Five years in New Zealand (1859 to 1864)

The "Mary Anne" was, as I stated, an emigrant ship, and carried on the voyage about four hundred men, women, and children, sent out chiefly through the Government Emigration Age...

I had only been a few days in Christchurch when I met a Mr. Butler whom I had once before seen up-country. He immediately offered me a post on his run at £60 a year, with all ex...

I had now been more than a month on the Ashburton, but as I could not expect home letters yet for some weeks, and was getting tired of mere amusement, I accepted an offer made m...

Two young men--we will call them Jones and Smith, for convenience--emigrated to New South Wales. They each possessed sufficient money to start them, as they hoped, as young squa...

The Lindis was one hundred and twenty miles inland from Dunedin. There was no road, and but for a portion of the way up the valley of the Waitaki only a rough bullock dray track...

I passed nearly a year at Highfield, during which time I made myself acquainted with all the routine of a sheep-farmer's life. I learned to ride stock, shoe horses, shear sheep,...

On our return to Christchurch we were beset with a diversity of advice not calculated to bring us to a speedy decision. Some advised us to go on a sheep run for a year or two as...

For the following six months I kept steadily to work. I was gradually adding to my stock of sheep, and had nothing occurred to disturb me I should doubtless have continued at wo...

The intending squatter might either purchase a sheep run outright, if opportunity offered, or if he was fortunate enough to discover a tract of unclaimed country, he could occup...

In winter in these high latitudes, such as the Upper Rangitata, lying at the foot and immediately eastward of the great Alpine range behind which the winter sun dipped at 3 o'cl...

Port Lyttelton at the time was but an insignificant town in comparison with what it has since become, although from its confined situation it is unlikely ever to attain to any g...

While I stayed at Smith's Station, we made acquaintance with a young man, by name Hudson, a son of the famous Railway King. He had come to New Zealand a few years previously wit...

The survey party consisted of a Government Surveyor Mr. D----, his assistant H----, and myself, with a few labourers, and our destination was Lake Ellesmere, some 15 to 20 miles...

It is said that Captain Cook introduced pigs into New Zealand. They were at the time I write of, the only wild quadrupeds in the land, except rats (for which I believe the count...

After passing through one of the most beautiful of the Lindis gorges we found ourselves at the entrance of a wide tract of open and undulating country, almost bare of anything b...

It was some time after dark when we arrived at Wynne's Station, which was situated in a bend behind a promontory, and not observable until close upon it. The owner was absent, b...

During our absence a sad occurrence took place, which I will record here. A Mr. Parks, a Government surveyor, and well-to-do sheep farmer on the Ashburton, had been engaged duri...

My visit being ended and the weather favourable, I proceeded to Christchurch preparatory to resuming work. I was accompanied by a young man named Evans, a stockrider from one of...

On the return journey we had as much company as when we came, and the road was even worse, but the dray being almost empty we experienced less difficulty in proceeding. The firs...

The islands of New Zealand, discovered by the Dutch navigator, Tasman, in 1642, and surveyed and explored by Captain Cooke in 1769, remained unnoticed until 1814, when the first...

I was one of a family of nine, of which four were sons. My eldest brother was destined for the Church; the second had entered a mercantile house in Liverpool; and I, who was thi...