Chap. XL » BEACH-COMBERS "—WHALING-STATIONS. ;J39 
work ; and he is universally known as the " beach- 
comber." He often visits the apologies for jails which 
are suffered to exist in the new settlements ; but only 
remains in them as long as it suits his convenience to 
be fed at the public expense. One of them, an Irish- 
man well known in Cook's Strait as " Larry," after 
escaping from the hut called a prison, which then 
sheltered the bad characters at Wellington, declared 
his intention of "walking to Sydney hy land this 
" sason ! " 
The whaling stations dependent on Wellington in 
the season 1844 were as follows : — 
On the North Island there were — 
2 boats at Mana ; 
■''^' 7 „ Kapiti; 
11 „ Hawke's Bay ; 
3 „ Palliser Bay ; 
2 „ Taranaki ; 
and on the Middle Island there were — 
2 boats at Te-awa-iti ; 
7 „ Port Underwood ; 
8 „ Kaikora, south of Cape Campbell ; 
4 boats near Port Cooper ; 
9 „ on the south side of Banks's Peninsula ; 
2 „ fWaikawaiki, between that and 
Otako ; and 
11 „ stations further south. 
Many of the thirty-two stations to which these boats 
belong have removed from Cook's Strait to places fur- 
ther south which have been thought more available. 
These sixty-eight boats employed in their own manage- 
ment and that of the small craft attending on them 
about 650 men. 
In the last season they procured 1215 tuns of oil, 
z2 
