248 Timehri. 



completing his survey and the proprietors of Vryheid carried their oppo- 

 sition to the Government. The Board, chafing under this delay and 

 opposition, commissioned its legal adviser, Mr. X. Atkinson (afterwards 

 a Judge, and now retired) to approach the Government again. Mean- 

 while (early in 1873) a fire destroyed the premises of Messrs. Hart and 

 Hooton on lot 1 I. Strand, and this made the Board more anxious to 

 living its water supply scheme to completion, and " to press for the right 

 of way to tin- Calabash Creek hitherto denied by the Governor." The 

 Government's sympathy was with the Board or ought to have been, for 

 the Lunatic Asylum and other Government institutions were without an 

 adequate supply of water. The Board was willing to supply this want 

 for a lump sum of 810,000 and not to ask for an annually recurrent con- 

 tribution. Eventually, in September, 1873, the grant of occupancy was 

 got from the Government, and in that very month the Board decided to 

 o-ive out the work of digging the canal by tender. This was entrusted 

 to Mr. Henry S. Jones, a brother of Mrs. Katherine Melville of New 

 Amsterdam, and the superintendence to Mr. Thomas Nathan King, father 

 of the present Magistrate of the North West District, for a sum of S(iOi>. 

 Mr. Jones's tender was " for digging of a trench 14 feet wide at the top 

 and 10 feet at the bottom, 4 feet deep (giving a level bottom through- 

 out) and digging (! foot parapets on both sides of the trench, including 

 clearing the land 80 feet wide, clearing all stumps on parapets and 

 trench, about 2.000 Rhynland roods more or less, at a rate of S3. 64 per 

 rood, and to begin at both e ids of the trench and put on sufficient 

 shovelmen to have the work done at a rate to complete the same in nine 

 weeks from the commencement, if the weather permit, and to commence 

 the same by Tuesday, the 23rd September.'" The work was immediately 

 begun, but a month afterwards Mr. King reported that "in consequence 

 of unexpected difficulties the progress of the canal has been rather slow. ' 

 Thereupon the Board decided that the size of the canal be reduced from 

 14 feet " which was considered unnecessarily large," to 8 feet— 4 shovels 

 deep and 8 feet parapets. Mr. Jones was instructed to employ a gang 

 of men to perform the work as expeditiously as possible, his commission 

 to be 8 per cent, on the pay-list. The Hand-in-Hand Fire Insura ice 

 Company were much interested in the Board's project and even ottered 

 to lend it money to proceed with the work, pending ihe granting of a 

 Further loan from the Government. Meanwhile the Vryheid proprietors 

 again obtruded. They demanded that a clause should lie inserted in any 

 Ordinance the Court of Policy passed empowering the Board to lay down 

 pipes from Lochaber to New Amsterdam, to the effect that the Board 

 should agree to take over the public road from the ketting between 

 Pins. Lochaber and Vryheid to the town, and to defray for ever the cost 

 of maintaining the said road, reserving to the proprietors of Vryheid in 

 perpetuity the right to make snch cuttings through and across such 

 public road as may be necessary for the preservation of the rights 

 of the said proprietors as far as regards drainage and navigation 

 trenches. The proprietors also stated their willingness to sell the right 

 to the road and to have the question of the value settled by arbitration. 



