for an airing. Streets, in our sense of the word, there were none; but little paths of grass meandered between some of the fences, and provided, no doubt, all the access needed among neighbours so near. By the sighting of the Tikirau the little town had been “emptied of its folk that pious morn.” Peace and silence brooded above the whares. Blue-gums, willows, and poplars here and there stood sentinel over the low, smokeless roofs; there were rose-trees as well as potato-blossom in some of the garden patches; while, beyond the outermost palisade of the pa, broad, fenceless fields of tasselling maize spread away towards the forest-dark hills, and before the sweet blues and purples of the now sunny sea laid an unshadowed strip of sweet and lively green.
During the afternoon we made and worked another port—a little grassy bay this time, containing in itself no buildings at all, except a kind of open barn stacked with golden maize cobs; but tapping a trade district, and possessing some special advantages. One side of it ran out into a curious little peninsula, of the usual black volcanic rock, which terminated in an island, and made of the bay a natural harbour, familiarly known aboard as the “Boarding-house.” That very same night proved its virtues; within the breakwater we lay snug, though the wind had swung round and was blowing strong from an undesirable quarter.
Morning brought with it no moderation; it was useless to think of getting out. “So much the better,” one of the men observed to me in an undertone. “Like peaches? ’Cause this is the shop for them.” And, accordingly, after breakfast nearly
