ON TEE SOLANDER GROUNDS. 341 



ready to cut the carcass adrift shortly after midday, the 

 head, of course, having been taken off first. Just after 

 we started to cut in a boat appeared alongside with si^s^ 

 Maories and half-breeds on board. Their leader came 

 up and civilly asked the skipper whether he intended 

 doing anything with the carcass. Upon being promptly 

 answered in the negative, he said that he and his 

 companions proposed hooking on to the great mass 

 when we cut it adrift, towing it ashore, and getting out 

 of it what oil we had been unable to extract, which 

 at sea is always lost to the ship. He also suggested 

 that he would be prepared to take reasonable terms for 

 such oil, which we should be able to mingle with ours 

 to our advantage. An arrangement was speedily 

 arrived at to give him £20 per tun for whatever oil he 

 made. They parted on the best of terms with each 

 other, and as soon as we cut the carcass loose the 

 Maories made fast to it, speedily beaching it in a 

 convenient spot near where they had previously erected 

 a most primitive try-works. 



That afternoon, after the head was inboard, the 

 skipper thought he would go ashore and see how they 

 were getting on. I was so fortunate as to be able to 

 accompany him. When we arrived at the spot, we found 

 them working as I have never seen men work, except 

 perhaps the small riggers that at home take a job — three 

 or four of them — to bend or unbend a big ship's sails for 

 a lump sum to be paid when the work is done. They 

 attacked the carcass furiously, as if they had a personal 

 enmity against it, chopping through the massive bones 

 and rending off huge lumps of the flesh with marvellous 

 speed. They had already laid open the enormous cavity 

 of the abdomen, and were stripping the interminable in- 

 testines of their rich coating of fat. In the maw there 



