Nearly Run Down.

As I have said before, fair weather or foul, we had to be out and about, and time and again I was down the Rangitoto Channel in a howling gale in an open waterman's boat. When the westerlies swept down from the Waitakere Ranges the work was not only hard but dangerous, and more thanpage 6 once I came near to finding a watery grave. On one occasion I remember only too well the narrow call I and my boatman had when waiting for the barque Kate, one of the Circular Saw Line of clippers. It was a thick dark night with a stiff westerly blowing, and we were well down the Rangitoto Channel, intending to board the vessel when she came up. When the barque was signalled inside of Tiri lighthouae, there was only a light westerly breeze, and so we expected to have to row out beyond the reef, but when we were about two miles outside the North Head the wind freshened. Suddenly as we lay there endeavouring to pick up the red light on the barque a huge black hull loomed out of the night and swept by our boat—so close that we could have jumped aboard if her speed had been less like a shot out of a gun, or if we had not been so thoroughly scared. That incident happened on March 12, 1864.