68 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. III. 
than their usual 20/. from the party who killed 
the whale. There was no one at hand to whom the 
disputants could refer the matter as a competent and 
disinterested umpire ; and a forcible seizure was con- 
templated by the party not in possession, on the morn- 
ing of the 20th, when we left the Sound with fair wind 
and tide, having weighed anchor at day-light. 
We had got on board Barrett, and his wife and chil- 
dren, with several attendant natives of both sexes, who 
formed a sort of colony in our ample 'tween-decks. 
Dicky had long been too fat and heavy to go out him- 
self in the whale-boats, and left the affairs of the station 
in the hands of a sort of clerk during his absence. We 
also took over a steady trader, named Smith, who knew 
the natives well, and was to be left in charge at Port 
Nicholson, should we succeed in purchasing it. He 
had been mate of two or three vessels about the South 
Seas, and was a little of whaler, sawyer, carpenter, and 
trader. There were many such nondescript characters 
at Te-awa-iti ; but it was rare to find among them so 
trustworthy a man as he whom we had selected. 
To the south of the entrance of Te-awa-iti, the 
bleak, barren hills which bound the Tory channel to 
the east run down into successive points, round one of 
which lies the harbour of Point Underwood. Further 
east we could distinguish the low land at the mouth of 
the fP^airau river, the remarkable cliff called the White 
Bluff, which forms the eastern extremity of Cloudy 
Bay, and the land trending along down to Cajje Camp- 
bell, all backed by a rugged mass of hills that seem to 
augment as they retreat into the interior, from the table- 
lands near the coast, till they swell into the volcanic 
and snow-clad range of Kaikora. Looking north, the 
hills above Te-awa-iti terminate in an abrupt bluff, 
some 300 feet in height, called Wellington Head by 
