CANNIBAL FEAST.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 173, 23 July 1936, Page 8

CANNIBAL FEAST.

SEEN BY WHITE MAN.

EARLY FIJI EXPERIENCE

A PIONEER'S BIRTHDAY.

To have seen the finish of a cannibal feast in which 000 savages took part is an experience which many coulcl not claim, and yet this is only one of the adventures which befell Mr. John Edgerley in Fiji in the early 'seventies. Though these are memories silhouetted against many years, they are clear today in the mind of Mr. Edgerley, unusually clear for a man who celebrates his ninetieth birthday oil Sunday.

Eldest son of John Edgerley, a botanist who came to New Zealand, first to Hokianga, then to Auckland, in the early 'forties, Mr. Edgerley was born at Epsom on July 20, 184 G. He received his early education at St. Mark'sChurch- school and later at Mr. John Stables' private school. It was Mr. Edgerley's intention to become a builder, and though he did engage in building at various times, a great portion of his lin'e was spent ill more exciting occupations.

The Waikato war broke out when lie was about sixteen. Immediately lie joined the Reniuera volunteers and was on duty patrolling Taniaki-Orakei bridge line mi the Reniuera district. Later on he joined the No. 3 Company of the Auckland Volunteers, then under Captain Heaphy, V.C., Lieutenant C. Hesketli and Ensign D. Hunter. Mr. .Edgerley. rose to the rank of sergeant, but was drawn from his military activities by the lure of the . Thames goldfields. However, he gained more in experience than material fortune so, deciding to try his luck further afield, he set off in the early 'seventies for Fiji. '

Plantation in Fiji. Here he ran a plantation near the Rewa River. But Fiji was a wild place in those days, and hearing that two planters,- Speir and Mackintosh, had been murdered near the Ba River, Mr. Edgerley joined an expedition which set out to punish , the murderers. It was during this expedition he saw the end of the cannibal feast, in which some 000 rebel mountain then took part. He also saw many of Kiiig : £hakombauV preparations for punishing the rebel tribes and the king's forces attack Sorovakawalu, where the rebels made their last stand. It was during the time that Mr. Edgerley was in Fiji that there were terrible outbreaks of measles and dysentry, which swept off the native population in tens of thousands. The planters did what they could, but it was not a great deal, and they themselves had many troubles. Amongst others was the whole question of the ownership of the Fiji Islands. Mr. Edgerley well remembers attending a meeting of planters held at Naitesiri to confer with Commodore Goodenough and Consul Layard regarding the annexation of Fiji by England in 1874. Days in Early Auckland.

After eleven years in Fiji Mr. Edgerley returned to Auckland, where he married Miss Isa Meiizies, of Tamaki. Shortly afterwards he went to Melbourne, where there was at the time a" great land boom, but after some years returned to Auckland, engaged in huilding work for a while, and then retired. Although OS at the outbreak of the Gieat War, Mr. Edgerley, who was an expert rifle shot, joined the National Reserve, drilling with tliem till the end of the war. Questioned about his recollections of early Auckland, Mr. Edgerley said that in his young days much of the land was covered with tea-tree, that near Newmarket there was a lai'ge wooden structure called Hobson's bridge over a creek, and a huge swamp. Tn the town he remembered old St. Paul's Church ancl Fort Britomart, with its oldfashioned guns pointing out over the harbour. Princes Street and Sliortland Street were then the two most important streets, and the tide came up to the foot erf Sliortland Street.

Ciargo vessels came np on the flowing tide, and being left high and dry by the ebb, were unloaded into drays. There was a creek along the western side of Queen Street in those days. It was boarded along both sides, and there was a wooden bridge across it at Victoria Street.

Amongst other things, Mr. Edgerley i ecalled the visit of a Maori war partv of the Ngati-toa and their landing at Mechanics Bay. He also mentioned that he once visited Auckland's first museum which was housed in a cottage in Grafton Road.

Although recalling so much of the early times of the city which lie has seen grow from such small beginnings. Mr. Edgerley finds much to interest him in the present. He likes modern days and modern ways. Mr. and Mrs. Edgerley live at Edgerley Avenue, Epsom. They have three daughters' Miss A. Edgerley and Mrs. S. Irwin Crookes, jun., of Auckland, and Mrs. H. Harris, of Southampton, England.