Dangerous Work.

Sometimes, however, our experiences went beyond the adventurous, and a man never knew whether he would get back to the wharf safe and sound. There was poor Harry Lewis, of the "Herald," for instance, the man whose place I took in 1865. His mother, by the way, used to keep a school for girls in Shortland Street, and many of the belles of early Auckland received the rudiments of their education from her. In 1864 Harry Lewis had a nerve-racking experience when going alongside a sailing ship in a gale of wind. His boat swamped, and he had a narrow escape from drowning. The following year he met with a very painful accident which put him out of commission altogether as far as shipping reporting was concerned. While his boat was lying alongside a steamer which was letting off steam a stream of hot water shot out of a porthole immediately above his head, and he was so badly scalded that he had to give up his post on the "Herald." Then, again, there was the sad accident which happened in 1867 to two watermen employed by the late Mr. W. Wilkinson, the well-known journalist, who was then shipping reporter on the "Southern Cross," the paper on which I started in 1863. One of the watermen was drowned and the other had a close call; but I will refer to this incident more fully later on.