Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/151

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England; and Annie, who married Mr. V. Knudsen in the Hawaiian Islands.

After several years, Mrs. Sinclair and family decided to leave New Zealand, for, although they had such a fine estate and comfortable home in Sinclair’s Bay, they wished to get larger tracts of land where all the family could settle together, so they sold all their land, cattle, and sheep, and bought a barque of 300 tons, in which they all left New Zealand in 1863. They had a pleasant voyage across the Pacific to British Columbia, and landed for a time at the Island of Vancouver, where the Governor, Sir James Douglas, offered the family every inducement to settle, which they were obliged to decline, as they found that the country was not suitable for grazing purposes, which they wished to pursue. So they left Vancouver, and went to the Hawaiian Islands, of which they had heard good accounts. When they arrived at Honolulu, Kamehameha IV. was then King, and he and his Ministers offered the family every inducement to settle in the country, and so the family bought the Island of Niihau, with good grazing land suitable for sheep-farming. They also bought the land of Makaweli, on the adjoining Island of