spring, for in spring they’d feed on the “goai”[1] bushes, an’ that made their flesh all bitter. It seems funny now, don’t it? to think that every bit o’ butter we saw in them days come from England, but so it was; an’ all the salt beef too, which was all the meat, but pig, ever we saw. Once, when supplies was pretty low, we tried porpoise—a steak of it; but there, bless you! I’d as soon eat nothin’ at all, an’ a great deal sooner; though some o’ the men said it was all right. An’ once we tried shag—an’ never no more but the once! They did look so nice too, roasted all brown, an’ a-smellin’ just as tasty; but there, the first mouthful, a’ that was the last!—don’t you never cook no shag an’ waste good bastin’!
“Tea an’ sugar an’ tobacco, an’ such things, we’d get from Town as we could, any time the men went up with the timber. When they got back depended on the weather, an’ sometimes we’d be pretty near clear out o’ everythin’, an’ it was just borrow from whoever could lend till nobody could, an’ then, to wait. We’d make tea out of all kinds of Bush things, manuka for choice; an’ for tobacco the men would grind up different kinds o’ bark; but, bless you, they never seemed to get no satisfaction out o’ ne’er a-one an’ ’twould be grumble, grumble, grumble amongst ’em until the boat got back—about as good company as a teethin’ baby is a baccy-lovin’ man without his pipe. Clothes? Well, we’d have a roll o’ dungaree down at a time, an’ everythin’ made from that, pants an’ jumpers, an’ skirts an’ bodies’, an’ all-round pinnies for us children—I can’t remember that we ever wore anythin’ else in the
- ↑ Kowhai.
