them all on the beach, their craft, capsized with the strong wind and heavy rollers, eventually landing on the shore with her deck downward, and her keel in the air.
Hokitika being a bar harbour, only vessels of light draught could enter the river. The ocean steamers were tendered by small steamers; the Favourite and the Bruce were two of the principal ones. The charge for conveying passengers from the roadstead to the wharf, a distance of three miles, was £1 a head; £4 a ton for goods.
Allotments were marked off on the sea beach, a safe distance above high-water mark, averaging from 30ft. frontage by a depth of 60ft. These sold readily from £20 to £100 an allotment; and if anything of a decent building thereon, from £200 to £500. £3 10s. per cwt, was the charge for packing goods from Hokitika to Waimea, a distance of fifteen miles.
The shipping losses in 1865—i.e., value of ships and goods damaged and destroyed—must have been hundreds of thousands of pounds. One of the first wrecks was the Montezuma, followed by the Oak, Sir Francis Drake, Titania, and others, In many cases the vessels did not become total wrecks, being thrown high up on the beach. They were then raised on screw-jacks, and placed on ways. The distance between the sea and the river, which here ran parallel to the beach, was about fifty yards, so that after being elevated to the highest point on the spit they readily ran down the greased incline. One of the leading auctioneers (R. Reeves) did an immense business selling cargoes, and oftentimes the vessels themselves. To give an idea of his business, his advertisements in the local paper, the West Coast Times, came to £250 a month.
One of the most exciting days in shipping circles was the 6th October, 1865. No fewer than thirteen vessels sailed over the bar, and all but one got in safely. The Maria was the unfortunate one. She was loaded up for Cassius and Comisky, Cassius was on the beach in a most excited state.
On one occasion a steamer was unable to land her passengers for ten days. In the offing was to be seen the Claud Hamilton, from Dunedin and Christchurch, with a large crowd of passengers, and light freight. There she had been to the discomfort of her people, pitching and rolling, and awaiting the chance of a small steamer tendering her; but though she steamed into the roadstead every tide, and fired guns and hoisted signals, no one went to her assistance, until my friend in the Misken, for the small consideration of £500, agreed to go out next tide and tranship in boats to his own craft, those ill-fated ladies, children, and diggers who were so eager to get ashore and turn their valuable time to a more profitable account; and in six hours my friend, for his pluck, was £500 a better man. On ——— the steamer Lioness got ashore, and being a gold mine to her owners, they spent a
