Kōrero: Rural mythologies

This lithograph, published in Edward Jerningham Wakefield’s book, Adventure in New Zealand, is of the New Zealand Company settlement at New Plymouth. It was based on a painting by Emma Wicksteed, and was the first part of a three-part panorama of New Plymouth. The text says that it was the view from ‘the garden of the Company’s agent ... and the colonists are essentially agricultural.’ The cows on the beach, the sheep on the distant hills, the horses in the street, and the people tilling their crops emphasise the agricultural element of the town.