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woman be in the room with him, and of course everybody blamed Tom Brown for going out without taking his gun with him. But perhaps it all ended in the best way. The Maoris made no fuss; they said they were glad he had made away with himself. The last act in the tragedy was played by old Taiaroa, who rolled up the man’s body in a bundle and humped it away by himself, saying that he was going to bury it. What he did with it I can’t tell you. No one ever saw the grave. Pitched the body overboard, perhaps. The woman was buried by her own people. And that was the finish of a very anxious time for all of us.

“As I have said, all the settlers that I know of who were in Otago before me are either away or dead. The two eldest that I know of are Dick Driver, who was the first pilot in Otago, and now lives in Purakanui, and Mr Apes, of Wakouaiti. The latter is coming down to see me, and have a chat about old times. I had a visit from Captain Jackson Barry some time ago, and he wanted to make out that he knew all about these parts in the earliest days, but I soon settled him. He began by asking me if I remembered the first whaling man here, Johnny Jones. I replied that I knew the first whaler here, and that it wasn’t Johnny Jones, and that I was here myself long before Johnny Jones saw a flax bush; and that was enough for Mr. Barry, or whatever you call him. I can’t abide those men who let on to know what they don’t know anything about.

“Mr. Haberfield’s subsequent history has been full of adventures. As modestly told by himself, he altogether settled at Moeraki after he had been running a whaleboat for some time; and then, feeling rather restless, he shipped with Captain Cole on the schooner Rory O’More, which called at Moeraki on her way to Akaroa for a stock of pigs, to