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and if we had we shouldn’t have bothered them. I suppose you won’t believe, but I give you my word that I’ve never tasted physic all my life, and never wanted it. But I must say that we were pretty lucky. We didn’t have any serious accidents; losing our boat was the worst one; and none of our party were ever hurt. No, sir, we did not fall out and knock each other about. We had no rows at all. Do you know what kept things so quiet with us? We had no drink. It was an agreement with us that there should be none. Vessels that came here for oil had it with them, but we never allowed a drop to be put ashore. Now and again some of the boys had a nip when they went down to Weller’s place at Otago; but that was a long way to go for a drink, and, besides, the men were a steady lot, and didn’t care much about grog.

“The third season we increased our party, and worked five boats. One was a seven-oared boat, but she was no use; she was too long. That was a good season too; but whales were getting to be not quite so plentiful, and, to cut the yarn short, they got scarcer and scarcer, until, after we had stuck together for five seasons, the game was hardly paying us. There was not enough to buy a suit of slops after a season’s work; so I went out. The others kept on for some time, but I had had enough of it. Another man and me then started to run a whaleboat to Waikouaiti and Moeraki, bringing pigs, potatoes and other things from Otago. Weller’s was still the only settlement there. There was no such place as Dunedin; the name even was unknown. All round where Dunedin was afterwards built, there was nothing but scrub, and it was a great place for pigs. Port Chalmers was then called Koputai.

“You were asking just now about the Maoris, and I may as well at this stage tell you something about them. In those early days there were, as I