DAYS OF LONG AGO.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 May 1917, Page 3

DAYS OF LONG AGO.

. ', RUNAWAY SAILOR'S FATE. '•■■;•' ">-;■■'"' Whangarei, Sunday. A native of Ngunguru named Whare Amos, while sowing grass seed on a newly-burnt bush clearing, noticed a shilling, on the ground. Looking round he 6aw ; . another coin of the aameTdenomination, and further investigations succeeded so far that he came across ten sovereigns, a half-sovereign, and '£2 9s •Cd in silver. The remains of a human skeleton scattered about the- vicinity indicated that someone who had perished there was accountable for the coin. The gold coins were found in a heap, a3 though they had been wrapped in a separate parcel- or contained in a parse. The locality of the find is on the Ngunguru side of the dividing ridge between Ngunguru and Tutukaka, half a chain from a track which -was used by natives iri passing from one place to the other many years ago. The latest date on any coin (a sovereign) is> 1853, placing the occurrence at least fifty years distant. The earliest-dated coins •WeW ft shilling •and a half\own of George HI. (1816). Ono conjecture is that some runaway sailor left his ship at the Bay of Islands, with the intention of travelling overland and that on the road he was overtaken by sickness or enfeebled by- starvation. The Maoris 1 thought'that the- remains were those of an oid man named Taiamu, who disappeared from Ngungura settle-1 ment many years ago, but it appears that Taiamu's body was found some years j •beyond the date which the coins indioate in a mill creek at Waiotoe by some natives from Eororua, who visited Waiotoe to dig gum on a royalty basis. Near the remains in the present instance a tomahawk of Europeon manufacture was found. The skull was found at a considerable distance from the other bone.i, and has 1 " all the characteristics of the race. Buttons were also found in a state of advanced decay indicating that the remains-are those of a man who at the time of his death wore a reefer jacket as commonly, worn .by, sailors,