REMINISCENES OF THE MAUNGATAPU SEARCH PARTY.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 97, 7 August 1866, Page 3

REMINISCENES OF THE MAUNGATAPU SEARCH PARTY.

[EXTBACTED FBOM A NOTS BOOK KEPI BY Mb. Thsophilus Mabiile.] It is as well to mention that Felix Mathieu and De Pontius were expected in Nelson in the begining of the second week of last June. When Moller arrived on the 13th, after dark, in Nelson, and knowing that Mathieu and I were friends, he asked me if I had seen him. On my answering in the negative, he told me' that it was very strange, and related to me that he had traced the party on the road a little this side of Franklyn's Flat, but had lost all tidings of them from that place to Nelson. His opinion at that time was, that the party most have been taken back to Havelock on suspicion of smuggling gold out of the Province of Marlborough without declaring it and paying the duty. A similar circumstance had taken place before with other parties. MOller and I made inquiries in town about the missine party, and heard that Felix Mathieu and Dudley had been seen on Thursday, June 14, walking about in Bridge-street. But that I could hardly credit, as I knew that the first thing Felix would have done, on arriving at Nelson, would have been to see me, as he was well acquainted with my place of abode, and I bad a little business to settle with him. Unfortunately Moller stopped in town until the 16th and, during his stay in Nelson, went to inform the police of the fact of the missing party. At the same time Messrs. Leo and Hartmann were in town awaiting the arrival of the party, as some of them where concerned on account of, them. After Moller's departure for Canvas Town, it seems that the police had made up their mind to have Moller, Messrs. Leo and Hartmann, and myself arrested on certain suspicions, and for nothing else than for having made inquiries in town after the missing party.