EARLY HISTORY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5082, 31 January 1927, Page 1

EARLY HISTORY.

REMINISCENCES OF LYTTELTON. RECALLED BY CAPTAIN PEARSE. An interesting and amusing reminiscence concerning the arrival at Lyttelton of the ship Cardigan Castle orf January 8, 1877, was, told to a Lyttelton Times reported bj' Captain A. W. Pearse., Australian and New Zealand representative oif the Part of London Authority. "It is an interesting coincidence,” said Captain Pearse, “that '5O years ago thia day I arrived in Lyttelton for the first time. I was a midshipman on hoard, the Cardigan Castlq, and the fact was brought home to me when I saw the ‘Fifty Years Ago’ column in the “Times,” in which the arrival of the ship was reported. “When we arrived there was an epidemic of ejrteric 'fever on board, and the. vessel and passengers were put into quarantine at once. The single men were put on one island and the married couples and singlet girls were put on another, and all were fed and attended to generally from the ship. “There was a family called Stephens on board, the father and five daugh--tQrs and one son. As a boy I fell in love with one p>f the daughters, and determined to run away from the ship, with the object of getting to the Hokitika goldfields. I started to cariy out this plan, and a companion; a mate on the ship named Alexander McNeil, went with me. We got as far at Tai Tapu, where we were receWid and fed for a day or two by the Maoris in the pa there. Before we got away from there two mounted troopers arrived, and we rejoined the ship under military escort. I stayed with the ship, but McNeil got away at a lafer date and became a prosperous storekeeper at Peel Forest.

“Robert Stephens, the immigrant I mentioned before, settled in Christchurch, joining the firm of Montgomery and Co., timber merchants, and later on became head o'f the firm of Williams, Stephens, and Co, Thirty years after he arrived by the Cardigan Castle he was a guest at my house in Sydney, where he me,t and married the daughter of Captain Lewis Davies, of the Cardigan Castle, On the original trip Miss Davies was a little girl of 10 years. Captain Davies is now settled down near Bath, England, and is a' very wealthy man.

“There was a very funny incident o,n the voyage, on the Christmas Eve before we reached Lyttelton. At eight o’clock the girls were locked up bel<>w, asj was the custom. Two firstclass passengers thought they would visit the girls, and climbed dpiwn to them by means of the ventilator. They got a great reception. The girls tied them to bedposts, and then pelte,d them with pieces of broken biscuits. They were rescued by the captain and the doctor.