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As early as 1856 Otago had set the example of insisting on an outlay of 30s. an acre in improvement by each purchaser of public land. Gradually the limiting laws were made more and more stringent, and were partly applied even to pastoral leases. Now, in 1898, no person can select more than 640 acres of first-class or 2,000 acres of second-class land, including any land he is already holding.
When opposite Banks Peninsula the little vessel was forced to put into the bay of Peraki for supplies, and as a strong contrary wind sprang up at this juncture, Selwyn determined to walk to Otago instead of going on by sea. Through this change in his plans, he seems to have been the first white man to discover that Lake Ellesmere was a freshwater lake, and not an extension of Pegasus Bay.
It owed its existence to an association in which the late Lord Lyttelton was prominent. As in the case of Otago, this association worked in conjunction with the New Zealand Company, and proposed to administer its lands on the Wakefield system.
In 1844 an exploring party was sent out, and, after some inquiry, chose a place on the east coast of the South Island, called Otago. With the consent of the Governor 400,000 acres were there bought from the natives, and it seemed as if a new colony would soon be formed. But the news of the Wairau massacre and the unsettled state of the natives frightened intending settlers for a time.
When Bishop Harper was appointed to the see of Christchurch in 1856, Otago and Southland formed part of his diocese, and his long journeys on horseback through these districts were among the most arduous and adventurous labours of his episcopate. He retained them until June 4th, 1871, when, as primate, he consecrated the Rev.
At that time New Zealand had 45,000 white settlers in it, and the discovery next year of rich goldfields in Otago attracted many more, and gave a great impetus to Dunedin. Everything promised a splendid future, when again the Maoris became troublesome. The King Movement.# The Waikato tribe had always been averse to the selling of their land.
It had no Maori troubles worth speaking of, but the hills that beset its site, rugged and bush-covered, were troublesome to clear and settle, the winter climate is bleaker than that of northern or central New Zealand, and a good deal of Scottish endurance and toughness was needed before the colonists won their way through to the more fertile and open territory which lay waiting for them, both on their right hand and on their left, in the broad province of Otago.
On the surface there were certain differences between the Canterbury colonists and those of Otago, which local feeling intensified in a manner always paltry, though sometimes amusing. When the stiff-backed Free-Churchmen who were to colonize Otago gathered on board the emigrant ship which was to take them across the seas, they opened their psalm-books.
While snow is never seen in the North Island except upon the highest mountains, the plains of the South Island, as far south as Otago, are sometimes sprinkled with it, but only to disappear almost immediately. The rivers are generally destitute of fish, and the forests of game.
The Thames and Coromandel fields in the east of the Auckland province differed from those in the South Island. They were from the outset not alluvial but quartz mines. So rich, however, were some of the Thames mines that the excitement they caused was as great as that roused by the alluvial patches of Otago and Westland.
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