g,
active, and skilful. Theirs was no fair-weather trade. Their working
season was in the winter. Sharp winds and rough seas had to be faced,
and when these were contrary it required no small strength to pull
their heavy boats against them hour after hour, and mile after mile,
to say nothing of the management of the cumbrous steering-oar,
twenty-seven feet in length, to handle which the steersman had to
stand upright in the stern sheets.

[Footnote 1: John Jones, of Waikouaiti. His first missionary found
two years at a whaling-station quite enough, if we may judge from his
greeting to his successor, which was "Welcome to Purgatory, Brother
Creed!" Brother Creed's response is not recorded.]

The harpooning and lancing of the whale were wild work; and when bones
were broken, a surgeon's aid was not always to be had. The life,
however, could give change, excitement, the chance of profit, and long
intervals of comparative freedom. To share these, seamen deserted
their vessels, and free Australians--nicknamed currency lads--would
ship at Sydney for New Zealand. Ex-convicts, of course, swelled their
ranks, and were not always and altogether bad, despite the convict
system. The discipline in the boats was as strict as on a man-of-war.
On shore, when "trying down" the blubber, the men had to work long and
hard. "Sunday don't come into this bay!" was the gruff answer once
given to a traveller who asked whether the Sabbath was kept. Otherwise
they might lead easy lives. Each had his hut and his Maori wife, to
whom he was sometimes legally married. Many had gardens, and families
of half-caste children, whose strength and beauty were noted by all
who saw them. The whaler's helpmate had to keep herself and children
clean, and the home tidy. Cleanliness and neatness were insisted on
by her master, partly through the seaman's instinct for tidiness and
partly out of a pride and desire to show a contrast to the reeking
hovels of the Maori. As a rule she did her best to keep her man sober.
Her cottage, thatched with reeds, was perhaps whitewashed with lime
made by burning the sea-shells. With its clay floor and huge open
fireplace, with its walls lined with curtained sleeping bunks, and its
rafters loaded with harpoons, sharp oval-headed lances, coils of
rope, flitches of bacon or bags of flour, it showed a picture of rude
comfort.[1]

[Footnote 1: Wakefield, _Adventures in New Zealand_; Shortland,
_Southern Districts of New Zealand_