It had no sooner gone than more sail was set, the yards were squared, and the vessel kept away up the Straits for shelter. It was a big improvement, for she certainly had begun to make dirty weather of it, and no wonder. Now, however, running almost dead before the gale, getting into smoother water at every fathom, she was steady as a rock, allowing us to pursue our greasy avocation in comparative comfort. The gale was still increasing, although now blowing with great fury; but, to our satisfaction, it was dry and not too cold. Running before it, too, lessened our appreciation of its force; besides which, we were exceedingly busy clearing away the enormous mass of the junk, which, draining continually, kept the decks running with oil.
We started to run up the Straits at about ten a.m. At two p.m. we suddenly looked up from our toil, our attention called by a sudden lull in the wind. We had rounded Saddle Point, a prominent headland, which shut off from us temporarily the violence of the gale. Two hours later we found ourselves hauling up into the pretty little harbour of Port William, where, without taking more than a couple of hands off the work, the vessel was rounded-to and anchored with quite as little fuss as bringing a boat alongside a ship. It was the perfection of seamanship.
Once inside the bay, a vessel was sheltered from all winds, the land being high and the entrance intricate. The water was smooth as a mill-pond, though the leaden masses of cloud flying overhead and the muffled roar of the gale told eloquently of the unpleasant state affairs prevailing outside. Two whale-ships lay here—the TAMERLANE, of New Bedford, and the CHANCE, of Bluff Harbour. I am bound to confess that there was a great difference is appearance between the Yankee and the colonial—very much in favour of the former. She was neat, smart, and seaworthy, looking as if just launched; but the CHANCE looked like some poor old relic of a bygone day, whose owners, unable to sell her, and too poor to keep her in repair, were just letting her go while keeping up the insurance, praying fervently each day that she might come to grief, and bring them a little profit at last.
But although it is much safer to trust appearances in ships than in men, any one who summed up the CHANCE from her generally outworn and poverty-stricken looks would have been, as I was, "way off." Old she was, with an indefinite antiquity, carelessly rigged, and vilely unkempt as to her gear, while outside she did not seem to have had a coat of paint for a generation. She looked what she really was—the sole survivor of the once great whaling industry of New Zealand. For although struggling bay whaling stations did exist in a few sheltered places far away from the general run of traffic, the trade itself might truthfully be said to be practically extinct. The old CHANCE alone, like some shadow of the past, haunted Foveaux Straits, and made a better income for her fortunate owners than any of the showy, swift coasting steamers that rushed contemptuously past her on their eager way.
In many of the preceding pages I have, though possessing all an Englishman's pride in the prowess of mine own people, been compelled to bear witness to the wonderful smartness and courage shown by the American whalemen, to whom their perilous calling seems to have become a second nature. And on other occasions I have lamented that our own whalers, either at home or in the colonies, never seemed to take so kindly to the sperm whale fishery as the hardy "down Easters," who first taught them the business; carried it on with increasing success, in spite of their competition and the depredations of the ALABAMA; flourished long after the English fishery was dead; and even now muster a fleet of ships engaged in the same bold and hazardous calling. Therefore, it is the more pleasant to me to be able to chronicle some of the doings of Captain Gilroy, familiarly known as "Paddy," the master of the CHANCE, who was unsurpassed as a whale-fisher or a seaman by any Yankee that ever sailed from Martha's Vineyard.
He was a queer little figure of a man—short, tubby, with scanty red hair, and a brogue thick as pea-soup. Eccentric in most things, he was especially so in his dress, which he seemed to select on the principle of finding the most unfitting things to wear. Rumour credited him with a numerous half-breed progeny—certainly he was greatly mixed up with the Maories, half his crew being made up of his dusky friends and relations by MARRIAGE. Overflowing with kindliness and good temper, his ship was a veritable ark of refuge for any unfortunate who needed help, which accounted for the numerous deserters from Yankee whalers who were to be found among his crew. Such whaling skippers as our late commander hated him with ferocious intensity; and but for his Maori and half-breed bodyguard, I have little doubt he would have long before been killed. Living as he had for many years on that storm-beaten coast, he had become, like his Maories, familiar with every rock and tree in fog or clear, by night or day; he knew them, one might almost say, as the seal knows them, and feared them as little. His men adored him. They believed him capable of anything in the way of whaling, and would as soon have thought of questioning the reality of daylight as the wisdom of his decisions.
