Yet this was once intended for the capital of New Zealand. When the large and splendidly-built city of Dunedin, Otago, was a barren bush, haunted only by the "morepork" and the apteryx, Russell was humming with vitality, her harbour busy with fleets of ships, principally whalers, who found it the most convenient calling-place in the southern temperate zone. Terrible scenes were enacted about its "blackguard beach," orgies of wild debauchery and bloodshed indulged in by the half-savage and utterly lawless crews of the whaleships. But it never attained to any real importance. As a port of call for whalers, it enjoyed a certain kind of prosperity; but when the South Sea fishery dwindled, Russell shrank in immediate sympathy. It never had any vitality of its own, no manufactures or products, unless the wretched coalmines adjacent, with their dirty output, which is scoffed at by the grimiest tug afloat, could be dignified by the name.
Remembering, as I did, the beauty, the energy, and prosperity of the great New Zealand ports, some of them with not a tithe of the natural advantages of Russell, I felt amazed, almost indignant, at its dead-and-alive appearance.
Our anchor was no sooner down than the captains of the JAMES ARNOLD, MATILDA SAYER, and CORAL lowered and came on board, eager to hear or to tell such news as was going. As we had now grown to expect, all work was over immediately the sails were fast and decks cleared up, so that we were free to entertain our visitors. And a high old time we had of it that afternoon! What with songs, dances, and yarns, the hours flew by with lightning speed. Our Kanakas, too, were overjoyed to find compatriots among the visitors, and settled down to a steady stream of talk which lasted, without intermission, the whole night through. It was a wonderful exhibition of tongue-wagging, though what it was all about puzzled me greatly.
Life on board those three ships, though described in glowing terms by the visitors, was evidently not to be mentioned for comfort in the same breath as ours. But we found that our late captain's fame as a "hard citizen" was well known to all; so that it is only ordinary justice to suppose that such a life as he led us was exceptional for even a Yankee spouter. Our friends gave us a blood-curdling account of the Solander whaling ground, which we were about to visit, the JAMES ARNOLD and CORAL having spent a season there that cruise. I did not, however, pay much attention to their yarns, feeling sure that, even if they were fact, it would not help to brood over coming hardships, and inclined to give liberal discount to most of their statements. The incessant chatter, got wearisome at last, and I, for one, was not sorry when, at two in the morning, our visitors departed to their several ships, and left us to get what sleep still remained left to us.
A pleasant expedition was planned for the next day. Our visit being principally for wooding and watering, both of which it was necessary for us to do ourselves, Captain Count showed his usual promptitude in commencing at once. Permission having been obtained and, I suppose, paid for, we set out with two boats and a plentiful supply of axes for a well-wooded promontory to prepare a store of wood. Wood chopping is not usually looked upon as a sailor's pastime; but we had had considerable experience during the voyage, as a result of which most of us could swing an axe in fine style. But the Kanakas beat us all hollow. Delighted to get ashore again, pleased with the fine axes as children with new toys, they laid about them in grand style, the young trees falling right and left in scores. Anybody would have judged that we were working piece-work, at so much a cord, the pile grew so fast. There was such a quantity collected that, instead of lightering it off in the boats, which is very rough and dirty usage for them, I constructed a sort of raft with four large spars arranged in the form of an oblong, placing an immense quantity of the smaller stuff in between. Upright sticks were rudely lashed here and there, to keep the pile from bobbing out underneath, and thus loaded we proceeded slowly to the ship with sufficient wood for our wants brought in one journey. It was immediately hoisted on board, sawn into convenient lengths, and stowed away, the whole operation being completed, of getting between eight and ten tons of firewood cut, ferried, and stowed, in less than eight hours.
Next day was devoted to watering; but as I have elsewhere described that necessary if prosaic occupation, I will not repeat the story. Sufficient to say that the job was successfully "did" in the course of the day.
All the work being accomplished for which we had come, it only remained to give the crew "liberty." So the port watch, in their best (?) rig, were mustered aft; each man received ten shillings, and away they went in glee for the first genuine day's liberty since leaving Honolulu. For although they had been much ashore in Vau Vau, that was not looked upon in the same light as a day's freedom in a town where liquor might be procured, and the questionable privilege of getting drunk taken advantage of. Envious eyes watched their progress from the other ships, but, much to my secret satisfaction, none of their crews were allowed ashore at the same time. There were quite sufficient possibilities of a row among our own crowd, without farther complications such as would almost certainly have occurred had the strangers been let loose at the same time. Unfortunately, to the ordinary sailor-man, the place presented no other forms of amusement besides drinking, and I was grieved to see almost the whole crowd, including the Kanakas, emerge from the grog-shop plentifully supplied with bottles, and, seating themselves on the beach, commence their carouse. The natives evinced the greatest eagerness to get drunk, swallowing down the horrible "square gin" as if it were water. They passed with the utmost rapidity through all the stages of drunkenness. Before they had been ashore an hour, most of them were lying like logs, in the full blaze of the sun, on the beach. Seeing this, the captain suggested the advisability of bringing them on board at once, as they were only exposed to robbery by the few prowling Maories that loafed about the beach—a curious contrast to the stately fellows met with in other parts of New Zealand.
So we set to work, and brought them on board again, handing them over to their compatriots by way of warning against similar excesses, although, it must be confessed, that they were hardly to blame, with the example of their more civilized shipmates before their eyes. Sam was energetic in his condemnation of both the Kanakas for getting drunk, and the captain for giving them any money wherewith to do so. The remainder of the watch fortunately concluded their carouse without any serious disorder. A few bruises bestowed upon one another, more in clumsy horseplay than real fighting summed up the casualties among them. By ten o'clock that evening we had them all safely on board again, ready for sore heads and repentance in the morning.
During the day I had evolved a scheme, which I had great hopes of carrying out when our watch should be let loose on the morrow. When morning came, and the liberty men received their money, I called them together and unfolded my plan. Briefly, I proposed a sort of picnic at a beautiful spot discovered during our wooding expedition. I was surprised and very pleased at the eager way in which all, with the sole exceptions of Tui and his fellow-harpooner, a Portuguese, fell in with my suggestions. Without any solicitation on my part, my Kanakas brought me their money, begging me to expend it for them, as they did not know how, and did not want to buy gin.
Under such favourable auspices as these, we landed shortly after eight a.m., making a bee-line for the only provision shop the place boasted. Here we laid in a stock of such savouries as we had long been strangers to, both eatables and drinkables, although I vetoed fire-water altogether. Beer in bottle was substituted, at my suggestion, as being, if we must have drinks of that nature, much the least harmful to men in a hot country, besides, in the quantity that we were able to take, non-intoxicant. We also took tea, sugar, milk, and a kettle, Thus furnished, we struck for the country, merry as a group of schoolboys, making the quiet air ring again with song, shout, and laughter—all of which may seem puerile and trivial in the extreme; but having seen liberty men ashore in nearly every big port in the world, watched the helpless, dazed look with which they wander about, swinging hands, bent shoulders, and purposeless rolling gait, I have often fervently wished that some one would take a party of them for a ramble with a definite purpose, helping them to a little enjoyment, instead of them falling, from sheer lack of knowing what else to do, into some dirty, darksome gin-mill, to be besotted, befooled, and debased.