A PIONEER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16487, 28 February 1914, Page 5

A PIONEER.

REMINISCENCES OF THE EARLY DAYS. THE NAVY OF SEVENTY YEAR>S AGO. NEW ZEALAND IN THE ’FIFTIES. Between the range of hills which fringes the coast towards Kaikoura and the sea there is a strip of level country, sometimes a mile or two wide, sometimes broken into sections by a long spur reaching right to the beach. On either side of the Conway River, at its mouth, there is a stretchjof good level land, and on the southern side of the river there is a small settlement, mentioned on few maps, but known in official productions such as the Telephone Directory and Post Office Guide as Conway Flat. To reach the settlement the visitor must go to the terminus of the main trunk Tine, Parnassus, and then proceed by coach to the Fingerpost, which overlooks the last ford of the Conway River. There ho alights and by buggy, proceeds down the riverbed for a mile or two, fording the river many times, and at last reaches the group of houses that comprise the settlement. When the river is in flood the visitor waits, days probably, until it goes down, for theie is no entrance to Conway Flat, if one excepts a sheep track or two over the ranges, except by way of the river. For nearly half a century Mr Richard Monk has lived at Conway Flat, and although eighty-five years of age lie has no doubt at all that he will' live there for many years to come. After a career full of incident and adventure, the old pioneer is hale and hearty. His hair and beard, are quite white, and a heavy stick, is requisitioned when ho walks—life in the early days was conducive to rheumatism—but liis eye is bright and keen, and he takes a great interest in many things. Recently a “ Lyttelton Times” reporter visited Mr Monk at his home and, sitting on his verandah, the patriarch of the settlement recounted many of h?s experiences. BOYHOOD DAYS.

“ I was born in 1829, in Minchin, Hampton, Gloucester,” Mr Monk said. “My father was a farrier, who at one time held the appointment of farrier to King George 111. at Hampton Court. He was a strange man, and ’ thought more of having his sign painted afresh every year than he did of anything else, oven the family. 1 left school when twelve years of age, and one of my first jobs was to take three horses to a fair at a town near by. I started off in the early morning and on the way I saw a sight which 1 shall never forget. Many a time I’ve laughed about it. The rector had a finishing school for young gentlemen, and, my word, they were proper rascals. That morning, as I passed along, i saw that they had got a bull tied to a tree in a paddock. The farmer had deliberately put the bull there to prevent people going through his fields. Well, they had this hull tied to the tree. Some of the boys were up the tree, but two of them wero on the ground. Then, like a flash, the two disappeared, the bull was let go, and I saw what was up. They had tied a live cat to the bull’s tail. That bull went through three live hedges and disappeared, pussy hanging on firmly, and later on he was found dead. When the culprits found out that 1 knew what had . happened they kept me/well supplied with pocket money. “ An effort to make me a baker failed badly, chiefly owing to an overfondness for pastry, I think, so I was apprenticed to a butcher. I might have got along all right, but one day 1 hoard the boss threatening to deal violently with mo when ho got me, and so, without any hesitation, I set out to walk to London, one hundred and four.miles away. My cash amounted to 2s lOd, and 1 was then fifteen years of age. THE NAVY IN. 1844. When I got to London town I kept on asking for the Queen’s Head, Tower Hill, for I had heard that it was a sort of recruiting place for the Navy. Here I met a quartermaster, a big burlv fellow and asked him how I should go about getting into the Navv. He said that hovs only got about 12s 6d or 12s 9d a month, hut added that as I was a big chap I could safely tell the captain that 1 was nineteen years old. Then he took mo. upstairs to the captain. He was sitting at a round table and on it, I remember, was some blue paper, some red tape and a decanter of rum. Tho old man was a link with the very distant phst and he had a terrible gruff voice. “ What do you want?” he growled and I said, “To go in a man-o’-war, sir.” “Some young runaway apprentice or other” ho snapped out and I owned up that he was right.. Well, I passed the doctor, who had a room down-stairs, and the captain ordered the quartermaster to take mo to the receiving shin Perseus, lying in the Thames off the Tower. When I got to the hotel I only had 2d. I spent that on something to eat, thus joining the navy absolutely penniless. I didn’t like the look of things aboard the Perseus at all and as for the hammocks, I couldn’t get into them until a > fellow showed me how. The rations were none too good. We got lib biscuit and a pint of cocoa for breakfast ; a pint of soup, lib meat, a few vegetables and. i-pint of grog for dinner with a pannikin of tea, and somo grog and what biscuits we had saved from breakfast for tea. Then wo went to Sheerness to the bulk Minotaur to wait, until tho Vanguard had fitted out at Plymouth. AN EARLY STEAM SQUADRON. All tho vessels of tho line were sailors in those clays, and the real wooden walls of old England right enough. I hoarded the Vanguard at Plymouth in 1844 end next year we cruised in the Bay of Biscay. There were eight steamshins with us when we started, seven paddle boats and one screw. I think it was the first steam squadron in the Navy. Anyhow it was an experiment. The names of the paddle boats were the Terrible, Retribution, Sidon, Odeon Bulldog, Gladiator and Polyphemus, and there was the Battler, a barquerigged screw driven shin. After an eight weeks’ cruise the Battler was the only one of the lot with us, the others having developed engine troubles and put in to the nearest ports. “ For the most of my time I served in the Mediterranean. They were rough days. Nearly every week men wore flogged and on one occasion that I know of a man was hung from the yard arm. Part of the outfit of our ship would make sailors laughs nowadays. All round tho orlop deck, below the water-line were hung shot plugs. These were made of wood and when the boat went into action the carpenters had to walk round aud round, so that if a shot came through they could grab a plug, coyer it with oakum and grease and drive it into the hole "with a maul. A WHALING CRUISE. “ Early in 1849, I was paid off and in the same year I shipped aboard the whaler Norwhal for a cruise in the south seas. She was a wooden barque of about 400 tons and was commanded by Captain Baker. We carried six guns for our protection. Early in 1850 we arrived in the Bay of Islands. There must have been about eighteen or twenty whalers in at the time. I remember going aboard the American ship Swift, hailing from New Bedford, aud tho John Franklin, which was a full ship. Wo had 760 barrels of oil. In those days Kororareka consisted of two hotels, two stores and a few shanties. The 65th Regiment was camped some--1 whore in the neighbourhood, if I re-

