Blanche Edith Baughan

“ Ay-way! Hay-ho! As she will! Now then! Again! As she must! Come in!” Or we are just coming to anchor and it is, “Haul down your outer jib!” in stentorian tones from the wheel. “Haul down outer jib,” in obedient response from the bow . . . more orders, further echoes. Then the rattling of the anchor-chain over the deck, the scamper of the hands to make down fore and main sail and, lo! the Tikirau, with her wings furled—and yet how beautiful still!—and tethered, and yet how still alive! ”

“ And then there was the ship herself, real and companionable entity that she was: airy and beautiful creation somewhere between Nature and Man, and in touch with both; a marvel always, and always a friend. Seen from the shore, her white beauty drew the eye like a magnet, and gleamed like some jewel which the blue sea existed apparently only to set and so enhance; but the real heart of her beauty, as of all living things, lay in her living-ness—and that, you must be aboard to feel. ”

“ Overhead the shrouds and ratlines rocked, sharply black, upon the gentle grey sky; and the holds at one’s feet presented pits of a rich darkness. A little column of blue wood-smoke streaming up from the galley brought the Bush out to sea; Tim, the cook, splitting manuka for his stove at an odd moment of leisure, and the two pups fighting for a bone—white Floss and black Darkie had hilariously gone ashore in the boat—lent an air of real domesticity to the scene. ”

“ Over goes the helm, out fades the wind from the great mainsail overhead, and like a disappointed, helpless thing, all the life out of it, there it hangs, listless, flat, unlit . . . till, as she recovers the breeze, first the headsails, then the fore, and finally the mainsail fill and swell out again; again all is taut above, a great plump cheek of gold, and away and away we dance, all alive, over the buoyant water, and through the singing air. ”

“ Upon a sea renowned for its storms, and off a coast that bristles with dangers, these adventurous and often beautiful little boats—sea-butterflies in appearance, sea-housewives in utility, sea-heroines in pluck—flit continually back and forth, and succeed in carrying, month after month, and with a degree of punctuality surprising under the circumstances, cargoes of commodities, passengers, and news, to the tiny settlements or single homesteads which they serve as flying bridges between solitude and the world. ”

“ The sun was as brilliant as the wind was furious, there was not one cloud in all the great, shining sky, the sea was a flashing battlefield where the richest, most gorgeous blue imaginable strove for mastery with the brightest and most glittering white ”

“ The day after this, we made our first port, and there my fellow-passengers were landed, all except the Quins. It was a picturesque little place. Mountains, clothed to the summit with thick virgin Bush, ran in a long, unbroken wall parallel with the shore, from which they were separated by a narrow stretch of tableland, treeless and low. The sea-line of this stretch was broken by the jutting forth of a small promontory, above which the white spire of a little church, a noticeable landmark, rose up from among the low clustered roofs of a native settlement. ”

“ Nothing, perhaps, in all New Zealand intercourse is more marked and more charming than this trait. A princess aboard the Tikirau? No, thank you! I was something infinitely more to be envied—an equal, a comrade, a shipmate; to be freely talked to, listened to, helped, confided in or laughed at, as occasion demanded—And have I ever enjoyed myself more? ”

“ Ships are like horses and people—they have a very definite personality of their own, readily to be felt by those susceptible in such matters. And, of all the ships that I have ever known, the little Tikirau stands out in my fond remembrance as easily the kindliest, the happiest, and the sweetest-natured. ”

“ Several horses, with remarkably long tails, stood patiently waiting beside a puriri tree a little way along the beach—the owners had ridden in from their scattered homes at the first word of the Tikirau’s approach; many of the women squatted in conversational groups upon the sand, and puffed at short black pipes; the younger men helped to bear the packages up the beach, the elders looked on and gave advice, and there was much excitement on the part of many dogs, of course including ours. The little Tikirau, riding so peacefully out yonder, had sent ashore quite a stir. ”

