xcept he should be very hungry.

The boat darts on; she touches the edge of a steep rock; the "_haere
mai_" has subsided; six or seven "personages"--the magnates of the
tribe--come gravely to the front to meet me as I land. There are about
six or seven yards of shallow water to be crossed between the boat and
where they stand. A stout fellow rushes to the boat's nose, and "shows
a back," as we used to say at leap-frog. He is a young fellow of
respectable standing in the tribe, a far-off cousin of the chief's, a
warrior, and as such has no back: that is to say, to carry loads of
fuel or potatoes. He is too good a man to be spoiled in that way; the
women must carry for him; the able-bodied men of the tribe must be
saved for its protection; but he is ready to carry the pakeha on
shore--the _rangatira pakeha_--who wears a real _koti roa_ (a long
coat) and beaver hat! Carry! He would lie down and make a bridge of his
body, with pleasure, for him. Has he not half a shipful of _taonga_?

Well, having stepped in as dignified a manner as I knew how, from
thwart to thwart, till I came to the bow of the boat, and having
tightened on my hat and buttoned up my coat, I fairly mounted on the
broad shoulders of my aboriginal friend. I felt at the time that the
thing was a sort of failure--a come down; the position was not
graceful, or in any way likely to suggest ideas of respect or awe, with
my legs projecting a yard or so from under each arm of my bearer,
holding on to his shoulders in the most painful, cramped, and awkward
manner: to be sacked on shore thus, and delivered like a bag of goods
thus, into the hands of the assembled multitude, did not strike me as a
good first appearance on this stage. But little, indeed, can we tell in
this world what one second may produce. Gentle reader, fair reader,
patient reader! The fates have decreed it; the fiat has gone forth; on
that man's back I shall never land in New Zealand. Manifold are the
doubts and fears which have yet to shake and agitate the hearts and
minds of all my friends as to whether I shall ever land at all, or ever
again feel _terra firma_ touch my longing foot. My bearer made one
step; the rock is slippery; backwards he goes; back, back! The steep is
near--is passed! down, down, we go! backwards, and headlong to the
depths below!

The ebb tide is running like a sluice; in an instant we are forty yards
off, and a fathom below the surface; ten more fathoms are beneath us.