146 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



large blue berry,''' broken up and thrown into the water, which 

 had the efl'ect of poisoning both man and animal that drank 

 of it. On this information from Tucker we declined taking or 

 using any of the water. On the 27th December, 1817, at day- 

 light, we" weighed our anchor and left Port Otago, and sailed 

 for Chatham Island. Hundreds of natives came down on the 

 shore to see us oS. We fired a volley of musketry towards 

 them to say ' Good-bye.' 



" We have little to add to the narrative. Captain Kelly 

 regrets having listened to the persuasions of Tucker and the 

 wish of the other men to go on shore the second day without 

 firearms, to w^hich the loss of three unfortunate men may 

 be attributed. Tucker's confidence, however deceived, was 

 founded on some experience, and Captain Kelly has some 

 reason to believe that these natives (though certainly not to 

 be depended upon) were fired in their revenge by the re- 

 collection of two or more of their people being shot by 

 Europeans." 



Thus ends the first article. In a subsequent number of 

 the Witness, many years later, the story is given as follows, 

 with a few additional points, and offering another motive for 

 the killing of Tucker : — 



" After Mr. Kelly's voyage in a boat round Tasmania, in 

 the year 1815-16, he was given the command of the ' Sophia,' 

 owned by Mr. Birch, of Hobart Town, and sent on a sealing 

 cruise to New Zealand. One of his crew was a man named 

 Tucker, who had in a previous voyage stolen from the natives 

 at Eiverton a preserved head, and only saved his life, as utii, 

 or reprisal, from the natives by the vessel getting away before 

 the theft was discovered. This was in 1811, and the baked 

 head was the first offered for sale in Sydney. Whether Tucker 

 thought that the theft had been forgotten or his offence con- 

 doned does not appear, as he had the hardihood to return and 

 claim the friendship of the natives whose kindness and con- 

 fidence he had outraged on a former occasion. At first the 

 relations between the natives and the captain and the crew 

 appeared of the cordial kind, and a Lascar, who was living 

 among the tribe, volunteered to act as interpreter, as Kelly 

 wanted some potatoes in barter. On making inquiry after 

 a boat's crew that had been lost in the neighbourhood, it 

 transpired that the man who had had charge of the boat had 

 been killed and eaten, with all the crew. Unwarned by this 

 event, Kelly put confidence enough in the natives to go 

 among them unarmed, when a shout or a signal was given, 

 and Kelly and two men who went with him— Button and 



* I do not know any large blue berry of a poisonous nature in New 

 Zealand. 



