Maori and Settler: A Story of The New Zealand War

by G. A. Henty

"Then you should have gone out and settled in Iceland instead of New Zealand."

"I should not have minded that, Mr. Atherton. There is splendid fishing, I believe, and sealing, and all that sort of thing. But I do not suppose the others would have liked it. I am sure father would not. He cannot bear cold, and his study at home used always to be kept up at almost the temperature of an oven all the winter. I should think New Zealand would exactly suit him."

Before the sun set they had the satisfaction of sailing out of the muddy water of the La Plata, and of being once more in the bright blue sea. For the next week the Flying Scud sailed merrily southward without adventure. The air grew sensibly cooler each day, and the light garments of the tropics were already exchanged for warmer covering.

"Do you always get this sort of weather down here, captain?" Mrs. Renshaw asked.

"Not always, Mrs. Renshaw. The weather is generally fine, I admit, but occasionally short but very violent gales sweep down from off the land. They are known as pamperos; because, I suppose, they come from the pampas. They are very dangerous from the extreme suddenness with which they sweep down. If they are seen coming, and the vessel can be stripped of her canvas in time, there is little danger to be apprehended, for they are as short as they are violent."

"We have been wonderfully fortunate altogether so far," Mrs. Renshaw said. "We have not had a single gale since we left England. I trust that our good luck will continue to the end."

"I hope so too," the captain said. "I grant that a spell of such weather as we have been favoured with is apt to become a little monotonous, and I generally find my passengers have a tendency after a time to become snappish and quarrelsome from sheer want of anything to occupy their minds. Still I would very much rather put up with that than with the chances of a storm."

"People must be very foolish to get out of temper because everything is going on well," Mrs. Renshaw said. "I am sure I find it perfectly delightful sailing on as we do."

"Then you see, madam, you are an indefatigable worker. I never see your hands idle; but to people who do not work, a long voyage of unbroken weather must, I can very well understand, be monotonous. Of course with us who have duties to perform it is different. I have often heard passengers wish for what they call a good gale, but I have never heard a sailor who has once experienced one express such a wish. However staunch the ship, a great gale is a most anxious time for all concerned in the navigation of a vessel. It is, too, a time of unremitting hardship. There is but little sleep to be had; all hands are constantly on deck, and are continually wet to the skin. Great seas sweep over a ship, and each man has literally his life in his hand, for he may at any moment be torn from his hold and washed overboard, or have his limbs broken by some spar or hen-coop or other object swept along by the sea. It always makes me angry when I hear a passenger express a wish for a gale, in thoughtless ignorance of what he is desiring. If a storm comes we must face it like men; and in a good ship like the Flying Scud, well trimmed and not overladen, and with plenty of sea-room, we may feel pretty confident as to the result; but that is a very different thing from wishing to have one."

By the time they were a fortnight out from Buenos Ayres, Mr. Atherton and James Allen were both off the sick-list; indeed the latter had been but a week in the doctor's hands. The adventure had bound the little party more closely together than before. The Allens had quite settled that when their friends once established themselves on a holding, they would, if possible, take one up in the neighbourhood; and they and the young Renshaws often regretted that Mr. Atherton was only a bird of passage, and had no intention of fixing himself permanently in the colony. The air had grown very much colder of late, and the light clothes they had worn in the tropics had already been discarded, and in the evening all were glad to put on warm wraps when they came on deck.