Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/188

six months, and afterwards went with him up north.

At the time the big works were going on in French Farm, Mr. Shadbolt took the Head of the Bay Hotel, and succeeded in it most admirably. His predecessor was a Mr. John Anderson (a Russian Fin), and in his time there were high jinks at the Head of the Bay, for in those days timber was worth twenty-two shillings per hundred feet, and the sawyers made their money very easily, and spent it as freely as they got it.

A gentleman named Dickens resided in French Farm before Mr. Tribe came there. He was a dairy farmer, and a good deal of the land there belonged to him. One day, in the year 1857, he left the house without saying where he was going, taking his horse with him. When night came he did not return, but his dog came back, and a search was instituted, which lasted for many weeks. His horse was discovered tied up in the supplejacks, but no trace or tidings of the missing man himself have ever been discovered to the present day. The present proprietors of French Farm are relations of this gentleman, who was very much respected and regretted.

There were many narrow escapes in those days, particularly to those engaged in boating. On one occasion, at Christmas time, Mr. Townsend sent a boat’s crew to Waikerakikari from Akaroa. It came on to blow fiercely from the south-west, and the crew had to put into Lucas’ Bay, where they laid that night. There was a keg of rum in the boat, and before midnight they were drinking it out of the heel of an old boot. Next morning they resolved to start, though it was still blowing very hard from the south-west. Jack Miller was the steer-oarsman, and he kept the men in good heart. In spite of the heavy seas and furious wind, they managed all right