member right and there were thousands of Maoris.

“I left the Narwhal at the Bay and shipped in a fen-ton hooker trading along the coast as far north ns Awanui, near the North Capo, and six weeks later I landed in Auckland. It was only a small place. On tho righthand side going up Queen Street there was a large ditch and you had to walk across on planks to get into the stores. WORK IN THE NEW ZEALAND BUSH.

“Well, after working in Auckland for a while I went to work in the bush at a place called Muddy Creek, down the Manukau. They put me to driving bullocks and although I knew nothing about it, I had a go. I’ve always been mighty glad that those bullocks were quiet ones. I boarded with a sawyer and his family, in a slab hut. The bush was all kauri, and some of the trees were grand, 60ft and .70ft without a branch. We hadn’t been there long when the Maoris, came down and stopped all operations. By good luck our hut was just off the land , they claimed. The leader was dressed, in proper clothes but the forty or fifty men with him were not. They asked all sorts of questions and my mate’s wife was terribly frightened. I said, * Sling the billy and give them a feed.’ We had plenty of wild pork, damper and baters and the tucker soon made them our good friends. The palings we used to cut were used to make boxes to ship potatoes in lo California. . In the days of the gold rush over there New Zealand used' to' send over potatoes. Well, the darned Maoris had stopped the work so my mate with his wife and family and myself, put what we owned in a boat wo had built and set out for Onelmnga. There I shipped on the barque Victory for Wellington, getting £l2 for the trip. My mate did the same, getting £B. We sold our boat • and left the money to keep my mate's wife and two children. EARLY WELLINGTON.

“It must have been about 1852 when I, first landed in Wellington. Jt was a queer place and at certain spots you couldn’t find room for two carts to* pass between the stores and the small embankment that dropped down on to tho beach. Where Lambton Quay now is there was a sort of Maori pa. I soon got among the horses and for a while looked after a mare called Kate M’Carthy, owned by Brigade Major O'Connell, who afterwards owned the Mount Grey run, in North Canterbury.

THE VICTORIAN GOLDFIELDS. “After I had been in Wellington for some time the gold rush to Victoria caught me and away I went. The first hole I sunk was the host, and four of us got 91b lOoz in the first seventeen days. Then we heard of the rich find at the Ovens and off we went. At tho first camp, Gum Creek, who should come up but Hargreaves, the discoverer of gold in New South Wales, and he strongly advised us to go back. . Wo were working in Long Gully, Bendigo, when news of a discovery at Mt Karong came in and I was sent away to investigate. It was a bad ’uu and I set out on the home journey. There were thousands of men on the road, all bound for Mount Karong. As far as the eye ; could see there was a long thin line of horses, carts, men with wheelbarrows, men with swags, all after the gold. They called it Mount Gowrong afterwards. I had my ups and downs. Got assaulted, and robbed of horse and cart and' cash, and endured other hardships common on the goldfields in those days. BACK TO NEW ZEALAND. “Good old New Zealand called, and I went to Melbourne to see about a passage. Captain Rowe, of the barque Tory, wanted men, and I got a passage. We went to Twofold Bay, in New South Wales, and then inland to Bombala,. buying horses and .stock. I bought'.' eighteen, draught mares and a thoroughbred filly, but on the trip to Lyttelton all but two died. I refused £75 for the draught i mare on board the boat, because I wanted £IOO, and then when landing the animal in a punt at Gollaii’s Bay she broke her back. I sold the filly for £75. It was .v bad deal for me. LINKS-WITH HISTORY. "

