James Mackay's Adventures.

Quite the equal of Thomas Brunner as a bushman, and his superior in knowledge of the Maori people and their life, was the stalwart James Mackay, who in his old age in Auckland was well known to the writer of this article. Mackay was the perfect type of frontiersman—of powerful physique, indomitable courage and tenacity of purpose. From his boyhood—he came to Nelson from Scotland with his parents at the age of thirteen—he was inured to rough backblocks life. He was sheepfarmer, goldseeker, goldfields warden, explorer, and Government agent in Maori affairs. His exploring work began in 1855, and between that year and 1862 he traversed most of the north-west part of the South Island, tracing the rivers to their sources. In 1857 he travelled down the West Coast with two Maoris as far as the Grey River. There, and also at the Buller, he took soundings, and discovered the entrances to be navigable. He canoed up the Grey, where he had some trouble with his Maoris. One of them he threw into the river, and he knocked another down in the canoe. Mackay was a man of abundant tact when occasion called, but he had a Highland temper, and he was handy with his fists. Returning to Nelson, he carried in his swag the first sample of Grey River coal.

In 1858, 1859 and 1860 James Mackay, his cousin Alexander Mackay (afterwards Judge of the Native Land Court), and John Rochfort had many perilous adventures in the torrentsplit South Nelson and Westland country. James once just managed to save Rochfort from drowning by clutching at him as the furious current of the Taramakau swirled him past. He was now in the employ of the Government, and was entrusted with the task of purchasing South Island Maori lands. He first bought for the Government two and a half million acres of land on the East Coast, from Cape Campbell to the Hurunui River, and then he was instructed to negotiate for the purchase of the vast West Coast region, from Kahurangi Point, on the Nelson coast, southward to Milford Sound.