his own account at Ikoraki, Banks Peninsula. Price shipped in September, 1831, on board the Caroline for a whaling cruise; but whether Caroline Bay was named after this ship, or after another Caroline, a whaler that frequented the coast up till the year 1835, is not known.
No doubt one reason for abandoning the fishery, setting aside the failing of the Weller Brothers, was the decrease in the number of whales frequenting the coast. There was a general decline throughout the grounds: at Taieri, for instance, during the three years of its existence, 1839 to 1841, only 93 tuns of oil were taken; the last year's take was only 8 tuns.
Whilst whales have deserted their old haunts, they are still seen occasionally, three very large ones making their appearance in the roadstead so recently as 31st July, 1884. Their prevalence during the 1869 season caused a public meeting to be held in Timaru on 5th August, with a view to forming a whaling company.
A temporary reappearance of whales would not, however, justify the expenditure that the formation of a company would entail, and the project was dropped, though Captain Crawford declared his intention of starting a whaling establishment, with W. G. McPherson, at the mouth of the Opihi.
Fur seals more frequently make their appearance in the harbour at various times; one appeared at the breakwater on 16th October, 1883; it was followed to Patiti Point, and secured. It measured 7 ft. long and 4 ft. 6 in. in girth.
Seeing that the men hitherto frequenting Canterbury were seafaring men, it is not to be expected that any particulars of the interior of the country should be learned from them: indeed, the only record they have left, when they have left any at all, is a record of shipping and fishing — almost purely maritime details. Seeing, again, that they were mostly unlettered men, it is only by the rarest chance that anything whatever can be learned of or from them.