Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/162

captain commenced to read his errand here to the Natives, all of which I had to interpret; but there was so much of it, I forget what it was all about. I know, however, that it ended up with God save the Queen, after which the British standard was run up and a discharge of musketry fired by the marines. A salute was also fired with the big guns on board, over which the Natives got in a great state of excitement. The captain invited myself and several of the chiefs on board, where he gave us a grand spread, and I was presented with a lieutenant’s uniform, and each of the chiefs had a marine’s coat given to him. Next morning the French vessel arrived, and landed her colonists, as is already known. The Maoris did not look upon their arrival with much favor, and, if it had not been for the presence of the ships, an attempt would have been made to drive them away.

“After this several other white men took up their abode round Akaroa, so I thought I would shift my camp, and left for Ikeraki, taking all my possessions in the whale-boat, including my three youngsters. I stopped there for over four years, but part of that time I spent in Peraki, where there were always one or two whalers, from whom I got plenty of work, and made a good bit of money in the way of supplying them with vegetables and potatoes. On one occasion, during a drunken spree, while I was lying in my bunk, I was stabbed in the breast with a knife no less than sixteen times, and you can see the marks of them yet. (On exposing his chest, the marks could be distinctly traced.) I happened to have a thick monkey jacket on at the time, or I should have been killed. It was the whaler’s cook who stabbed me, and the captain put him in irons and gave him bread and water for a month for it. I made a good bit of money selling spars to the whalers. There were some nice silver pines growing in Peraki then,