The dramatic south coast of Adams Island, looking west. In the foreground, the successive strata of lava flows from the old Carnley volcano are clearly visible, on the grassy western slope of the cirque glacier extending inland to enclose Lake Turbott.
With seven whalers now based at Port Ross, the settlement had never been busier.59 And although it was becoming increasingly difficult to enlist seamen because of the lure of the Californian goldfields,60 such distant concerns could not dull the unique experience, for sailors and landsmen alike, of feeling they were part of a sizeable and positive enterprise.
Enderby Island is the main breeding ground for the rare yellow-eyed penguin: almost a third of the world’s population lives on the Auckland Islands.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Difficult Times
The general mood of optimism in the colony was shaken when the Brisk returned from nine and a half long months’ whaling, having done little better under Captain Bunker than on its previous voyage, which had resulted in the sacking of Captain Tapsell. William Munce lost a four-shilling bet with Charles King: he had wagered the Brisk would come back with at least 20 tuns, but it had caught just one sperm whale, which had yielded a mere 7 tuns of oil.1 The ship itself had come through some fierce storms unscathed: that at least was in its favour. However, there was a great deal of discontent among the crew, and their first nights on liberty ashore were disturbed by much drunkenness and brawling, with visits to the Maori and Moriori women of Matioro’s pa, in spite of the foul weather.2
Then on a day of incessant squalls, with sleet and hail, the crew refused to work because of a dispute involving bonus pay, which Enderby felt was hardly warranted after the ship’s poor performance. The entire crew had to be confined aboard on bread and water. This punishment did not stop repeated requests for a future allowance of spirits over and above their suspended daily quota of ale. As Enderby complained to Mackworth, the grog question was once again getting out of hand.3
The combined problem of liquor and discipline was compounded when the colony’s chief medical officer Dr Rodd almost drowned near the jetty. He was taken out of the water but was so intoxicated and violent that he had to be confined for a while in the colony’s primitive gaol on Shoe Island, which was promptly christened Rodd’s Castle.4 Shortly afterwards, two others were confined there: Mr Octavius Cooper, a mate on the Lord Nelson, was sent for repeated refusal of duty, to remain until his ship sailed; and, within hours, John Cooper, a bricklayer (and unrelated to Octavius), was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment for threatening the life of the Lieutenant Governor. Together they burnt the hut down – the smoke and flames could be clearly seen from the shore. Such a brazen assault on law and order had a sobering effect, and Mackworth reported with some relief that ‘most of our men on shore are now very orderly and well behaved’.5 However, the lull was not expected to last, and the sooner ships in port could be sent whaling the better. A meeting of ships’ masters took place with Enderby to arrange crews in preparation for sailing; and a diversionary boat race was organised for Saturday evening.
The steep, short end of Shoe Island. Of highly magnetic columnar basalt, it lies due east of Terror Cove in Port Ross and was used as the Enderby Settlement gaol.
The next day there was heavy rain and wind, and Enderby ordered a large barrel or cask to be landed for the Shoe Island prisoners to shelter in, but it was impossible to get it ashore with a rough sea running, and the men had to be brought back to the settlement.
Shoe Island was difficult to land on, and soon prisoners were being sent to other islands around Port Ross, including Ocean and Rose islands.6 Mackworth sentenced a sailor from the Brisk, who had fled to Enderby Island in a futile attempt to escape trial for mutinous conduct, to 14 days’ hard labour as an alternative to imprisonment – but the sentence was almost immediately watered down by the Lieutenant Governor.7
Sooty shearwater or muttonbirds, which have been feeding on Carnley Harbour, ‘rafting’ on the water and taking to the air. In the background is Adams Island, a major breeding ground for the birds. Outcrops of volcanic strata are visible above the lower scrub-covered slopes.
Disciplinary problems were taking up an increasing amount of time. When seven men from the Sir James Ross were sent to Shoe Island for refusal of duty, Mackworth complained that ‘the difficulty of supporting discipline in this Port is extreme’.8
Barren high ground of Adams Island, looking south towards the island’s southern cliffs.
Enderby decided that Adams Island at the far southern end of the group would be a more effective place to banish prisoners to than islands close to the settlement. They would be entirely on their own, with nowhere to go. And no prospect, Mackworth might have thought, of Enderby changing his mind on a sudden whim or a worsening of the weather. Mackworth accordingly sailed on 27 February for Adams Island with two constables and the three ringleaders of the men from the Sir James Ross who had refused to carry out their duties. Two whaleboats accompanied him, which would continue on towards Victoria Passage, hunting fur seals.
High herbfield on Adams Island, looking towards the main island.
Light winds meant the expedition made slow progress, and they had to haul the boats ashore for the night in a bay halfway down the coast. The next day they made better progress, passing fiord after fiord down the deeply indented coast, until they reached the broad entrance to the Southern Harbour. They now headed west, with the main island on their right and the northern shore of Adams Island on their left. Gradually the many arms of the harbour opened before them, until they rounded a headland and entered a sheltered bay.
