up burnished in the evening light, hoisted head-sails, fore-sail and main, caught and held its gold. With these, and the orderly confusion of the rigging, the very air above the deck appeared as fully occupied as the space below—which, in addition to all the inanimate objects already catalogued, found room too, as we dropped down the harbour, for the entire ship’s company, eight all told: for a little knot of passengers, respectfully keeping out of the way in the neighbourhood of the wheel; and, really to end the list at last, for a satin tabby-cat (on top of the galley), a white fox-terrier, a black retriever, and a couple of very plump pups—rioting, these last, among the men’s feet, and acquiring with howls some of the rudiments of discipline.
My fellow-passengers, it soon appeared, included a schoolmaster and his wife, returning to their charge, a native school; a storekeeper and his wife homeward-bound after a trip to town; and the rather numerous offspring of both couples. The Tikirau was their customary conveyance, and they all seemed quite at home.
“Not too much room, is there?” responded one of the ladies good-naturedly when, in shifting my position, I had to apologise for standing upon her feet as well as my own. “We shall be pretty snug below, I reckon, but it’s only a couple of days or so, is it, after all? How far down are you going? Our crowd all gets off at the first port.”
“Pretty snug,” we certainly were when it came to “turning in.” Indeed, how we actually were all stowed away, I cannot now conceive. But it was managed somehow; the Tikirau was a resourceful ship—and not resourceful only. She carried aboard
