298 TEE CRUISE OF THE " CACHALOT '' 



and this subdivision was often carried to ludicrous 

 lengths. 



As there was no reason to hurry south, we took a 

 short cruise on the Vasquez ground, more, 1 think, for 

 the purpose of training our recruits than anything else. 

 As far as the results to our profit were concerned, we 

 might almost as well have gone straight on, for we only 

 took one small cow-cachalot. But the time spent thus 

 cruising was by no means wasted. Before we left 

 finally for New Zealand, every one of those Kanakas 

 was as much at home in the whale-boats as he would 

 have been in a canoe. Of course they were greatly 

 helped by their entire familiarity with the water, which 

 took from them all that dread of being drowned which 

 hampers the white " greenie " so sorely ; besides which, 

 the absolute confidence they had in our prowess amongst 

 the whales freed them from any fear on that head. 



. Tui proved himself to be a smart harpooner, and 

 was chosen for the captain's boat. During our con- 

 versations, I was secretly amused to hear him allude to 

 himself as Sam, thinking how little it accorded with his 

 soi-disant Kanaka origin. He often regaled me with 

 accounts of his royal struggles to maintain his rule, all 

 of which narrations I received with a goodly amount of 

 reserve, though confirmed in some particulars by the 

 Kanakas, when I became able to converse with them. 

 But I was hardly prepared to find, as I did many years 

 after, upon looking up some detail in Findlay's " South 

 Pacific Directory," this worthy alluded to as "the 

 celebrated Sam," in a brief account of Futuna. There 

 he was said to be king of the twin isles ; so I supjDose he 

 found means to oust his rival, and resume his sovereignty; 

 though, bow an American negro, as Sam undoubtedly 

 was, ever managed to gain such a position, remains to 



