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Early Wellington

The “Brougham.”

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 Brees, who superseded Captain Smith.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 page 106 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.”