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More Stories of Old Settlers.

he stuck to his business. He is, I believe, alive now in New South Wales—a very old man he must be. The store that he had was always well stocked with all kinds of slops and other things, and they used to sell as cheap, or cheaper, than you can get things now. You could buy a splendid blanket for ten shillings, and I don’t suppose you’d get it for much less now.

“No, that was not the only whaling station on this part of the coast. Afterwards there were stations at Waikouaiti and at the mouth of the Taieri, and to the north there were stations at Timaru and Banks Peninsula, which used to be a famous place for whales in those days. But those stations were all planted after my time. If you want to know which was the first whaling station in this part of the country, I should say it was the one at Preservation Inlet. I have heard so. That was a very old one. The next was the one at Otago, where I came to. Then came our place at Moeraki, and the season after we started they set up a station at Waikouaiti. Johnny Jones? No. No one had even heard of Johnny Jones then. The people that started whaling at Waikouaiti were Long, Wright, and Richards. They were Sydney merchants. They whaled one season and then they pitched it up—failed, I believe—and it was then that Johnny Jones came on the scene; he bought them out in Sydney, taking their boats, huts, slops, other stores, gear, try-pots, and everything they had. Jones sent down the barque Magnet, under Captain James Bruce, to take possession. Bruce dropped his anchor in Waikouaiti Bay in the middle of the night, and before daylight had padlocked the storehouse and taken charge of everything movable. The men, who at this time had not been paid, were inclined to rebel, and John Miller, who was away in charge of a boat at the time of the seizure, refused