French Bob and His Wine.

“I used to ride to Turanganui about once a week for the mail, etc., and often brought little things for ‘French Bob.’ Sometimes on returning from ‘the top end’ I called in and had a chat with him and old Biddy, his wife. On one occasion he invited me to go down his garden to where he had a shed in which he kept a cask of wine, and, suggesting that I should have a drink from the cask, he handed a straw to me and told me to put it into the bung-hole and suck away. I followed his directions and did suck away until I didn't want any more. I then rode away home—about a mile off—and when I got there didn't get off but fell off all of a heap. I was dead to the world for the rest of the day. Bob had a large flock of goats and their principal run was from about where the junction of King's Road is with the main road for a mile or so towards Waerenga-a-hika. Bob would not flee on the morning of the Massacre and, as a result, he and his wife and an adopted European child were killed.