M ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. III. 
blage, and maintained a powerful influence by their 
known courage and prowess, whether in the whale- 
boat or the fight on shore. Some few, too, though very 
few, like Dicky Barrett, were respected for their kind- 
heartedness to all ; and these, of better mould than 
the great body, expressed anxiety for the accomplish- 
ment of our objects. 
The redeeming quality of hospitality we found un- 
bounded among them ; a stranger was always wel- 
come to a share of the meal, a drop of the grog, and a 
seat on a stool, made of a whale's vertebra, in the 
ample chimney-corner. 
There were about twenty-five half-caste children at 
Te-awa-iti. They were all strikingly comely, and 
many of them quite fair, with light hair and rosy 
cheeks ; active and hardy as the goats with which the 
settlement also swarmed. The women of the whalers 
were remarkable for their cleanliness and the order 
which they preserved in their companion's house. 
They were most of them dressed in loose gowns of 
printed calico, and their hair, generally very fine, was 
always clean and well-combed. It was evident that 
the whaler's seamanlike habit of cleanliness had not 
been abandoned ; and that they had effected that change 
at least in their women, who seemed proud of belong- 
ing to a White m<in, and had often, we were informed, 
protected their men from aggression or robbery. 
One day I walked over the hill to another valley, 
which faces the entrance of the harbour. It divides 
into two bays or coves, separated from each other by a 
tongue of land. In each is a native pa ; these are 
named If^ekanui and Hokikare. At the former we 
saw two whale-boats, which they told us were manned 
entirely by natives. They manage to harpoon a whale 
sometimes ; but as they never succeed in killing it, they 