“ Blessedly clean about his work was Tim, and a really clever cook, too, and proud of his job. Much of our domestic harmony aboard the Tikirau was probably due to him; for although we were soon “down to tins and salt tucker,” and our meals were simple, as all meals at sea anyway ought to be, yet they were both nourishing and varied, and always interesting.
Oh! those meals aboard the Tikirau! They have not lost their relish yet. ”

“ How far down are you going? Our crowd all gets off at the first port.”
“Pretty snug,” we certainly were when it came to “turning in.” Indeed, how we actually were all stowed away, I cannot now conceive. But it was managed somehow; the Tikirau was a resourceful ship—and not resourceful only. She carried aboard of her, besides cargo and crew, a spirit of cordiality and easy comradeship, of hearty and active willingness to make the best of things, that won over into cheerfulness and “roughitability” the most fastidious, and translated every drawback into a joke. ”

“ A shipwrecked crew had once “dossed” for days in the Bush, the men said, and we discovered their camp, and appropriated, for Tim’s benefit, some of the lumps of coal still lying about. Then every day before dinner the men enjoyed what must have been truly a glorious sport. They would put on their oldest rig—I am afraid my presence aboard was a sad drawback here—dive from the bowsprit into the clear, dancing blue below, and there swim and tumble about like so many dolphins, chasing each other round and under the vessel, and vigorously splashing the while to keep the sharks away. ”

“ Tall, well-built men (the Maori of this district is among the finest of his race) , all in European dress: women in loose, fluttering garments of indigo, pink, or white, with the blue tattoo (is it not really rather becoming?) beneath the lower lip, a silk handkerchief over the rich, rippling hair, and rosy bloom beneath the golden-brown of their cheeks: young girls, lads, children of all ages:—the whole crowd dashed at once upon their visitors with the loudest and friendliest of welcomes. ”

“ Green grass would spread it with the softest carpet, and in the middle of the grass there would be a tree or two, perhaps a little grove of trees, with the rosy gold of ripe peaches glowing between the leaves. ”

“ Skipper first, of course. Captain Fletcher was a short, wiry man, with a beard already turning grey—for a seaman ages early as to looks; essentially active both in mind and body, and in manner rather reserved, although he was excellent company when you knew him. As a man, he bore a well-merited reputation for kindliness, integrity, and, best of all, scrupulous justice; as a seaman, he had often been proved both skilful and wary. “Never knew the old man’s equal for dodging weather,” was an approving sentence that I often heard aboard the Tikirau. ”

“ The puppies adored Mr. Anstruther. Cats have no sense of humour, and poor Tib did not.
Of the foremast hands the Tikirau carried three; Phil, Tom and Fritz. Tom was steady and sturdy; a silent, fair-haired fellow, and one of the best workers aboard. Phil was tall and dark, and loved a jest; he was now making his last trip down the coast—as a seaman, at least; for on the death of a relative he had lately “come into a bit of land,” and intended to turn farmer. ”

“ Then, homeward-bound, and once more with a well-piled deck, the Tikirau went out again, to trade up the coast instead of down. Places, like people, are extremely different according to the way in which you approach them; and although we steered practically the same course, and called at pretty nearly all the same ports, our passage up, nevertheless, stands out clear in my memory as quite a different trip from our passage down. ”

“ The port at which we called next had a pleasant distinction. It owned a bullock-cart. Generally speaking, upon that shallow and surf-beaten coast our men had to do a great deal of wading in the course of loading or unloading the whaleboat—weary work, with heavy kegs and cases on your back; so that it was a grateful relief at Waipiro to find a team of eight great bullocks, with a capacious cart attached, waiting in the surf for our boat-load. ”

“ Once we sighted a whale, once we caught a young shark, and several times we had a porpoise hunt. These were quite exciting. One of the men, armed with a harpoon, would take his stand in the chains ready to strike at any polished back as it rose or rolled beneath him; another man stood by with a bowline to be slipped instantly over the tail of the “catch” by way of support, while Floss and Darkie, rigid with excitement, paws upon the rail, hindfeet on the deck, rapturously barked and squealed. Once a porpoise did get “fixed” ”

