Purchase Officer, who reached the Mawhera Pa in March, 1857. This daring explorer of the West Coast, described to the writer by the late Sir Arthur Dudley Dobson as “the peer of them all,” was born in Scotland in 1831, and some fourteen years later landed with his parents at Nelson. In his youth he explored the greater part of the mountainous country in the vicinity of his home—a task which fitted him well for the strenuous years ahead, when he was to lead many expeditions successfully through wild and trackless lands, and to earn for himself, by self sacrifice, determination, and outstanding ability, an honoured place in the annals of New Zealand’s pioneer explorers. Mackay’s career from the outset was a most remarkable one, he having the distinction of being made a Goldfields Warden in 1858, then being only twenty-seven years of age, this appointment being the first of its kind in the colony.
Mackay’s first expedition took place in 1856, when he traversed the whole of the mountainous country lying between the head waters of the Aorere, Heaphy (Wakapoai), Mackay (Karamea), and Anatoki Rivers, and also a portion of the country between the sources of the Takaka and Karamea Rivers; whilst in 1857 he travelled along the sea-coast from West Wanganui to the Grey River. In
