Grandfather’s Yarns

Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 16, 21 July 1894, Page 5

Grandfather’s Yarns

NED THE ROVER. A PERILOUS DIVE. CAPTAIN ANGLEM. HIS EARLY CAREER. SEARCHING FOR GREENSTONE. A VALUABLE FIND, j, (Alii- Rights Reserved). No. !£.:? “ There’s another cave round the west side that I forgot to tell you about,” said grandfather this afternoon. “ It’s in Dusky Bay. There’s only a small opening above water, just large enough to pass things through. It’s on the side of a perpendicular cliff, and under the water there is a large opening into the cave "beyond. “One day a lot of fellows were round there, and on looking through the top hole in the rocks they saw about a dozen seals in the water inside the cave. They had a little chap •with them whom we called ‘ Ned the Rover,’ and they made him believe that good divers often dived into this cave to get the seal; so after a while down he went. He got in all right, and they handed him a torch and a gun through the upper opening. ‘ He fastened the torch in the rocks and shot 10 or 11 seals, skinned them, and passed the skins out to the others. Then he' attempted to come out again, but somehow he missed the passage, and by the time he came up again in the cave blood was gushing from his mouth, ears and nose.

‘ He waited long enough to recover himself, and then tried again, and this time he was successful. The other men were frightened that he was drowned, and sorry that they had made him go; and they were very much relieved when he made his appearance. ‘ Nobody was ever in , ‘ Ned the Hover’s cave ’ either before or since, as far as I know. I never heard what Ned’s name was. The first time I ever saw him was early in the year 1835. We were coming down to New Zealand in the Lucy Ann, when one afternoon we were just off Howe’s Island, and Captain Anglem told me to take a boat ashore and get some fish.

‘So Bosun, Black Dick and I lowered a boat, and commenced pulling ashore; We thought then that Howe’s Island was uninhabited, but before we x’eached it we met a boat coming out to the ship. ‘ Thex*e were two men and their wives and a Maori boy in it. One of the men asked the names of the ship and captain. When I told him he said that he knew Captain Anglem, and they all came down to New Zealaxid with us. Ned had a very nice garden on the Island, with pumpkins melons, and I don’t jknow what all in it. Both the men, I think, had escaped from Sydney in a whaler, and had been landed on Howe s Island, but they hadn’t been there very long when we took them off. Ned was a very decent .little fellow —active, and smart, and civil, though rather undersized.

‘ Grandfather, I wish you’d tell us something more, about Captain, Anglem,’ said Jack. ‘ I think he’s a grand sort.’ ‘ Very well, I’ll tell you all I know,’ said grandfather. ‘ He’s often told me about his life. I don't ever remember hearing him speak of his parents, but when quite a child ho was placed in a monastery to be educated as a priest. He received an excellent ' education and was a good linguist. He could speak several languages very fluently. ‘At one time he was very devout, and he and a young medical student, a college class-mate, mede a pilgrim-

age to the tomb of some saint. They were humiliating themselves as much as possible in the presence of the holy bones; when the student noticed that the bones did not all belong to the same skeleton; that, in fact, some were missing, and there were more than the right number of others. They were both awfully disgusted. ‘ Capt. Anglem found out that he had no ‘ vocation ’ for a priest, and ran away to sea, 'and came out to Hobart in the Lady Castle Forbes. H e then fell in with a very rich man named Lone, and he wdth him for a long time. Lone had been a large sugar merchant on the Isle of France, bu t he left it when the English took possession there, and he came to Hobart with his wife, mother-in-law, his little daughter, and a crowd of French servants. My sister and T often went to play with Laura -Lone, and it was there I first saw Anglem, though I didn’t recognise him again when I saw him in Otago. ‘He then went with Mr Lone to Sydney, and when the latter went to Ireland, Anglem went sealing in several different vessels. I told you about his being cast away in the Glory. ‘ He was on a boat called the Royal Mail, taking greenstone from New Zealand to Manilla. There were two boats running, both belonging to a Spaniard named Sacramento, who lived at Manilla. The other boat’s nane was Arnetta, called after Sacramento’s wife.

‘ They made a tremendous profit out of the greenstone. It was made into crucifixes and images and sold very well. ‘At first they couldn’t find the greenstone, so Captain Anglem came to the Bluff and got a vexy old Maori who had travelled a great deal on the West Coast to go with him and point out the greenstone, which they could not distinguish from the other I’ocks. “ The Maori knew where it was perfectly well, but he pretended that he didn’t, and went off into a deep sleep, as he .called it, and when he woke up he took them straight to the spot. ‘ It was a tr-emendous rock, and the next difficulty was to bi’eak it up. They could not’ manage it for a long time, but at last a man came and drilled holes in it, and they blasted it with gunpowder. They didn't understand how to do it, and had several accidents. Captain Anglem lost an eye, and so did an old Rivertonian named Bates. It was rather difficult to lay a train of gunpowder, and of course they, had no fuse. ‘ Captain King of the Arnetta was an awfully jolly young fellow. We all liked him immensely. I don’t know what became of him afterwards. ‘ They tided to keep it very quiet where they were getting the gi’eenstone fi-ora, in case anybody else would try to get some too. ‘ One day Tommy Chasland was on a reef at Cascade Point, and about 18 or 19 miles off be spied a ship sailing into Martin’s Bay, so he ordered his men to row him there at once. They didn’t believe he saw a boat, and didn’t want to go,. but they had to. ‘ When they got near enough Chasland said to the rowers —“ Now, turn round and you’ll see their things hanging on the bushes.” ‘ And sure enough they did —blankets and clothes and different things ; but before they could land, those on shore had seen them andj quickly hid all their things, and themselves, too; but Tommy shouted out to them to show themselves, ox- he’d pretty quickly find them, so they came out. ‘ They were the men left behind to blast the x’ock and pack it ixi boxes made on purpose so that the sailors couldn’t steal the stone. Tommy satisfied his curiosity, and went back to his own woi’k. “ I think that will do for to-night, boys. I’ll toll you more about Capt. Anglem some other time.”