“ The characteristic things are less the things that occasionally befall than those that continually are: and, as I look back, the main features and chief charms of that trip were just the common, everyday staples of it—the wholesome, hearty company aboard; the frankness and care-free-ness that come of living always with the open light, and air, and waters ”

“ There happened to be a Maori present who solved the problem very simply. “Rangatira (real gentleman) ? That fellow? No!” says this true Daniel come to judgment. “Gentleman gentleman never mind what work he do. Piggy gentleman very particular!”
Such were some of the incidents of our homeward trip. But it is with a voyage as it is with a life—you may chronicle every event, and yet leave out the essentials. ”

“ From the Captain’s point of view, however, the delay was less enjoyable, and the old schoolmaster too, Mr. Quin, was already “behind his time” and anxious to get back to duty. He was, however, a gentle old man, and blessed with a remarkable talent for equanimity—the credit of which, if the crew’s demure report was to be trusted, was partly at least due to Mrs. Quin’s equally remarkable talent for giving it exercise; so presently he observed; “A bad start, my long experience has led me to believe, frequently makes a good finish. ”

“ The crew were a steady, respectable set of men—upon that point the captain was particular; I never heard a foul word from any one of them all the time I was aboard; and the Tikirau carried no liquor. “I suppose, then, you were treated as a kind of princess?” has been sometimes an alternative suggestion, to which, “Not a bit!” is again the answer. No; I was treated just as an ordinary woman is ordinarily treated in New Zealand by her male fellow-citizens—that is, with a frank friendliness ”

“ While we were at sea, lines baited only with native hooks of iridescent pawa-shell trailed often from the stern, and secured us a welcome change of diet; but while we were in the bay, fresh fish, dried and drying, hung daily in the shrouds, and Tim was relieved of some anxiety as to stores. Poor old Cookie! The delay was hard upon him. “You know, I got word, last port, my little chap’s worse,” he wailed, “an’ here we are stuck up in this hole of a hole, and maybe he’s——”
“Now, never you fret, Tim,” interrupted kindly little Mr. Black. “Kids is no sooner down than they’re hup. ”

“ The early mists were still upon the mountains, and the dew upon the seaside turf, when we landed our cargo next morning, and returned to the Tikirau. But we had barely got aboard before we noticed, streaming from the mouth of the gully, a long procession of people, some riding, others walking, and all advancing very slowly towards the church; and then the captain told us how he had heard ashore of the sudden death of a girl lately come out from England to keep house for her brothers away back there in the mountain Bush, and this was her funeral. We had finished our business at the place ”

“ He had an extreme dislike to being better off in any way than his men; and, to the scandalisation of Tim, the cook-steward, who considered such a state of things “unnatural,” afterguard and foremast hands upon that democratic vessel took their meals together; nor would the skipper even permit, to Tim’s extra disgust, the least additional luxury at his end of the table. He often worked side by side with his crew ”

“ There she was, bangin’ about, an’ there was we, bein’ banged—flesh and blood gettin’ knocked clean out of us in lumps, though we knew nothin’ about it till next day. Every minute, thinks I, ‘We’ll never live to see another’; but hows’ever, down comes the blessed sail at last, an’ then, what with the lift o’ the sea, an’ a lick o’ wind that shifted her round, she started to right herself. ”

“ Quin, the valiant struggle of whose fourteen stone or so through the Bush had left behind her, in addition to a very fair wake, a considerable portion of petticoat. Our implements were but plain; they consisted of a sail-needle, some blue worsted with which it happened to be threaded, some green flax (throw a copper into the fountain of Trevi if you wish to revisit Rome: if you would come back home to New Zealand, sew a garment with green flax) , the mate’s fingers, and every one’s ungrudging advice ”