Botany Bay was named after the penal settlement on the coast of New South Wales near Port Jackson and Sydney: it was a botanist’s paradise, with many flowering plants. This was the first time it had been used for prisoners. The men were glad of help from the sealers and part-time constables in landing their provisions ashore and putting up the makeshift shelter that would be their gaol. By the time everything was seen to, it was too late and too dark for Mackworth to set out on the return journey.
Behind the bay – probably Fleming Bay on today’s map – coastal scrub, tussock and giant herbs give way to tough, shorter grass and, higher still, a fellfield of mosses and low-growing, silver-grey plants scattered across the stony ground. To the south, as if seen from the back of a colossal grey whale, lie the grassy southern slopes of the island and the ocean. The scattered dots of albatrosses on their conical nests of peat and grass can be made out – deceptive not only of distance and the considerable size of the island, but of the size of the birds, which have a wingspan of up to three metres.
Much of Adams Island’s precipitous southern coast is as storm-battered as the west coast of the main island. There are only three inlets along the 29-kilometre coastline. Towards the eastern end is Bollons Bay, named after Captain Bollons of the government steamers Hinemoa and Tutanekai.9 Five kilometres west of Bollons Bay is Fly Harbour, a long, narrow fiord cutting deep into the island: HMS Fly took on water here from a small stream at the head of the inlet, 4 kilometres from the coast, during its survey of the islands in 1848. The third inlet, a small, steep-sided cirque glacier valley that scoops some 3 kilometres inland, hardly appears as an inlet at all, but more of a lowering of the rampart of cliffs. Its narrow entrance is dammed by a rock threshold that conceals Lake Turbott from the sea.10 At the west end of the island, just after passing through Victoria Passage into the Western Arm of the harbour, is a low-lying slope of megaherbs known as Fairchild’s Garden, after Captain Fairchild of the Hinemoa.
Adams Island, like Disappointment Island, is one of the world’s few unmodified islands, and was the first of New Zealand’s subantarctic islands to be made a flora and fauna reserve, in 1910.11
Wandering albatross on Adams Island. Nest sites are widely scattered. The Auckland Islands have 7000–7500 breeding pairs, the world’s largest breeding ground; almost all nest on the high southern half of Adams Island.
/> At the same time as Mackworth’s mission to Adams Island, the directors of the Southern Whale Fishery Company held their second annual general meeting in the conference room of the London Tavern in Bishopsgate. The meeting was chaired by the Earl of Hardwicke, on leave from naval duties in the Mediterranean, and among those present were James Peek senior, George Dundas, Member of Parliament for Linlithgow, and J.D. Powles and George Redman, good friends of Charles Enderby. His brother George, appointed after Enderby’s departure for the Auckland Islands, had resigned by this time, so that the family was no longer represented on the board.
A frayed mooring rope hangs from beneath a mossy cap on a boulder beside a freshwater stream at the head of the Fly Harbour fiord on Adams Island. It seems unlikely it was used by early sealers or whalers or HMS Fly as long ago as 1848, or at the time of the Enderby Settlement – but who left it, and when, remains a mystery.
After the directors’ report on the progress of the Enderby Settlement had been put before the shareholders, the board’s suggestion that the Southern Whale Fishery Company’s capital be increased was discussed; but several shareholders felt that a lot more information was needed, and the proposal was dropped. Against it had been the fact that the cost of building and outfitting the new ships had come out at 50 per cent above estimate. Charles Enderby had recommended the ships be built in America, where a lower price was guaranteed, but the directors had chosen British yards. The resulting cost overrun of some £20,000 was already having a serious impact on the Company’s cash reserves.12
Positive news from the Auckland Islands was urgently needed. The abstract of Enderby’s reports, which they had before them, was already 10 months old13 –and not particularly reassuring. For a start, the return of the Brisk with no oil whatsoever was hardly the news they needed, although it was noted that whales were said to frequent the islands’ bays in great numbers in the season.14 They were told that the British Navy’s visit had gone well and that the Augusta and Artemisia had arrived safely; and it was good to know that the commissioner had negotiated successfully with the ‘native New Zealanders’, who were supplying the settlement with potatoes and cabbages of excellent quality, and that the soil was ‘every where rich beyond description’, while ‘a large extent of land on Enderby Island does not require any clearing’.15 Various natural features were described, and the climate was said to be quite equal to that of England;16 and it was gratifying to learn that the winter had proved unexpectedly fine and warm, that cattle and sheep did not need housing, and that fires had often been dispensed with.
But the report included none of the hard facts the directors needed, such as capital expenditure and returns of oil. They had considerable misgivings. They hoped the success of more recent whaling voyages would be reflected in the first shipment of oil, expected to arrive within the next two or three months; and they agreed that another meeting should be called in June, to give the shareholders more up-to-date information.17
Mackworth’s return from Adams Island went better than the journey down. He was back by evening, to find that the trouble on the Sir James Ross, which had led to his taking its three ringleaders down to Botany Bay, had worsened into a general strike by the ship’s officers and crew that very morning, just as the ship was readied for sea and the men were weighing the second anchor.18
Enderby decided the ship would have to remain at her mooring until replacement seamen arrived from Sydney. Meanwhile, as the Brisk’s casks for storing blubber were found to be in poor condition, much time was taken up transferring casks from the Sir James Ross across to the Brisk.
