Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/250

along the coast, at Ikeraki, Peraki, Oauhau, and Island Bay. Whales were plentiful at that time, and there was always plenty of employment for the boats of the whalers. Two large boilers, set in stone, are still in the bay, and there were others, which have disappeared. There is also an arrangement for hauling the whales on shore, fixed on the same principle as the capstan of a ship. Heaps of whalebone litter the beach and the sides of the creek. A great quantity of it has, it is said, been carried away to bone-dust factories. Staves of innumerable casks are piled up around the boilers. One can imagine the wild scene the bay presented on some dark night, from the sea, when the whalers were busy boiling down; the fires blazing up, and showing their forms distinctly against the background of heavy bush. The stormy seas which frequently roll into the bay show signs of having been far up the creek, where lie embedded great pieces of whalebone.

Messrs. W. Green (after whom Green’s Point is named), C. Brown and Hall were the first owners of the Island Bay fishery. After leaving the station, Charlie Brown went away in a whaling vessel never afterwards heard of, and supposed to have been wrecked on the coast. Hall left Akaroa one day in a whale boat with a quantity of provisions for the bay. The boat and its crew were never seen again. It is supposed that they got fast to a whale and were capsized, as the last time the boat was seen, it was close to one that was spouting about the head of the harbour. The next owner of the fishery was Mr. George Rhodes, brother of Mr. Robt. Rhodes. Sam. Williams, commonly known as Yankee Sam, whaled for him. When the gold diggings broke out in Melbourne, he went there. Mr. James Wright, the hearty old Baron of Wakamoa, got the tripots from him, and whaled there until the persecuted