The author of this account of New Zealand in the year 1827 was an artist by profession.

"A love of roving and adventure," he states, tempted him, at an early age, to sea.

In 1815 he procured a passage on board a storeship bound for Sicily and Malta, where he had a brother stationed who was a captain in the navy.

He visited many parts of the Mediterranean, accompanying Lord Exmouth's fleet in his brother's gunboat on his Lordship's first expedition against the Barbary States.

He afterwards visited the ruins of Carthage and the remains of the ancient city of Ptolomea, or Lepida, situated in ancient Libya.