Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/289

Maoris first came to Moeraki. They made the trip in canoes and one whaleboat, which they had picked up somewhere—a worn-out old thing that some of the whalers had very likely cast off or given to them. When we saw the fleet coming we hadn’t the least idea what the purpose of the expedition was, and you may guess that we were pleased to find out later on that the uninvited settlers were peaceably inclined. Of course we soon got to see a good deal of the Maoris, and we always got on very well with them.

“We started the first season with two boats, six oars in each, and our venture turned out very well. Whales were plentiful and not hard to take. They used to come right into the bay, and there were so many of them that we could most always pick the ones we wanted. As I said, we landed at Moeraki the day after Christmas, and commenced in March, and by the end of the season for bay whaling (the middle of August) we had taken twenty-three whales. That was not at all bad. They came to somewhere about eighty or ninety tons of oil. We had no difficulty in getting rid of it. There were any number of traders ready to make a deal and go anywhere for it. The first vessel that came to our station was a brigantine about ninety tons, called the Sydney Packet. She came in July, bringing us provisions and shooks to carry on with, and prepared to trade for our oil and bone. While she was laying to an anchor in the bay there a gale got up and she came ashore. There was no life lost; indeed, there was no one hurt. First the stock of her anchor gave way, and then she got another one down, and the chain parted, and away she came, quiet and comfortable like, on to the beach. They took care to put her on a soft place, and all hands got ashore without any flurry. We tried to get her off, but could not do so, and we gradually broke her up. We got our oil out of her—she had six or seven