OLD STYLE OF LANDING PASSENGERS. (Page 3.)

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 9123, 2 July 1891, Page 17 (Supplement)

OLD STYLE OF LANDING PASSENGERS. (Page 3.)

Mr R. H. Gibson, 8.A., in a paper written for the Manchester Geographical Society, says :—": — " Only a very few years ago, tho visitor or emigrant tc Taranaki who arrived by sea, had to land at the Port of New Plymouth, the capital of the Pro vince, in a surf-boat, in shape and size resembling a cross between a whaleboat and a coal barge, provided the heavy rollers of tho South Pacific did not render this impracticable, and oblige tho steamer to carry op its passengers to the sheltered harbour of tho Manukau, the port of Auckland on tho West Coast, a hundred miles to the north. This carrying on passengers, and more frequently cargo too, occurred sometimes not only once but twice or thrice during the stormy season. In calm or comparatively calm weather, the steamer used to anchor about a mile from the shoro, in the open roadstead, when its male passengers, unless of a weak physique or of nervous temperament, had to climb down tho vessel's side by means of a rope ladder, or else jump from the gangway into tho arms of a stalwart boatman or on to the top of a mass oE miscellaneous freight, not always of tho softest material, piled up on the suif boat, bobbing and rolling below. The lady passengers were seated in a tub, in which tho adventurous fair squatted one at a time, and having first been hoisted aloft by a running tackle suspended from the steamer's yardarm,

42 feet at tho base, and its outer and inner sides arc composed of solid concrete blocks of an average weight of 26 tons, tho space between being filled up with concrete and rubble. Tho whole forms a massive structure, strong enough to stand tho heaviest wave force that is likely to strike it.