“I am an old man now,” Mr Monk added, “ and tho men I knew in my young days had been in many famous fights. One man named Henry Perkins, who died in my arms in Wellington in 1853, was a member of. tho crew of the Shannon when she fought the Chesapeake off Boston. I have heard him tell how they waited about outside the bay for days in the hopes that the frigate they knew to be fitting cut would come out to do battle.. He used bo say that the scene as that fine vessel sailed out to meet them was magnificent. The ship herself looked superb. The fight, according to old Harry’s account, was short and sharp. It was practically all over in twenty minutes, ho said, but be never wanted to live through another twenty minutes like those. Poor chop, he never really, got awny from the memory of that fight. He would describe how the limo which the Yankees had placed in the fighting tops to pour down on the British boarders fell on the ship’s crew. According to him that fight ‘must have been a little hell to live through. The night before he died, pool" chan, he was fighting the Yankees for all he was worth, living the great fight over again. It was all terribly real to him. His memory and mine stretch back over a fair space of history, don’t they? Quite links up with the past. I’ve got a few more dinks. That sampler on the wall there is just a copy. I gave the original to one of my daughters. My mother niado it in 1805, ten years before Waterloo was fought. That takes you back, eh? EARLY DAYS IN THE SOUTH ISLAND. “ Next year I will celebrate my diamond wedding. Despite the fact that she has brought up a family of twelve, my good wife is r- young as ever. We wore married in Wellington in 1855. Three years later 1 set out for the Oollingwood diggings, but did no good, and so moved on to Nelson. A firm had just taken a contract to build a wharf there for tho Government, and with four mates 1 went to a place near the French Bass for the purpose of getting piles. J think we got 3d a foot for birch piles. Onco we got started it was dead easy. Some of the trees were great, up to 70 and 80 feet, and we toppled ’em down into, the water very quickly. They were shipped to Nelson on the brig Dart and' some were that longthat they had to be slung on the outside of the vessel. Then Saxton Bros., of Richmond, appointed me manager of Tarndale Station, but our departure for the station was delayed by the arrival of Mr Saxton, sen., and then it was too late to get through. I cancelled, the agreement, and next day, with a mate named Ted Edwards, packed my swag, 641 b, and set off for Blenheim. It was rough going, only a bridle track through the bush. Few houses and clearings in • those days, I can tell you. The first day we reached Wilson’s accommodation house and the next day got to Blenheim. There reallv was no town, for when, in the middle of the. supposed town I asked a man where it was. At the Awatere we found Ben Moorhouse. He had bought 4000 ewes to take through-to Canterbury, and we helped to dip the lot. Then on by way of Starborough and Flaxbourne to Kekeraiigu. where I got a permanent position. “All sorts of jobs fell to a man’s lot in those times. I remember once taking a horse through from Kekerangu to Nelson, where it was sent Home tor the use of Sir George Clifford, who was then at College at Stonynurst. My family lived on that station for

six years, and many a time I drove sheep through to the Canterbury border. On the north side of the Hurunui the sheep were always inspected by Provincial Government inspectors, on account of the scab, and if passed they were then driven across the river into Canterbury.- The broad arrow used to be stamped upon them to show that they were all right. I remember once riding to Picton, seventy-five miles away, in one day to post important letters for England. I got there just in time to hand them to the purser, or whatever he was. Next day T rode most of the way home. For five years I lived at Boat Harbour, just south of the Amuri Bluff, and then settled in Conway Flat. THE BRIDEGROOM’S LUCK. “ As I talk to you,” the old pioneer went on, “crowds of little incidents flood my mind. I remember the time when Sefton Moorhouse, I think it was,' was going to sail from Wellington in the Tory for Melbourne, on his way to the Old Country to get married. A sou’-easter kept the Tory in port, and while she was there tho, Nortnflcet arrived. Moorhouse and others- went aboard, and there was : his intended bride. They were married in Wellington and wont on the Tory to Melbourne for the honeymoon. But it was a narrow escape, wasn’t it? “ Looking back, it’s all been good. We had jolly times, plenty of ’em, goof! mates, healthy work, .happy homes. Of my family only one is dead, and he died in South Africa during the war. : That’s his photograph on the wall in there. Now, I’ve told you a lot, haven't I, about the good old days. What I liked then I like now—that’s a good horse. Now, let us go round to the back, and I’ll show you a grey horse that I bred—a real good ’un, even now. Come along!”