STORIES OF THE PENINSULA.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 581, 7 February 1882, Page 2

STORIES OF THE PENINSULA.

No. 17.— -Jimmy Bobineon (concluded).

" After thfe several other white men took tip their abode round Akaroa, so I thought I would shift my camp, and left for Ikaraki, taking- all mv possessions in the whale boat, including my three youngsters. I stopped there for over four years, but part of that time I spent in Peraki, where there were always one or two whalere, from whom I got plenty of work, and made a good bit of money in the way of supplying them with vegetablee and potatoes. On ono occasion during a drunken spree, while I was lying in my bunk, I was stabbed in the breast with a knife no less than sixteen times, and you can see the marks of them yet. (On exposing his chest, the marks could be distinctly traced.) I happened to have a thick monkey jacket on at the time, or I should have been killed. It was the whaler's cook who stabbed me, and the captain put him in irons and gave him bread and water for a month for it. I made a good bit of money selling spars te the whalers. There were some nice silver pines growing in Peraki then, and I got as high as 30 dollars each for some of them. Drinking rum and working in wet clothes brought on a bad touch of low fever, and tor three weeks I was in bed. As a 1 cist resource, my wife, who was a powerful big woman, carried me over the hills as far as Wairewa (Little River), where there was a native doctor supposed to be very clever. Anyhow, he cured me with native herbs, so as soon as I got better I left my wife and family for a bit, and went up as far as Kaiapoi, taking a couple of the Maories with me as guides. There were several large pahs in that district also, ono up where Riccarton now is. I spent a month or two going about from one to the other, and then I returned and stayed a few years on the Peninsula again. During this period I lost my wife, so I made up my mind to go round and live on the plains. I left my two girls with their friends, and took my three boys round in the boat, with the assistance of a couple of Maories. I went right up the river Avon, and can say that my boat was the first ever taken up that river by a white man. We stopped at a small pah near the month of the river for a couple of days, and then proceeded right up as far as Riccarton, which took three days, as the boat was heavy and the river ran with great force. Shortly after this I met Mr John Deans, who had come to settle on the plains, and took him up the river to the place where he is now living, and afterwards conveyed hie family and goods the same way.* I worked for him for a bit, helping him to put up his whare, and afterwards engaged with him as shepherd. , '

0 It must be remembered this tale was related to my informant some yeara when Mr Deans was alive. [Ed. Mail.]

But he found this sort of life tdo dull and solitary, so left, and went north, where he engaged with Mr Darby Caverhill, and managed his run for a bit. What ie-now known as Motnnau was the place where they were living. He only stayed here about two years, and then went south again, and came across what is now known as the Alford Forest. Being struck with the fine timber here, he thought it would be a good- place to settle, so he purchased the section where his house now stands, and he did very well out of it. He lived all alone here, his eldest boy being married, and living on Mr Acland's station, Mount Peel. '' He happened to Bave Mr Acland's life one time when he was crossing the Rangitata, and has been there ever since. His second son, George, he had not seen for some years. He went back to live with the Maoris on the Peninsula, and his youngest he lost the tun of altogether. He sent him down to Christchurch about eight years ago, to get some tools and to get the horse shod, and he never heard a word from him since. He believed he got on the spree and sold the horse, and, being ashamed to come back, cleared off to sea.

Although living alone, Robinson's house was a picture of neatness. It was situated on the edge of the bush, about half way between McCrae's and Single Tree Point. There was a splendid garden of about two acres, filled with the choicest fruit trees, the sale of the produce of which brought him in a good bit of ready money. _ Living so close to a public-house, most of it found its way there. When on the spice he would do almost anything for grog, and on one occasion not having anything to raise the wind, he was seen there endeavoring to sell a large family Bible for a couple of nobblere. When away from drink he was a capital worker and a good bushman. and as there was always a good demand for fencing material, he sometimes did very well. About 1872 his house was burnt down, and everything in itdestroyed. What grieved him most was the loss of a little pet dog in the fire, and for days he kept looking for it round the bush, thinking it had escaped, but he saw nothing of it. Several of the neighbors lent him a hand, and a fresh house was put up and the garden renovated a bit, but most of his best apples trees had got killed. He way persuaded to be a teetotaler for a bit, and tried it for a time, but he went to see the Ashburton races in 1873, and being so well known in the district his acquaintances wished him to have a drink. He explained that be was a teetotaler, but he would have a drink with them, and pat it away in a bottle, and this he did until he had several bottles of mixed spirits, which he took back with him, and then commenced to break bulk, and until all was finished there was no work done, Drink and hard living now commenced to tell on this onco iron constitution, and a paralytic stroke, from which he suffered, seemed to hasten his end. He went down to see Mrs Deans, who kindly offered to get him into the old men's home, but he would not hear of it, 80 after staying in the Chrietchurch Hospital for three weeks, and feeling better, he set out home again to the Alford Forest. But he seemed past work, and lived, one may say, on tho charity of the neighbors. Hβ left the public house to proceed home one winter's evening, and was found dead about half way, with a half empty bottle of spirits beside, him. It was supposed that he eat down to have a drink and fallingasleep was frozen to death. Thus died, penniless in 1874, James Robinson Clough. a -man who with the opportunities he had, should have been a second Rhodes. It may seem strange but it is nevertheless true, that the end of the subject of this number and that of Walker, both men who wore almost the first Europeans on the Peninsula, should have been so similar, both dying from the immediate effects of drink on the Canterbury Plaine.

When living with hie two sons, Abner and Robinson, he used to make them read the, Bible aloud to him every evening. •He was working for a good while in the employ of Mr Juetjn Aylruer at Malvem and other places, qnd bore the reputation of being an excellent bushman. Hie favorite book was a translation of Herodotus, which he was constantly reading. He told Mr Aylmer that he had once resided in Sydney, where he had been employed in a store, fallen in love with his master's daughter and married her. He was wild in those days, and having a dispute with his wife, cleared out one fine morning, and never saw or heard of her again.