A more dramatic tale is that of the fate of a boat’s crew from the _General Gates_, American sealing ship. In 1821 her captain landed a party of six men somewhere near Puysegur Point to collect seal-skins. So abundant were the fur seals on our south-west coast in those days that in six weeks the men had taken and salted 3563 skins. Suddenly a party of Maori burst into their hut about midnight, seized the unlucky Americans, and, after looting the place, marched them off as prisoners. According to the survivors, they were compelled to trudge between three and four hundred miles, and were finally taken to a big sandy bay on the west coast of the South Island. Here they were tied to trees and left without food till they were ravenously hungry. Then one of them, John Rawton, was killed with a club. His head was buried in the ground; his body dressed, cooked, and eaten. On each of the next three days another of the wretched seamen was seized and devoured in the same way, their companions looking on like Ulysses in the cave of the Cyclops. As a crowning horror the starving seamen were offered some of the baked human flesh and ate it. After four days of this torment there came a storm with thunder and lightning, which drove the natives away to take shelter. Left thus unguarded, Price and West, the two remaining prisoners, contrived to slip their bonds of flax. A canoe was lying on the beach, and rough as the surf was, they managed to launch her. Scarcely were they afloat before the natives returned and rushed into the sea after them, yelling loudly. The Americans had just sufficient start and no more. Paddling for dear life, they left the land behind, and had the extraordinary fortune, after floating about for three days, to be picked up, half dead, by the trading schooner _Margery_. The story of their capture and escape is to be found in Polack’s _New Zealand_, published in 1838. Recently, Mr. Robert M’Nab has unearthed contemporary references to the _General Gates_, and, in his book _Muri-huku_, has given an extended account of the adventures of her skipper and crew. The captain, Abimelech Riggs by name, seems to have been a very choice salt-water blackguard. He began his career at the Antipodes by enlisting convicts in Sydney, and carrying them off as seamen. For this he was arrested in New Zealand waters, and had to stand his trial in Sydney. In Mr. M’Nab’s opinion, he lost two if not three parties of his men on the New Zealand coast, where he seems to have left them to take their chance, sailing off and remaining away with the finest indifference. Finally, he appears to have taken revenge by running down certain canoes manned by Maori which he chanced to meet in Foveaux Straits. After that _coup_, Captain Abimelech Riggs vanishes from our stage, a worthy precursor of Captain Stewart of the brig _Elisabeth_, the blackest scoundrel of our Alsatian period. [Illustration: LAWYER’S HEAD]