I went on board the evening of, our arrival, hearing some rumours of the doings of the old CHANCE and her crew, also with the idea that perhaps I might find some countrymen among his very mixed crowd. The first man I spoke to was Whitechapel to the backbone, plainly to be spotted as such as if it had been tattooed on his forehead. Making myself at home with him, I desired to know what brought him so far from the "big smoke," and on board a whaler of all places in the world. He told me he had been a Pickford's van-driver, but had emigrated to New Zealand, finding that he did not at all like himself in the new country. Trying to pick and choose instead of manfully choosing a pick and shovel for a beginning, he got hard up. During one of Captain Gilroy's visits to the Bluff, he came across my ex-drayman, looking hungry and woebegone. Invited on board to have a feed, he begged to be allowed to remain; nor, although his assistance was not needed, was he refused. "An nar," he said, his face glowing with conscious pride, "y'ort ter see me in a bloomin' bowt. I ain't a-goain' ter say as I kin fling wun o' them 'ere bloomin' 'arpoones like ar bowt-steerers kin; but I kin do my bit o' grawft wiv enny on 'em—don'tchu make no bloomin' herror." The glorious incongruity of the thing tickled me immensely; but I laughed more heartily still when on going below I was hailed as "Wot cher, chummy; 'ow yer hoppin' up?" by another barbarian from the wilds of Spitalfields, who, from the secure shelter of his cats'-meat round in 'Oxton, had got adrift, and, after being severely buffeted by tempestuous ill-fortune, had finally found himself in the comfortable old CHANCE, a haven of rest in the midst of storms. There were sixteen white men on board the CHANCE, including the skipper, drawn as usual from various European and American sources, the rest of her large crew of over forty all told being made up of Maories and half-breeds. One common interest united them, making them the jolliest crowd I ever saw—their devotion to their commander. There was here to be found no jealousy of the Maories being officers and harpooners, no black looks or discontented murmuring; all hands seemed particularly well satisfied with their lot in all its bearings; so that, although the old tub was malodorous enough to turn even a pretty strong stomach, it was a pleasure to visit her cheerful crowd for the sake of their enlivening society.
Of course, under our present circumstances, with the debris of our late enormous catch filling every available space and loudly demanding attention, we had little time to spare for ship visiting. Some boat or other from the two ships was continually alongside of us, though, for until the gale abated they could not get out to the grounds again, and time hung heavy on their hands. The TAMERLANE's captain avoided Paddy as if he were a leper—hated the sight of him, in fact, as did most of his CONFRERES; but our genial skipper, whose crew were every whit as well treated and contented as the CHANCE's, and who therefore needed not to dread losing them, met the little philanthropist on the most friendly terms.
The first fine weather, which came four days after our arrival, both our harbour mates cleared out. Characteristically, the CHANCE was away first, before daylight had quite asserted itself, and while the bases of the cliffs and tops of the rocks were as yet hidden in dense wreaths of white haze. Paddy lolled on the taff-rail near the wheel, which was held by an immense half-breed, who leant back and carried on a desultory, familiar conversation with his skipper; the rest of the crew were scattered about the decks, apparently doing what they liked in any manner they chose. The anchor was being catted, sails going up, and yards being trimmed; but, to observers like us, no guiding spirit was noticeable. It seemed to work all right, and the old ark herself looked as if she was as intelligent as any of them; but the sight was not an agreeable one to men accustomed to discipline. The contrast when the TAMERLANE came along an hour or so after was emphatic. Every man at his post; every order carried out with the precision of clockwork; the captain pacing the quarter-deck as if she were a line-of-battle ship—here the airs put on were almost ludicrous in the other direction. Although she was only "a good jump" long, as we say, whenever an order was given, it was thundered out as if the men were a mile away each officer appearing to vie with the others as to who could bellow the loudest. That was carrying things to the opposite extreme, and almost equally objectionable to merchant seamen.
We were thus left alone to finish our trying-out except for such company as was afforded by the only resident's little schooner, in which he went oyster-dredging. It was exceedingly comfortable in the small harbour, and the fishing something to remember all one's life. That part of New Zealand is famous for a fish something like a bream, but with a longer snout, and striped longitudinally with black and yellow. I am ignorant of any polysyllabic prefix for it, only knowing it by its trivial and local appellation of the "trumpeter," from the peculiar sound it makes when out of water. But no other fish out of the innumerable varieties which I have sampled in all parts of the world could compare with the trumpeter for flavour and delicacy. These qualities are well known to the inhabitants of the large towns, who willingly pay high prices for the scanty supply of these delicious fish which they are able to obtain. Of other succulent fish there was a great variety, from the majestic "grouper," running up to over a hundredweight, down to the familiar flounder. Very little fishing could be done at night. Just as day was dawning was the ideal time for this enticing sport. As soon as the first few streaks of delicate light enlivened the dull horizon, a stray nibble or two gladdened the patient fishermen; then as the light strengthened the fun became general, and in about an hour enough fish would be caught to provide all hands with for the day.