TO TEE BLUFF, AND HOME. 371 



our multifarious preparations completed, we ride ready 



for sea. 



It was quite in accordance with the fitness of things 

 that, when all things were now ready for our departure, 

 there should come a change of wind that threatened to 

 hold us prisoners for some days longer. But our " old 

 man " was hard to beat, and he reckoned that, if we 

 could only get out of the "pond," he would work her 

 across to the Bluff somehow or other. So we ran out a 

 kedge with a couple of lines to it, and warped her out of 

 the weather side of the harbour, finding, when at last 

 we got her clear, that she would lay her course across 

 the Straits to clear Ruapuke— nearly ; but the current 

 had to be reckoned with. Before we reached that 

 obstructing island we were down at the eastern end of 

 it, and obliged to anchor promptly to save ourselves 

 from being swept down the coast many miles to leeward 

 of our port. 



But the skipper was quite equal to the occasion. 

 Ordering his boat, he sped away into Bluff harbour, 

 only a matter of six or seven miles, returning soon with 

 a tufT, who for a pound or two placed us, without 

 further trouble, alongside the wharf, amongst some 

 magnificent clipper ships of Messrs. Henderson's and 

 the New Zealand Shipping Co.'s, who seemed to turn up 

 their splendid noses at the squat, dumpy, antiquated 

 old serving-mallet that dared to mingle with so august a 

 crowd. There had been a time, not so very far back, 

 when I should have shared their apparent contempt for 

 our homely old tub ; but my voyage had taught me, 

 among other things, that, as far as true comfort went at 

 sea, not a " three-skysail-yarder " among them could 

 compare with the Cachalot. And I was extremely glad 

 that my passage round the Horn was to be in my 



