five weeks-from the 26th March to 1st May, 1773-in Dusky Sound, and while there cleared a piece of ground of about an acre in extent to make a garden, and sowed “a quantity of European seeds of the best kinds." No list of these seeds is given, though cabbages, onions, and leeks are mentioned, but they were in all probability the same sorts as were sown later at Queen Charlotte Sound. Apparently not one of them was able to establish itself in the moist climate of the Sound, and as predicted by George Forster in his Journal, the native vegetation quickly re-asserted itself, and obliterated all trace of the introduced plants1. That Cook hoped to introduce useful plants and animals into a country which he knew by his previous experience did not furnish much food for voyagers, is shown by his leaving geese at Dusky Sound, and these were the first animals which were introduced of set purpose. He had five geese on board his ship, and these were liberated at a spot which he called Goose Cove. This first experiment in acclimatisation, like hundreds of others made in later years, was quite unsuccessful, and nothing was ever seen or heard of the birds again. Lieut. Menzies, the botanist of Vancouver's expedition in 1791, says: As Captain Cook had left five geese in this cove, we were in hopes of meeting with some of their offspring, and thereby partaking of the fruits of his benevolence, but as they were left in the autumn, I am apprehensive they did not survive the first winter, for not the least traces of any could be seen at this time about the cove, and though there was a scarcity of other birds on account of this being the season of incubation, yet it appears to be the most eligible place in the whole Sound for Game at a proper time of the year. Meanwhile his colleague Captain Furneaux, in the 'Adventure,' had put into Queen Charlotte Sound on 7th April, 1773, and was joined there by Cook on 18th May. They stayed till 7th June, and then went southward in search of an antarctic continent. At the Sound, Cook liberated a ram and ewe he had brought with him from the Cape of Good Hope, but they were in a very bad state of health, and died very shortly after being landed. They were supposed to have eaten some poisonous plant. Captain Furneaux landed a boar and two breeding sows, and turned them into the woods. They were not to be seen, nor were there any traces of them found the following year, but the members of the expedition thought that the animals had taken themselves off into the denser forest. When Cook came back in 1777 he could learn 1 In a Journal of the voyage of the 'Endeavour' printed anonymously in 1771, it is stated at p. 58: "At Otaheite we had likewise planted many European seeds, of which none, except mustard, cresses and melons were found to vegetate." nothing about them, so he gave the natives another boar and sow, with instructions not to kill them. It is probable that these original pigs were the ancestors of the long-nosed wild pigs which afterwards became so common in the South Island. Cook also landed two goats, a male and a female, on the east side of the Sound, but there is reason to believe that the natives killed them. He gave them another pair in 1777, and it is popularly believed that most of the wild goats found in the South Island in the early days of settlement are descended from these. In West Bay, Cook liberated some fowls, and though he could not find any trace of them when he visited the spot in October, 1774, yet in his later visit in February, 1777, he stated that "all the natives whom I conversed with agreed that poultry are now to be met with wild in the woods behind Ship Cove; and I was afterwards informed by the two youths who went with us, that Tuitou, a popular chief amongst them, had a great many cocks and hens in his separate possession." During this stay of two months, ground was cleared at more than one spot, and numerous kinds of vegetable seeds were sown, including turnip, cabbage, white mustard, radish, purslane, peas, beans, kidney beans, parsley, carrot, parsnip, onion and leek: potatoes also were planted. Of these, cabbage, and apparently also turnip, onion and leek succeeded in establishing themselves; radishes seeded freely, but the peas, beans and kidney beans were eaten by rats. It is more than probable that some European weeds of cultivation were introduced at the same time. On 2nd November when near Cape Kidnappers, Cook gave some pigs and fowls to natives who came off in a canoe, the first introduction of these two kinds to the North Island. On the following day he once more entered Queen Charlotte Sound, and waited till the 25th for his consort, but as she had not arrived by that time, he left for a cruise in the Antarctic Ocean. The 'Adventure' arrived in the Sound five days later, and remained over three weeks, during which time the unfortunate massacre of ten of her crew took place. After a long cruise in the Antarctic and Pacific Oceans, Cook returned to Queen Charlotte Sound on 19th October, 1774, and finally left for England on 10th November. The important thing about this voyage, from our present point of view, is that Cook brought with him various animals and plants for the express purpose of introducing them, having experienced on his first voyage the lack of fresh food in the country. beyond that which the natives were able to supply them with. To this voyage we can assign the introduction and subsequent naturalisation of the pig and the goat and perhaps of fowls; and among plants, of the cabbage, turnip and potato. Other attempts to naturalise plants mostly failed. Cook visited Queen Charlotte Sound again on his third and last voyage to the Pacific, entering it on 12th February, 1777, and leaving it on the 25th. There is no record of any attempts to introduce further species, except the pigs and goats previously referred to. In 1791, Vancouver visited Dusky Sound, and Lieut. Menzies reported that in the garden (made by Cook eight years previously) there had grown up a dense covering of brushwood and fern, which completely obliterated all sign of the old clearing, and only the fact that its position was recorded and described enabled the spot to be identified. In view of the struggle between indigenous and introduced plants which exercised the minds of many eminent naturalists, and to which reference is made in the writings of Hooker, Darwin, Wallace and others, the record of further visits to Dusky Sound is interesting. The value of the seal and whale fisheries of Southern New Zealand soon drew enterprising sailors to these waters, and a wholesale destruction of these animals took place. Dusky Sound had been charted by Cook, its harbour was not only safe, but it provided abundance of fish, wood and water, hence