Nelson, Thomas , Storekeeper, Ashurst. Mr. Nelson has had considerable hotel experience in different parts of the Colony. The “Commercial,” Ashurst, was built by him a few years ago, and sold some eighteen months later. He is a native of Schleswig-Holstein, and left his native land when a lad of fourteen for a seafaring life in the Baltic. In this position he saw a good deal of the Crimean war, and traded with the French and English soldiers, both of the army and navy. He then became a sealer, and was in that capacity as far north as Greenland, where he had most exciting experiences. For about four months he was so far north as to lose sight of the sun for only a few minutes each day. From that cold region he went by way of Copenhagen to Batavia, in Java, where he remained for a short time. In 1857 Mr. Nelson found himself in Victoria, and went digging in the north of that colony, where he remained until 1861, when he joined the Gabriel's Gully rush. After a time he returned to Dunedin, and, finding that fruit and vegetables were in such demand that the prices were ridiculously high, he established himself as a fruiterer, greengrocer, and provision dealer. By visiting the cultivators of the district he was fortunate in securing whole gardens of vegetables at low rates, and, pouring them into the Dunedin market, he there disposed of them at almost fabulous prices. It was no uncommon thing for him to get three shillings for a cabbage and half-a-crown for a pound of onions. At one venture he bought a two-acre field of turnips for £20 and disposed of the crop retail for fully ten times that sum. After this he was engaged in mining on the Hokitika diggings. There are few colonists who have had a more varied career than the subject of this sketch.