The south-western coast was the first part of our islands seen by a European. Tasman sighted the mountains of Westland in 1642. Cook visited the Sounds more than once, and spent some time in Dusky Sound in 1771. Vancouver, who served under Cook, anchored there in command of an expedition in 1789; and Malaspina, a Spanish navigator, took his ship among the fiords towards the end of the eighteenth century. But Tasman did not land; and though the others did, and it is interesting to remember that such noted explorers of the southern seas came there in the old days of three-cornered hats, pigtails, and scurvy, still it must be admitted that their doings in our south-western havens were entirely commonplace. Vancouver and the Spaniards had no adventures. Nothing that concerns Cook can fail to interest the student; and the story of his anchorages and surveys, of the “spruce beer” which he brewed from a mixture of sprigs of rimu and leaves of manuka, and of his encounters with the solitary family of Maori met with on the coast, is full of meaning to the few who pore over the scraps of narrative which compose the history of our country prior to 1800. There is satisfaction in knowing that the stumps of the trees cut down by Cook’s men are still to be recognised. To the general reader, however, any stirring elements found in the early story of the South Island were brought in by the sealers and whalers who came in the wake of the famous navigators, rather than by the discoverers themselves. One lasting service the first seamen did to the Sounds: they left plain and expressive names on most of the gulfs, coves, and headlands. Doubtful Sound, Dusky Sound, Wet Jacket Arm, Chalky Island, Parrot Island, Wood Hen Cove, speak of the rough experiences and everyday life of the sailors. Resolution, Perseverance, Discovery have a salt savour of difficulties sought out and overcome. For the rest the charm of the south-west comes but in slight degree from old associations. It is a paradise without a past. [Illustration: BREAM HEAD, WHANGAREI HEADS]