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hand, till at last they came to terms for a flannel shirt. Being rather alarmed at this, they left this lonely place and came to live in Petoni. A few months afterwards the Maori made his appearance there, and laughing heartily at the story, told Mrs. Brown’s husband how he had frightened her.

Mr. Hay (father of the present Pigeon Bay family), who was a passenger, also settled in Petoni, and so did Dr. Logan, the ship’s doctor. The arrangements made by the Association for settling the new comers were exceedingly bad. They had been told on leaving Scotland that they were going to a land flowing with milk and honey, but discovered that there were neither of these commodities; in fact, the Bengal Merchant had on board the first cow ever landed in Wellington. Those purchasing one hundred acres in England had been given a cabin passage, but when they asked for their land it could not be given to therm, as it was not yet surveyed. The British Government, too, objected to Crown grants being given till it had been shown that the Natives had been paid five shillings an acre for the land. The consequence of this was that every one squatted where they liked, with the pleasant knowledge that they might be turned off at any moment. The surveyors, amongst whom were Mr. Deans, who afterwards went to Riccarton, were commencing operations. They laid out the town first, and each purchaser of one hundred acres rural land got his town section of an acre, but for the rest of their purchase they had to wait till the claims of the Natives had been adjusted. The result of this unsatisfactory state of things drove many away. For instance, Messrs. Hay and Sinclair left, and settled in Pigeon Bay, and others scattered far and wide.

Mr. and Mrs. Brown and the others who had squatted on the banks of the river Hutt, soon found