Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/20

12 mark off the boundaries of such reserves as would be required for the resident natives. This was found to be a more difficult task than was at first imagined, owing to the jealousy evinced on the part of some of the Natives. After repeated interruptions a final settlement was effected in March 1856. The terms of the agreement were the payment of £5000 and a large number of reserves, but before the purchase was concluded the amount was increased by £2000. The documents in connection with this purchase were comprised in thirteen deeds, and the negotiation was one of great difficulty. This purchase did not include all the Native lands in the Middle Island. One or two claims had still to be settled. Amongst these was the purchase of the Arahura district, on the West Coast, which was left to be concluded by Mr James Mackay (junior). It was ultimately settled in May 1860 by a payment of £300 and a reserve of 10,224 acres, of which 6724 were set apart for individual occupation, and 3500 to produce a fund for eleemosynary purposes in connection with the Natives, under the provisions of “The Native Reserves Act, 1856.” Other lands in the same district have since been brought under the aforesaid Act, some of which have become very valuable in consequence of the discovery of gold on the West Coast in 1865, which caused a demand for land for building and agricultural occupation, and the Native Trust is now deriving an annual revenue of between £3000 and £4000, from land that less than twenty years ago was but a useless wilderness.

In concluding this brief and necessarily incomplete chapter on the earliest days of this Coast, I may note the great changes which have taken place in the condition of the Native race now resident in these districts. The Maori population, at the present time, on the West Coast number only between fifty and sixty.

As a rule they are all comfortably settled on their reserves. At the Arahura they have established a settlement, with a school, where the Native children are taught the rudiments of the English language. Many of them have provided themselves with horses, drays, and buggies, and have well built and equally well furnished houses. They are quiet, sober, and peaceable, though apathetic and improvident, apparently caring for nothing beyond the present.