Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/7

4 own experience, to supply a great many interesting and important incidents connected with those early days. In many instances he can fix those events with accurate dates and figures, and in practically all of them he can approximate those details, as will be found in perusing the records he has made.

In this introduction it is his object to set out, in a general way, his impressions of what transpired, from his earliest recollections down to the period of the arrival at Lyttelton of the first four ships on December 16th, 1850, making those impressions and experiences prefatory to the more explicit and more personal references to the pioneers, which follow.

As the pathway of reminiscences is tortuous and confusing, and is side-tracked at frequent intervals with trails of iteration and reiteration, the author has deemed it expedient to abandon any attempt at a chronological record of his recollections, and has chosen instead, at the risk of an occasional anachronism, to differentiate and classify