THE RISE AND FALL OF H. G.-S. AND A. M. C. 



161 



coral island, has been built by generations of workers who have used 

 themselves up in the process and passed away. At any rate, whether 

 this theory be tenable or not, the writer of this ower-true tale stood with 

 head barely above water on the carcasses of those who had fallen in 

 the fray Newton, Toogood, Charles Stuart, Thomas Stuart, William 

 Stuart, Kiernan, M'Kenzie, and Cuningham. 1 They had spent all and 

 gone under, each adding, however, ere financial death took him, his 

 accretion to the coral island, his contribution to the future of the 

 station one timber, another ewes, another cattle, another rams, another 

 grass-seed, another drainage of swamp land, another fencing, another 

 his mite to the general sum that " team of eight bullocks bought from 

 William Villers, waggon and all complete, for the sum of 135, terms, 

 to pay when able." 



The derelict half-share thus forced upon him for five shillings, the 

 writer became sole owner of Tutira Tutira upoJco-pipi Tutira, the 

 place where heads become soft. 



1 To the best of my belief, every one of these adventurers did well in later years ; New 

 Zealand of all countries in the world certainly is the land where after a stumble a man can 

 most easily pull himself together again. In Hawke's Bay, at any rate, I can hardly think of a 

 prominent settler of early times who has not been at one time or another on his last legs. 



Pack-horses crossing stream. 



