What need to say more? With oyster-feeding, fishing, bathing, tree-climbing, tea-making, song-singing the hours fled with pitiless haste, so that, before we had half emptied the brimming cup of joys proffered us, the slanting rays of the setting sun warned us to return lest we should get "hushed" in the dark.We came on board rejoicing, laden with spoils of flowers and fish, with two-thirds of our money still in our pockets, and full of happy memories of one of the most delightful days in our whole lives.
A long night's sound sleep was rudely broken into in the morning by the cry of "Man the windlass." Having got all we wanted, we were bound away to finish, if luck were with us, the lading of our good ship from the teeming waters of the Solander grounds.Iknow the skipper's hopes were high, for he never tired of telling how, when in command of a new ship, he once fished the whole of his cargo--six thousand barrels of sperm oil--from the neighbourhood to which we were now bound.He always admitted, though, that the weather he experienced was unprecedented.
Still, nothing could shake his belief in the wonderful numbers of sperm whales to be found on the south coasts of New Zealand, which faith was well warranted, since he had there won from the waves, not only the value of his new ship, but a handsome profit in addition, all in one season.
Hearing this kind of thing every day made me feel quite hungry to reach the battle-field; but, for reasons which doubtless were excellent, although I cannot pretend to explain them, we started north about, which not only added nearly one hundred miles to the distance we had to go, but involved us in a gale which effectually stopped our progress for a week.It was our first taste of the gentle zephyrs which waft their sweetness over New Zealand, after sweeping over the vast, bleak, iceberg-studded expanse of the Antarctic Ocean.Our poor Kanakas were terribly frightened, for the weather of their experience, except on the rare occasions when they are visited by the devastating hurricane, is always fine, steady, and warm.For the first time in their lives they saw hail, and their wonder was too great for words.But the cold was very trying, not only to them, but to us, who had been so long in the tropics that our blood was almost turned to water.The change was nearly as abrupt as that so often experienced by our seamen, who at the rate of sixteen knots an hour plunge from a temperature of eighty degrees to one of thirty degrees in about three days.
We, with the ready adaptability of seamen, soon got accustomed to the bleak, bitter weather, but the Kanakas wilted like hothouse plants under its influence.They were well fed and well clothed, yet they seemed to shrivel up, looking thinner every day, several of them getting deep coughs strongly suggestive of a cemetery.
It was no easy task to get them to work, or even move, never a one of them lumbering aloft but I expected him to come down by the run.This was by no means cheering, when it was remembered what kind of a campaign lay before us.Captain Count seemed to be quite easy in his mind, However, and as we had implicit confidence in his wisdom and judgment, we were somewhat reassured.
The gale at last blew itself out, the wind veering to the northward again, with beautiful, spring-like weather, just cool enough to be pleasant, and, withal, favourable for getting to our destination.We soon made the land again about New Plymouth, jogging along near enough to the coast to admire the splendid rugged scenery of the Britain of the south.All hands were kept busily employed preparing for stormy weather--reeving new running-gear, bending the strongest suit of sails, and looking well to all the whaling gear.
In this active exercise of real sailor-work, the time, though long for an ordinary passage, passed quickly and pleasantly away, so that when we hauled round the massive promontory guarding the western entrance to Foveaux Straits, we were almost surprised to find ourselves there so soon.
This, then, was the famous and dreaded Solander whaling ground.
Almost in the centre of the wide stretch of sea between Preservation Inlet, on the Middle Island, and the western end of the South, or Stewart's Island, rose a majestic mass of wave-beaten rock some two thousand feet high, like a grim sentinel guarding the Straits.The extent of the fishing grounds was not more than a hundred and fifty square miles, and it was rarely that the vessels cruised over the whole of it.The most likely area for finding whales was said to be well within sight of the Solander Rock itself, but keeping on the western side of it.
It was a lovely day when we first entered upon our cruising ground, a gentle north-east wind blowing, the sky a deep, cloudless blue, so that the rugged outline of Stewart's Island was distinctly seen at its extreme distance from us.To the eastward the Straits narrowed rapidly, the passage at the other end being scarcely five miles wide between the well-known harbour of the Bluff, the port of Invercargill, and a long rocky island which almost blocked the strait.This passage, though cutting off a big corner, not only shortening the distance from the westward considerably, but oftentimes saving outward bounders a great deal of heavy weather off the Snares to the south of Stewart's Island, is rarely used by sailing-ships, except coasters; but steamers regularly avail themselves of it, being independent of its conflicting currents and baffling winds.
