‘Now, was you then?’ said he.
‘Poo’ mamma’ was stout, covered with black satin and lace, and scintillating with diamonds and precious stones—four rings on every finger. ‘Poo’ papa would have had a poor time of it with poo’ mamma, had she used her knuckle-dusters on him. The daughter seemed to be a little ashamed of poo’ papa and poo’ mamma.
The funniest people on board were a group of five who hung together like a bunch of grapes. Three of them were men and two of them ladies. They were all exceedingly short and thick, and had fat flattish round faces. I never learnt how to distinguish one of the men or one of the ladies from another. Each of the men had a bushy, dirty, unkempt beard, and a huge Tam o’Shanter blue bonnet. Their clothes were coarse, dirty, and ill-fitting. On their feet they had long boots. The two ladies had each an imitation sealskin jacket and a round pork-pie hat, and when they went ashore they each carried a small cotton umbrella made of a gaudy chintz. This peculiar group were peculiar enough to attract general attention and they were a puzzle to all of us.
One day Mac announced that he had discovered their occupation. The men, he declared, were carpenters—he had seen them all carefully examining a carpenter’s shop.
‘I was just about to say,’ said our old friend the Yank, ‘that they were butchers—when I was going down the street, I saw them at the butcher’s shop examining a leg of mutton.’
The Maoris were, I believe, members of the Legislative Assembly returning to their homes. They were all fine, big men, with grey beards. But for the tattooing they might have been called handsome. They were certainly by no means the burlesque of a European.
That afternoon the Yank found that these three Maori legislators had been stowed in his cabin.
‘Look here, Cap,’ said he, addressing our brass-buttoned commander, ‘I ain’t going to be bunked in with your native Injins. S’pose I see that tattooed-face looking down at me to-night, I’ll think the devil’s got me. Tell you now, you can just get Buffalo Bill and Texas Jim cleared out of that. Just now I went into my cabin, and there I saw that consumptive-looking one, him with the sulphury-green face, lying on his back staring straight up—heaving and sobbing—taking a plan of the roof.
‘“Suppose your digestion ain’t good?” says I to him, while wiping myself.
‘“No,” says he; “the sea tries me.”