The conditions of the young city in its earliest years were not enviable. The work of pioneering was exceedingly strenuous. Employment was difficult to obtain, for none of the settlers had much capital to work upon, and the Government had little enough in the Treasury, and none to spend on public works. Despite discouragements and disappointments, the settlers were patient, endured the hardships--and hoped. By 1844, with the advent of Governor Fitzroy (December 23), steps were taken to absorb those, who had not received private employment, upon road formation. Captain Rough, whose name we have already mentioned as Harbour Master and as Immigration Officer, might as well have borne the name of Pooh Bah, for to him was given charge of this work. In his reminiscences, he says: "As there was at that time no superintendent of works, I was asked to take the business [of road making] in hand, and though little acquainted with such matters, yet, by getting an intelligent and practical foreman, and letting out divisions of the work to be done by contract to parties of immigrants, we managed in the course of eight or ten months to cut down the upper part and fill up the lower part of Shortland Street, to form and metal Princes Street and Queen Street, which previously were almost impassable in wet weather; and also to clear and make the roads to the Tamaki and Onehunga districts, as well as to blast and to cut through a spur of Mount Eden, filling up an almost insatiable swamp, and thus opening and forming the road to Newmarket called the Khyber Pass, the terrible massacre of British troops in Afghanistan being much in mind at that time. The improvements executed in the course of twelve months found employment for the immigrants and were very cheering and satisfactory to the town people and to country settlers. To myself the superintendence was a somewhat arduous addition to my duties afloat, but still I look back at it as having been one of the most interesting and useful occupations of my life in New Zealand."