Page:Banking Under Difficulties- Or Life On The Goldfields Of Victoria, New South Wales And New Zealand (1888).pdf/108

Rh “On or about the month of May 1860, I was on the Collingwood goldfields, distance about seventy miles from Nelson, when a party of Maories came overland from the River Buller by travelling up the sea coast, and thence by the Aorere to Collingwood (there being no other way for them to come in those days), bringing with them a parcel of gold, which they said they had obtained from a place some twenty miles up the River Buller.

“We started in the good steamship Nelson in the middle of July 1864, with a cargo of provisions and every requisite for the diggings. From my long experience on goldfields I knew exactly what was wanted. The diggers took no tools (as it was only a prospecting trip) or provisions from Nelson, and were satisfied with my prices for all that was wanted. The Government of Nelson, finding I was going to the Grey, gave me a contract to procure for them forty tons of coal as a sample from the Grey coal mine.

“On arriving at the Grey we entered it in first-rate style, and steamed up to the landing opposite to what is now called Mawhera Quay. Here we landed the goods, which were, of course, left exposed on the river beach, and all hands started off prospecting. My Maories set cheerfully to work, and, with plenty of help, I soon managed to get up a temporary store. In the meantime the goods were going out as fast as I could possibly sell them; aye, before I could get them out of the vessel the diggers were jumping down the hold for them. At the Maori pah there were none but women, and when they saw the steamer they could not tell what to make of it. It was the first steamer that was ever on the Grey. The Maori men had all gone to get gold, which made the white men all the more anxious to go, and before long I was left almost alone, all the diggers having gone to the Teremakau River, where the Maories were digging, and with the exception of my storeman and Mr. Batty, who came down with me to get the coal, there was no other white man left at the Grey.

“About a week after I had been at the Grey, some Maories came down from the diggings and brought with them a sample of about 50 ozs. of the finest gold I had ever seen. I was pleased to see it, and purchased it from them. These natives told me that the whole of the men that went up were coming down with the intention of killing me, and soon after two white men came down and advised me to get out of the way, as the whole party were close at hand, and were coming down to ransack my store, and hang me. It appears that they had not been up to the Greenstone Creek, but merely to the Teremakau. From what I could understand, the white men were led astray, owing to the Maories having heard from some of their own people that a great number of pakehas had arrived by a steamer at the Grey. They accordingly came down from the Greenstone and commenced working