Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/11

 some forty of them on the west side, now known as Holmes’s Bay.

They commenced to leave the Bay shortly after the arrival of the first four ships, and by 1860 they had all gone to other settlements, chiefly Kaiapoi.

In 1843 Port Levy was the largest Maori settlement in Canterbury. The author has heard his father say that when he landed in Pigeon Bay there were 400 Maoris in Port Levy. At that time, besides Pigeon Bay and Port Levy, there were Maori settlements in McIntosh Bay (now known as Menzies’ Bay), O’Kain’s Bay, Long Look Out, Laverick’s Bay, and a fairly large one at Gough’s Bay. Including the Natives at Kaiapoi and Taumutu, these various settlements must have totalled over 2,000 Natives. I believe this number to be under the mark.

All went well with the Maoris until 1848-9, when they were invaded by an epidemic of measles. This being an entirely new toxin against which they (unlike the