A First Year in Canterbury Settlement | Page 5

Christ-church, N.Z., for copying some of Butler's
early contributions to THE PRESS, and in particular for her kindness in
allowing me to make use of her notes on "The English Cricketers"; to
Mr. A. T. Bartholomew for his courtesy in allowing me to reprint his
article on "Butler and the Simeonites," which originally appeared in
THE CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE of 1 March, 1913, and throws so
interesting a light upon a certain passage in THE WAY OF ALL
FLESH. The article is here reprinted by the kind permission of the
editor and proprietor of THE CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE; to Mr. J. F.
Harris for his generous assistance in tracing and copying several of
Butler's early contributions to THE EAGLE; to Mr. W. H. Triggs, the
editor of THE PRESS, for allowing me to make use of much interesting
matter relating to Butler that has appeared in the columns of that
journal; and lastly to Mr. Henry Festing Jones, whose help and counsel
have been as invaluable to me in preparing this volume for the Press as
they have been in past years in the case of the other books by Butler
that I have been privileged to edit.
R. A. STREATFEILD.

PREFACE [By the Rev. Thomas Butler]

The writer of the following pages, having resolved on emigrating to
New Zealand, took his passage in the ill-fated ship Burmah, which
never reached her destination, and is believed to have perished with all
on board. His berth was chosen, and the passage-money paid, when
important alterations were made in the arrangements of the vessel, in
order to make room for some stock which was being sent out to the
Canterbury Settlement.
The space left for the accommodation of the passengers being thus
curtailed, and the comforts of the voyage seeming likely to be much
diminished, the writer was most providentially induced to change his

ship, and, a few weeks later, secured a berth in another vessel.
The work is compiled from the actual letters and journal of a young
emigrant, with extracts from two papers contributed by him to the
Eagle, a periodical issued by some of the members of St. John's College,
Cambridge, at which the writer took his degree. This variety in the
sources from which the materials are put together must be the apology
for some defects in their connection and coherence. It is hoped also that
the circumstances of bodily fatigue and actual difficulty under which
they were often written, will excuse many faults of style.
For whatever of presumption may appear in giving this little book to
the public, the friends of the writer alone are answerable. It was at their
wish only that he consented to its being printed. It is, however,
submitted to the reader, in the hope that the unbiassed impressions of
colonial life, as they fell freshly on a young mind, may not be wholly
devoid of interest. Its value to his friends at home is not diminished by
the fact that the MS., having been sent out to New Zealand for revision,
was, on its return, lost in the Colombo, and was fished up from the
Indian Ocean so nearly washed out as to have been with some difficulty
deciphered.
It should be further stated, for the encouragement of those who think of
following the example of the author, and emigrating to the same
settlement, that his most recent letters indicate that he has no reason to
regret the step that he has taken, and that the results of his undertaking
have hitherto fully justified his expectations.
LANGAR RECTORY June 29, 1863

CHAPTER I

Embarkation at Gravesend--Arrest of Passenger--Tilbury
Fort--Deal--Bay of Biscay Gale--Becalmed off Teneriffe--Fire in the
Galley--Trade Winds- -Belt of Calms--Death on
Board--Shark--Current--S. E. Trade Winds--
Temperature--Birds--Southern Cross--Cyclone.
It is a windy, rainy day--cold withal; a little boat is putting off from the
pier at Gravesend, and making for a ship that is lying moored in the

middle of the river; therein are some half-dozen passengers and a lot of
heterogeneous-looking luggage; among the passengers, and the owner
of some of the most heterogeneous of the heterogeneous luggage, is
myself. The ship is an emigrant ship, and I am one of the emigrants.
On having clambered over the ship's side and found myself on deck, I
was somewhat taken aback with the apparently inextricable confusion
of everything on board; the slush upon the decks, the crying, the kissing,
the mustering of the passengers, the stowing away of baggage still left
upon the decks, the rain and the gloomy sky created a kind of half-
amusing, half-distressing bewilderment, which I could plainly see to be
participated in by most of the other landsmen on board. Honest country
agriculturists and their wives were looking as though they wondered
what it would end in;