REMINISCENCES of THE MAUNGATAPU SEAKCH PARTY.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 100, 14 August 1866, Page 3

REMINISCENCES of THE MAUNGATAPU SEAKCH PARTY.

[ExTBAOTED IBOM A NOTE BOOK KEET BX Mb. Theophiltts Mabiiie.] 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 Mdller 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 must 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. Mdller and I made inquiries in town about the missing 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 Bee me, as he was well acquainted with my place of abode, and I had a little business to settle with him. Unfortunately Mdller stopped in town until the 16th and, during his stay in Nelson, I believe he 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 were concerned on account of them.