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fore persuaded a Sydney firm, named Clayton and Duke, to let him establish a whaling station on shore at Peraki. He was to be visited at intervals by vessels, which would bring provisions and take the oil away that had been collected. It was just Christmas time in the year 1836 when the schooner Hannah set sail from Sydney with the first white men who had ever attempted to form a settlement on the then savage, wooded, and mountainous tract of country known as Banks Peninsula.

The Hannah had another shore whaling party to land in New Zealand, besides Hempleman’s. The destination of the other was Poverty Bay, but the schooner went to Queen Charlotte’s Sound. There they stopped for five or six weeks, and though the one party left them to go to the North, they had a good many additions to their ranks, many of the men forming connections with Maori women. There were four boats’ crews in the party, some thirty white men in all, Mrs. Hempleman being the only white woman. About a dozen Maoris accompanied them from Queen Charlotte’s Sound. The Hannah went first to Akaroa, where she stopped two days, before proceeding to land the party at Peraki. There were no whalers in these waters at the time, and the few Maori whâres were deserted, for it was just after the massacre by Rauparaha, and he had laid all the plantations waste, destroyed the pas, and driven the few people who escaped death or slavery into the interior. As, therefore, there were no provisions to be got from the Natives, or any object to be gained by stopping in the harbor, the Hannah sailed for Peraki the second morning after her arrival, and that same day landed the party at their future home. It was fine autumn weather, and many aboard were pleased with the idea that it was St. Patrick’s Day (being the 17th of March, 1836) when they landed. They soon got their things ashore, and commenced