A PAGE FROM THE PAST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 61, 1 August 1914, Page 4

A PAGE FROM THE PAST.

LETTER FROM AUSTRALIA. The Town Clerk has received the following letter from Mr. F. Brown, written from Norwood, South Australia: — I have noticed in the Australasian of July 18, published in Melbourne, a photograph of the steamer Walkure unloading 5000 tons of fertiliser and salt at the New Plymouth harbor. It greatly interested me, as, I think, I can claim to be one of the few remaining original settlers of Kew Plymouth. It is a far cry from now to the time I first landed, about 1842, at what is now known as New Plymouth. I left Plymouth. England, with my parents in tlu> sailingship Amelia Thomson, 000 tons burthen anil '?,00 passengers on board; commanded by Capt. Dawson; first mate, Watson, who afterwards became the first harbormaster of New Plymouth. We had to call at Wellington for orders, as it was not known, when we left England, where the settlement was to be fixed, and, on arrival off the coast near the Sugar Loaves, the ship cast anchor; and, although it was near sunset, Hie people on board were eager to go ashore after being six-months at sea on a six hundred ton ship. Two boats were launched, and, filled with passengers, pulled for the shore, and in doing so passed between the Sugar Loaves and miraculously escaped the sunken rock which was afterwards known to exist in the passage between tile two rocks. It was dark before the boats reached the shore-; and, steering between two fires whhh were were lit on the beach to guide the boats, we struck the rocks and all' of us had a narrow escape of being drowned. The mistake of steering between the fires was a natural one; but it was intended by those who lit them that v..should steer for either of bhem. The boats landing at Dicky Barrett's whaling station at Moturoa. Owing to rough weather coming on during the night the ship had to up anchor and nm out to sea, and did not return for a week; am! as nothing in the shape of food or 'tents had been brought ashore, everybody had to depend upon the goodwill of liarref.t and the Maoris, the latter rolling tinchildren in blankets and carrying them about in their arms, of whom i was one.

T /'"'member Capt. King and his son A illie King, who used to carry me about as a youngster; and Newlaiid. the first constable, and his sons; and the Carrin<{tons and Sextons, and man." others °| recollect the first visit of Bishop Sehvyn when lu» married a white man, whose name I forget, to a Maori woman, and J remember the launching of a schooner wlncli was put together at New Plymouth. I have a vivid recollection of "hat the town was like in 1545, and could even now point out the site where our tents were pitched on the river bank of !v w} pa ' on bh<! sOll fr "»t °f u Inch the old boat shod was fixedand f don t forgot that grand old extinct volcanic point. Mount Egmont. (Jreat changes have taken place since then ■,„<! laranaki has become a cultivated and prosperous country, and is no longer a dense and almost impenetrable! hush As an after-thought it may amuse you to learn that the first man the Maori, ejer saw with a wooden leg was lack who made them hiui'h us he stumped along on one leg, and very soon many Maoris appeared with similar lcs in imitation of Jack . *