ENTERPRISE REWARDED.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2554, 15 June 1882, Page 4

ENTERPRISE REWARDED.

gjhe following letter from an old Christ ehuroh resident, now at Manaia, may prove o ( interest: — , "Dbab Fbimtd,—l take the liberty of addressing you aa snob, for 'should old acquaintance be forgot,' &s.; and I daroaay you have wondored what has beoome of us, and how it is you never heard from us. Better late than never they say, and so I say ; and we have seen and been through a great oeal since we left Canterbury. In the first plttOJ, the representation as regarded Fielding we found to be entirely false, and or all I places that ever I went to in the colony save I ine from that. I found Dick in business, it euch you could call it, as a fruiterer, but he, like his fruit, going bad. He begged of me for assistance, and I was fool enough to lend him ,£25 to tide him over, but two days afcer the soamp cleared out, and I have never heard of him since. That, you may be sure, was a great loss, and, as there was no work to be got, we cleared, after being nearly cleared of cash. We went to Wanganuij found that no good. From there we went to Waitotttra, where we stoppe! some time, cr, rather, she (the wife) did, for I went up the mountain raid with a m*re and dray I bought, and took a cutting subcontract on therailway. I did not do very well at that, I oan tell you, so when I got baok we made another move, and went on as far as Hawero. J soon found Hawera no better, so on again to Ncrmauby. I battered away in the buss here to try and knock out a living, but to no purpose. Well, the Government called a sale of a portion of the plains. This was the first sale of the confiscated land, the township of Manaia boing a part of it, and as I could not buy a section, no matter how small, I determined to push on to the plains at all risks, and build or take possession of any land I could until I was turned off. I got hold of an old horae to go with the young mare I had, and we went. We found it a wild country, full of wild pigs, horses and oattle ; the pigs were in thousands. Two brothers named Lanj.ley had just put up a store —that ■is, a small shanty by way of starting one, and this was all Maaaia then. I pitched a tent Bx 6 behind this shanty, and that was our home then, and so started to bring down timber from the bush, two and a quarter miles from Manaia. Two or three men came tip and started sawing and splitting up there. Well, the second day after I got home and -unharnessed. We missed Johnny, and it was getting dark, and our search being in vain, I ooncluded that the wild boars got him, Tremendous brutes they ran about in the high fern as large as two • year - old bulls, and tusks eight or nine inohes long. I sent aoross to the redoubt to the captain in charge of the Armed Constabulary, and the "turn-cu; was sounded, and every mai was brought oat to search. Two captains and 130 men searched ell night, and of course it was only the trampiDg oi: so many men and flashing of lights that saved him. He was found about three miles away at seven o'clook next men n; in a place swarmed with wild boars, that could have eaten him in two minutes. However, we got him over it, and I have been working away ever since, and have been doing pretty well, too. I built a whare in the bush, where we lived over nine months, and was there when the Maoris tried to frighten us, and the great storming of Parihako came off. Bat I expjot you know all about it. Of coune, we living in the bush were isolated, without protection. We could have a rifle, but you were just as well without, for if the Maoris intended to murder us, they would have done so without much challenge. There were a few men working in the bush, and two or three families besides ourselves, and if you oould only see the state of alarm of most of them—well, it was a caution. It would take too long to tell you about tho false alarms we had, and the fools blazing away at nothing at all in the middle of the night, frightening the women and children of the plains, being full of Volunteers. However, we know pretty well it would not come to muoh, and so it turned out. Still, it might have been otherwise. I have a suburban section five and a half aorea, and I got a house built on it lately, and we shifted down here. It is ditch and bank fenced, and I am getting it pretty comfortable. I am driving a jolly good throe horse tesam of my own; so, altogether, we have dona pretty well in the fourteen months wo have been on the plains. This seems to be a fine climate, for ohildren especially. Well, I hope things are prospering with you in your great town. By the by, if Manaia is to go on as it has been going for very long, it will soon be as large as Christchurcb, whioh is saying a great deal. Houses go up here just as if they grew in one night; in fact, there is a mania for building. We have, for instance, three great hotels, so it will give you some idea. I hope to hear from you, and that all are well and things looking up."