id that, to a landsman, my panegyric may smack strongly of
gush, for no one but a seaman can rightly appraise such doings as these;
but I may be permitted to say that, when I think of men whom I feel glad
to have lived to know, foremost among them rises the queer little figure
of Paddy Gilroy.

CHAPTER XXVII. PORT PEGASUS

The wind still holding steadily in the old quarter, our skipper got very
restless. He recalled his former exploits, and, firing at the thought,
decided then and there to have a trip round to Port Pegasus, in the hope
that he might meet with some of his former good luck in the vicinity of
that magnificent bay. With the greatest alacrity we obeyed his summons,
handling the old barky as if she were a small boat, and the same
morning, for the first time, ran out of the Straits to the eastward
past Ruapuke Island. Beautiful weather prevailed, making our trip a
delightful one, the wonderful scenery of that coast appealing to even
the most callous or indifferent among us. We hugged the land closely,
the skipper being familiar with all of it in a general way, so that none
of its beauties were lost to us. The breeze holding good, by nightfall
we had reached our destination, anchoring in the north arm near a
tumbling cascade of glittering water that looked like a long feather
laid on the dark-green slope of the steep hill from which it gushed.

We had not been long at anchor before we had visitors--half-breed
Maories, who, like the Finns and Canadians, are farmers, fishermen,
sailors, and shipwrights, as necessity arises. They brought us
potatoes--most welcome of all fruit to the sailor--cabbages, onions, and
"mutton birds." This latter delicacy is a great staple of their flesh
food, but is one of the strangest dishes imaginable. When it is being
cooked in the usual way, i.e. by grilling, it smells exactly like a
piece of roasting mutton; but it tastes, to my mind, like nothing else
in the world so much as a kippered herring. There is a gastronomical
paradox, if you like. Only the young birds are taken for eating. They
are found, when unfledged, in holes of the rocks, and weigh sometimes
treble as much as their parents. They are exceedingly fat; but this
substance is nearly all removed from their bodies before they are
hung up in the smoke-houses. They are split open like a haddock, and
carefully smoked, after being steeped in brine. Baskets, something like
exaggerated strawberry pottles of the old co