; S. Thomson, _Story of New
Zealand_: Sir W.T. Power, _Sketches in New Zealand_; G.F. Angas,
_Savage Scenes_.]

If the seats were the joints of a whale's backbone, there was always
food in plenty, washed down with grog or tea made from manuka sprigs.
Whale's heart was a delicacy set before guests, who found it rather
like beef. Maoris, sharks, and clouds of sea-gulls shared much of the
flesh of the captured whales' carcasses.

Maori relatives learned to envy and, to some extent, to copy what they
saw. They took service as oarsmen, and even bought and equipped boats
for themselves. They learned to be ashamed of some of their more
odious habits, and to respect the pluck and sense of fair play shown
by their whaling neighbours. As a rule, each station was held by
license from the chief of the proprietary tribe. He and tenants would
stand shoulder to shoulder to resist incursions by other natives.
Dicky Barrett, head-man of the Taranaki whaling-station, helped
the Ngatiawa to repulse a noteworthy raid by the Waikato tribe.
Afterwards, when the Ngatiawa decided to abandon their much-harried
land, Barrett moved with them to Cook's Straits, where, in 1839, the
Wakefields found him looking jovial, round, and ruddy, dressed in a
straw hat, white jacket, and blue dungaree trousers, and married to a
chief's daughter--a handsome and stately woman. It was Dicky Barrett
who directed Colonel Wakefield to what is now Wellington, and who,
in consequence, may be recorded as the guide who pointed out to the
pioneer of the New Zealand Company the future capital of the colony.

Nor was Barrett the only specimen of this rough race whom New
Zealanders may remember with interest. There was Stewart, ex-Jacobite,
sealer, and pilot, whose name still conceals Rakiura, and whose
Highland pride made him wear the royal tartan to the last as he sat
in Maori villages smoking among the blanketed savages. There was the
half-caste Chaseland, whose mother was an Australian "gin," and who
was acknowledged to be the most dexterous and best-tempered steersman
in New Zealand--when sober. He needed his skill when he steered an
open boat from the Chathams to Otago across five hundred miles of
wind-vexed sea. Chaseland's mighty thews and sinews were rivalled by
those of Spencer, whose claim to have fought at Waterloo was regarded
as doubtful, but whose possession of two wives and of much money made
by rum-selling was not doubtful. Another notable steersman was