fourteen days stood off and on—­five or six hours one way, and five or six hours the other—­while the master and mate were down below, “nursing the Big Pup.”  The seamen were all strangers to the coast, and did not know any cove into which they could run for refuge.  The cook was pitched overboard one dark night during that gale off King’s Island, and his loss was a piece of ancient history by the time the master and mate had consumed the rum, and were able to enter up the log.

Ex-Attorney-General Gellibrand sailed to Port Philip to look for country in Australia Felix, and he found it.  He was last seen on a rounded hill, gazing over the rich and beautiful land which borders Lake Colac; land which he was not fated to occupy, for he wandered away and was lost, and his bones lay unburied by the stream which now bears his name.

When Colonel Arthur’s term of office expired he departed with the utmost ceremony.  The 21st Fusiliers escorted him to the wharf.  As he entered his barge his friends cheered, and his enemies groaned, and then went home and illuminated the town, to testify their joy at getting rid of a tyrant.  He was the model Governor of a Crown colony, and the Crown rewarded him for his services.  He was made a baronet, appointed Governor of Canada and of Bombay, was a member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council, a colonel of the Queen’s Own regiment, and he died on September 19th, 1854, full of years and honours, and worth 70,000 pounds.

Laming was left an orphan by the death of Lizard Skin.  The chief had grown old and sick, and he sat every day for two years on a fallen puriri near the white man’s pah, but he never entered it.  His spear was always sticking up beside him.  He had a gun, but was never known to use it.  He was often humming some ditty about old times before the white man brought guns and powder, but he spoke to no one.  He was pondering over the future of his tribe, but the problem was too much for him.  The white men were strong and were overrunning his land.  His last injunction to his warriors was, that they should listen to the words of his Pakeha, and that they should be brave that they might live.

When the British Government took possession of New Zealand without paying for it, they established a Land Court to investigate the titles to lands formerly bought from the natives, and it was decided in most cases that a few axes and hoes were an insufficient price to pay for the pick of the country; the purchases were swindles.  Laming had possession of three or four hundred acres, and to the surprise of the Court it was found that he had paid a fair price for them, and his title was allowed.  Moreover, his knowledge of the language and customs of the Maoris was found to be so useful that he was appointed a Judge of the Land Court.

The men who laid the foundations of empire in the Great South Land were men of action.  They did not stand idle in the shade, waiting for someone to come and hire them.  They dug a vineyard and planted it.  The vines now bring forth fruit, the winepress is full, the must is fermenting.  When the wine has been drawn off from the lees, and time has matured it, of what kind will it be?  And will the Lord of the Vineyard commend it?