320 THE CliUISE OF TEE " OACEALOT." 



his new ship, but a handsome profit in addition, all in 

 one season. 



Hearing this kind of thing every day made me feel 

 quite hungry to reach the battle-field ; but, for reasons 

 which doubtless were excellent, although I cannot pre- 

 tend to explain them, we started north about, which not 

 only added nearly one hundred miles to the distance we 

 had to go, but involved us in a gale which effectually 

 stopped our progress for a week. It was our first taste 

 of the gentle zephyrs which waft their sweetness over 

 New Zealand, after sweeping over the vast, bleak, 

 iceberg-studded expanse of the Antarctic Ocean. Our 

 poor Kanakas were terribly frightened, for the weather 

 of their experience, except on the rare occasions when 

 they are visited by the devastating hurricane, is always 

 fine, steady, and warm. For the first time in their lives 

 they saw hail, and their wonder was too great for words. 

 But the cold was very trying, not only to them, but to 

 us, who had been so long in the tropics that our blood 

 was almost turned to water. The change was nearly as 

 abrupt as that so often experienced by our seamen, who 

 at the rate of sixteen knots an hour plunge from a 

 temperature of eighty degrees to one of thirty degrees in 

 about three days. 



We, with the ready adaptability of seamen, soon got 

 accustomed to the bleak, bitter weather, but the Kanakas 

 wilted like hothouse plants under its influence. They 

 were well fed and well clothed, yet they seemed to 

 shrivel up, looking thinner every day, several of them 

 getting deep coughs strongly suggestive of a cemetery. 

 It was no easy task to get them to work, or even move, 

 never a one of them lumbering aloft but I expected 

 him to come down by the run. This was by no 

 lueans cheering, when it was remembered what kind of a 