it made a good rendezvous, and the base of a good hunting ground. On 3rd November, 1792, the ‘Britannia' from Sydney anchored in Facile Harbour, Dusky Sound, and landed a party of twelve sealers, with store of provisions, etc. These men were not relieved till September, 1793, when the 'Britannia' revisited the spot, and took them off. During the early part of the same year the Sound was visited by the Spanish corvettes 'Descuvierta' (commanded by Don Alexandro Malaspina), and 'Atrevida' (Don Jose Bustamente). I do not know how long they stayed. Captain Raven of the 'Britannia' in reporting from Norfolk Island on 2nd November, 1793, says: "The animals I left had fed themselves on what they found in the woods, and were exceedingly fat and prolific." It would be interesting to know what animals these were, and whether any had gone wild, or had been left, or if they were all carried away again. Unfortunately we have no information on the subject. On 19th September, 1795, the 'Endeavour,' Captain Bampton, of 800 tons, and the brig 'Fancy' of 150 tons, sailed from Sydney for India, and called in at Dusky Sound—perhaps to load some spars. They had no less than 244 people on board the two ships. There they found a small vessel, which the twelve men left by the 'Britannia' had built during their ten months' stay in the Sound, but which they had not taken off the stocks. Captain Bampton completed this little vessel, and called it the 'Providence.' On 19th January, 1796, the 'Fancy' and the 'Providence' arrived at Norfolk Island, and reported that the 'Endeavour' had been wrecked at Dusky Sound. She had been found utterly unseaworthy, and had been emptied, abandoned and sunk there. An enormous amount of stuff must have been carried ashore. Owing to the small size of the two remaining vessels, no less than 35 men had to be left behind, no doubt with abundance of stores. These derelicts were not rescued till May, 1797, when the 'Mercury' left Sydney for Dusky, picked them up, and landed them at Norfolk Island, after twenty months' detention in the Sound. Sealing and whaling vessels continued to visit the Sound at intervals, and parties of men were certainly there in 1803, 1804 and 1805. I have myself gone down in much more recent years with sealing parties to the south, and have some notion of the equipment they used to carry. In addition to bags of flour, meal, sugar, etc., they nearly always carried considerable quantities of potatoes. During these fifteen or sixteen years referred to (between 1791 and 1805) many men lived on shore, often for lengthened periods, and almost certainly took with them large quantities of stores, which must have frequently contained seeds of many European weeds of cultivation. An example of this is shown in the case of four men (members of a sealing party) who were left on the Solanders for four and a half years, and were rescued in 1813. They had attempted to raise potatoes and cabbages, of which plants one of them happened to have some seed when they were unhappily driven upon the island, but the sea-spray rendered cultivation impracticable. In the same year ten men were rescued from Secretary Island, in Thompson Sound, who had been left there in 1809. Yet it is an interesting fact that in the West Coast Sounds region practically no European plants are to be found, except on the Milford track, which has been much frequented by tourists in recent years. A Sydney paper of 4th September, 1813, reports an interview with Captain Williams, who stated that "the natives of the coast of Foveaux Strait attend to the cultivation of the potato with as much diligence as he ever witnessed. He saw one field of considerably more than one hundred acres, which presented the appearance of one well cultivated bed." In 1824, De Blosseville of the 'Coquille,' writing from Captain Edwardson's report says: "Potatoes, cabbages and other vegetables introduced by the Europeans are grown." These southern natives had not seen pigs up to the time of Edwardson's visit; so he gave them some. In 1826 the schooner 'Sally,' with a large number of immigrants, T. N. Z. 2 together with many cattle, sheep and other stock from England, called in at Stewart Island-presumably at Port Pegasus-and stayed for a period of three weeks. Apparently the 'Rosanna' also called with immigrants. She then went on to Hokianga, where a settlement was made, but Captain Herd and most of the settlers took fright and sailed for Sydney, only four men remaining. In 1820 Major Cruise, who spent ten months in the north of New Zealand, says: "The excellent plants left by Captain Cook" (in Queen Charlotte Sound?) "viz., Cabbages, turnips, parsnips, carrots, etc., etc., are still numerous, but very much degenerated; and a great part of the country is over-run with cow-itch which the natives gave Marion the credit of having left among them." (I do not know what plant he refers to here.) "Water melons and peas were raised while we were in the country, with great success, and the people promised to save the seeds and sow them again. The missionaries have got some peach trees that bear very well, and an acorn and a seed of an orange were sown by a gentleman of the ship near Pomarrees village, and the place rigidly tabooed by the inhabitants." Cruise also reports that the natives (at Wy-ow Bay) brought a cat for them to cook and eat, which he remarks must have come from the shipping at the Bay of Islands or from the Coromandel. In 1832, d'Urville-who spent four months on the coast of the South Island-found a gang of six men-sealers-working at Mason Bay, Stewart Island. In his visit in 1840, he entered Port Pegasus and learned that 20 English sailors had settled on the shores of Foveaux Strait, where they had married native women. They grew potatoes and various other vegetables, and reared fowls. They told d'Urville that as many as 20 vessels anchored in Port Pegasus annually. In this same year (1840) Major Bunbury in his report on the proclamation of Stewart Island as Her Majesty's possession, says of Paterson Inlet, "the Europeans there employ themselves at boat building and in the culture of wheat and potatoes, with which they supply the whalers, as also with pigs and poultry." Previous to this, Waikouaiti was one of the best known whaling stations on the Otago coast. In 1838 this was purchased from its Sydney owners by Mr John Jones, who two years later sent down several families to engage in farming and cattle raising, and at the end of 1840 the population of the settlement numbered about 100 persons. They had enclosed some 6000 acres of land, and had about 100 acres in crop; while the live stock numbered about 100 horses, 200 cattle, and 2000 sheep. In 1840 also a small settlement was made where Christchurch |