PREFACE. DURING his residence in New Zealand, the Author, being entrusted with the military detachment on board the Dromedary, a charge quite unconnected with the operations or movements of the ship, was led from motives of curiosity to maintain a constant intercourse with the inhabitants, and to devote much of his leisure to their society. The incidents recorded in the following pages were noted down while fresh in his memory, and generally on the same day on which they occurred; they are presented to the reader in this state, which, while it tends to establish their accuracy, necessarily restricts the narrative to the simple and abrupt form of a journal. Should they, however, be found to afford a sufficiently clear illustration of the general customs of the country, their destined purpose will be answered; and the author will deem himself fortunate if this publication should assist in leading to the adoption of proper measures for extending the blessings of civilisation to a people eminently gifted with every natural endowment, and inhabiting one of the finest islands in the South Seas. In the present edition the author has made a few additions, principally for the purpose of giving the reader fuller information upon some of the subjects brought before him. The remarks on the state of the weather, before recorded under each day in the journal, have now been thrown into a table, and inserted at the end. JOURNAL OF A TEN MONTHS' RESIDENCE IN NEW ZEALAND. To diminish the expense attendant upon the transportation of convicts, as well as to afford to those exiles the comforts of a very large ship during their long voyage to the place of their banishment, it was determined to try the experiment of sending a considerable number of them to New South Wales in one of His Majesty's vessels; and the Dromedary store ship (formerly the Howe frigate) was selected and fitted up at Deptford for this service. After she should have landed the convicts at New South Wales, the Dromedary was directed to proceed to New Zealand, there to endeavour to get a cargo of those very large B |