Having got the Sir Edward Parry away ‘well fitted and all in good spirits’,19 Enderby and Mackworth were now ‘using every effort to get the Brisk and Lord Nelson to sea’. But problems continued to hamper progress, and Mackworth records feeling ‘almost worn out – the Chief Comr visited the Farm and reports the potatoe crop to have failed – a great disappointment this!’20 It was symptomatic of the failure of crops and vegetables generally. So far, there had never been enough to supply the colony, let alone the expected surplus for vessels dropping in. And that was another expectation that had somehow failed: the random vessels were just not calling.
The following day the two sealing boats that had accompanied Mackworth and the prisoners south returned empty-handed. In the early days of sealing, men would be lowered down the perpendicular western cliffs, in preference to making the even more hazardous approach from the sea. The seals were slaughtered, and the men pulled to the clifftop, from where the skins would be carried the 2 miles or so to the North Arm of the Southern Harbour.21 This time the boats had stayed near the easier western entrance.
It was not only fur seals that had become scarce and hard to slaughter. The bullocks on Enderby Island had become so wary that Bromley and his assistant were unable to get close enough to shoot one, in three attempts. Five extra men had joined them, but it took an exhausting day of stalking and chasing through the stunted rata and scrub before they could come back with the much-needed meat. It had taken the men three days.22 As Mackworth commented, ‘this has become a labour of no ordinary kind’.
Strong winds meant it took the Lord Nelson three days to finally clear the harbour. Irritated at seeing the vessel still in sight on the third morning, Mackworth sent Captain Garrick of the cutter Auckland, accompanied in an unofficial capacity by James Peek and Charles King, with orders for it to leave without further delay. Somehow Peek became involved in swamping Garrick’s dinghy. Whether this was the catalyst is uncertain, but no sooner had the Lord Nelson sailed than an exasperated Enderby ordered Mackworth to commence proceedings against Peek for burning roofing shingles, which were Company property. It was a tricky assignment, as Peek was a director’s son, Mackworth’s social equal, and not even on the Company payroll; but he was duly fined and the sentence was approved by Enderby in his capacity as Lieutenant Governor. However, later in the day Enderby ‘thought proper to quash the whole proceeding’.23 A week later, a boy on the Sir James Ross, only recently sentenced to a flogging for theft and refusal of duty, was (predictably) forgiven.24
It was several months since the arrival of any new prefabricated buildings, but by this time the carpenters had supplies of timber from New South Wales, and a certain amount of construction had been going on. Under Mackworth’s directions a small timberyard was organised, and a tool-house and another cottage were being built, as well as a permanent blacksmith’s shop, and a large stockyard on Enderby Island, where Gillett and two agricultural labourers were permanently housed. Mackworth also proposed an additional wing for the warehouse; and a cutting-in stage with accompanying tryworks for dealing with the blubber from whales caught on the coast or within the harbour was planned for the peninsula.25
About this time there was an extraordinary incident involving Matioro’s wife Kuini. From the beginning, there had been a rough walking track between the settlement and Matioro’s pa. The track was now a firm road made of gravel and stones from the beach under the direction of Thomas Younger, the colony’s civil engineer, and had reached Matioro’s village on its way north towards the farm.
Younger recalled, years later, that one morning he became aware that some of his Maori workers were:
hunting about the bush for something. I could not understand what as their English was very imperfect. Suddenly I found Kuini in a tree. She just swung off, hanging herself by her scarf. A Maori sprang up the tree and let her down. I saw her later with her sister. She said: ‘See that,’ showing me a bag of money. ‘Me matta [mate] moni matta [mate]’ i.e. me dead money dead. She said next time she would drown herself. I did not understand the expression though she motioned that it [the money] would be buried with her. The fact was that sailors had taken liquor and gone amongst the Maori girls and Matioro had accused his wife of this.26
Kuini’s real name was Ngawhanga, but those who resented the status she insisted on being accorded as Matioro’s wife had given her the nickname Kuini (Queenie). It wa
s a taunt she had long ago turned to her advantage and now regarded as her right.
Younger must have wondered whether the whole episode was a melodramatic protest to make Matioro concede he had gone too far in accusing his wife of abetting the sailors.
On 26 March the Black Dog and the Brisk finally sailed, although ‘the Brisk could hardly be got underweigh from the intoxication among officers and men’. 27 There had been a tremendous amount of paperwork to be completed for the Black Dog. Despatches and reports always had to be in triplicate, which had meant hours of painstaking copying. The passengers, bound for Sydney, were Digby Mackworth, who was leaving the colony; Charles King on accountancy business; John Cooper, who had threatened the Governor’s life and set fire to the gaol on Shoe Island, with his wife, son and daughter; and about five seamen. The cargo was a modest 60 casks of oil.
The Enderby Settlement Page 11
