No. I.

We have to thank various contributors for the following short sketches of events connected with the early settlement of the Otago Block, and shall, as opportunity offers, publish whatever authentic information we can obtain on so interesting a subject.

Although only thirty-seven years have elapsed since the founding of Otago, few persons of this generation are aware how nearly the project was abandoned. The scheme of settlement was mainly on the lines laid down by the late Edward Gibbon Wakefield, endorsed by that ill-managed emigration association, the New Zealand Company. The doings, or rather misdoings, of that Association are matters of history. They were brought prominently before the world in parliamentary reports and by occasional narratives published in the journals of the time telling of hopes not realised, of abortive efforts after peaceful settlement, and of occasional murders and cannibalism by the Natives of New Zealand. The Free Church of Scotland, through the agency of Mr. Wakefield, had entered into the New Zealand Company's scheme for the colonisation of New Zealand, and committees connected with the various churches had been formed for the purpose of founding the Otago settlement. Whatever enthusiasm was evoked on the first publication of the scheme, it gradually cooled, until there seemed every probability that all thought of it would be given up. News had been received of the disaster to the settlers at Nelson under Colonel Wakefield, and of the murder of Mrs. Gilfillan and some of her family at Wanganui; and people who some shout time before regarded New Zealand as a promised land began to think that a humble pittance in Scotland was better than the risk of being cooked and devoured by some ruthless cannibals. One of the conditions of the arrangement of the Association with the New Zealand Company was that 200 properties should be sold before taking any steps towards colonisation. The Free Church Association, however, could not sell the required number; and informed the New Zealand Company that if that stipulation were insisted on, and if a beginning were not made, intending emigrants would not come forward.