The “Brougham.”

Edward Jerningham Wakefield, in his diary for the month of September, refers to the arrival of the above vessel:—

“The ‘Brougham,’ after making a passage of 92 days last year to London with her cargo of oil and bone, returned on the 9th February, 1842, with a new Chief Surveyor for the Company, Mr. Brees, who superseded Captain Smith.

“He was accompanied by a large suite of young gentlemen, engaged by the Company for three years as ‘Surveying Cadets.’ I had met two or three of these on the Porirua Road when I came into town, with labourers and theodolites and other baggage, starting for the Manawatu. I remember laughing at their dandified appearance, and wondering what new arrivals had thus suddenly and without preparation taken to the bush. Everything about them was so evidently new; their guns just out of their cases, fastened across tight-fitting shooting jackets by patent leather belts; their forage caps of superfine cloth; and their white collars relieved by new black silk neckerchiefs. Some positively walked with gloves and dandy-cut trousers; and to crown all, their faces shone with soap. I sat down on the stump of a tree and vastly enjoyed the cockney procession, wondering how long the neatness of their appearance and the fastidiousness of their walk as they stepped over the muddy places (caused by a shower of rain the night before), would last.

“They considered me as one of the curiosities of the interior, turning up their

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noses with evident contempt at my rough red woollen smock, belted over a coarse cotton check shirt, without neck-cloth, and stout duck trousers, and gaping with horror at my long hair, unshaven beard, and short black pipe, half hidden under a broad-brimmed and rather dirty Manilla hat. They appeared, too, to view with some distrust a sheath knife, about eighteen inches long in the blade, which I had made my constant companion and with which I was cutting up negro head tobacco.”