EARLY DAYS IN NEW ZEALAND.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17815, 14 July 1923, Page 14

EARLY DAYS IN NEW ZEALAND.

EIGHTY-TWO YEARS AGO. Eighty-two years ago Mrs Rubin Short, who is ouly fourteen months away from celebrating her hundredth birthday, stepped ashore with her mother, two brothers, and three sisters from the sailing vessel Lady Nugent on to the beach where now is the extensive business area of Lambton quay, Wellington. The family were destined to have many thrilling experiences, a few of which were related to a representative of the "Dominion" this week. With the exception of partial deafness, Mrs Short is still in possession of her faculties, and takes an active interest in life.. Her brother, Mr Southee, of Feilding, is still enjoying good health at the age of 96, and her husband only died twelve months ago at the age of 94. "You can see we are of tough material," she said, "but it was necessary in those days, when only the fittest survived. In 1841 the Lady Nugent, containing its few passengers and many Maori dogs and pigs—a motley combination—for a long voyage —sailed into Wellington Harbour. An attempt was first made to land at the Hutt, but the Maoris were quarrelling amongst themselves, and displayed a marked hostility towards the white intruders, so it was thought advisable to land further on, the anchor being eventually cast near where Messrs Kirkcaldie and Stains' establishment now stands." Strangers in a strange land, with no provisions except what could be obtained -at the Maori depot, their first taste of excitement came when the Natives grew troublesome at the depot, and Mrs Short received a cut on the head, the mark of which she bears to this day. Following this, the wind blew the depot down, and the Natives declared that the "Tiepo" would be next, meaning a visitation from his Satanic Majesty. They were then quiet for a time, but trouble was brewing at Wanganui and the Hutt, and when the war broke out there were many anxious moments for the white people. "Kent never seemed further away than it was then," said the old lady, reflectively. "Where the tram now winds its way to Brooklyn," she continued, "a great crowd of Maoris had assembled, while their brothers went to fight at Wanganui, and the spirit of war quickened their pulses to our, and particularly my, detriment. They told my people they would have to go away and leave me with them, and this my mother and her family were reluctantly obliged to do. The Maoris wild-eyed, grimacing, and gesticulating heatedly—introduced me to their war dance, dancing around me for an hour or more. I thought my last moments had come." Another habit of the Natives was to prowl round the homestead at the dead of night and suddenly appear at a window. "A mere icy glance did not turn them in those days, either," said Mrs Short. Mrs Short was living in the' Hutt Valley when the great floods scoured the locality. She also vividly remem-. bers when "Wellington was all shaken to pieces," as she put it. Removing some years later to the Wairarapa, Mrs Short again ran into trouble with the Maoris. Here they developed the habit of '.'bobbing up any old time" with all sorts of requests. .To disobey, or rather to ignore them, might have cost some of the x whites their lives. On one occa; sion a regular army of 600 Maoris surrounded the house they occupied on the Taiere Plains, and asked for a drink of'water each, quite an ordinary request for a Maori chief to make with a more modest string of guests at his teels. "We did the best we could," she said, "but in the middle of the night there was a wild on the door, the request this time being for a feed." They were too afraid to unbar the door, and by good fortune some other opportune "entertainment" happened along. The Natives were constantly giving trouble, and everything lying out of doors that was removable vanished. Mrs Short later settled down in Palmerston North, and after an absence of twelve months, has now returned there. She told the reporter as he was leaving that when she turned 100 she would tell him some "really thrilling stories" of the early .days. /'