Excerpt from Remembrances of a Pioneer Woman Met with financial reverses when my eldest sister and myself were very young. Grand father Gummer was a manufacturer of twine, rope, etc. About this time New Zealand became noted for its hemp in dustry, so Father decided to emigrate there to try his fortune raising hemp. They started off in a sailing vessel by the way of The Cape of Good Hope, tak ing Grandmother Davis, who was a widow, with them. They landed at Sydney, going thence to Auckland. Before leaving Eng land, Father had arranged to ship thehemp to his eldest brother who had in herited their father's business. While in Auckland Father bought a tract of land on the Bay of Islands Where he built a home and planted the hemp. Needing more help, he crossed the bay, intending to hire some more natives. While he was gone the house took fire and burned down, Mother saving herself and the little chil dren, a little sister, Eliza, having been born six weeks before the fire. Eliza was laid too near the fire. Upon taking her up, her face was found to be so burned that the skin peeled later. In the meantime a war had broken out between the different tribes of the natives, called Maoris, Who were'ordinarily peaceable, but now were in a very savage mood. So Father was advised not to rebuild his house, as we might all have been massacred. Under. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.