188 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. V. 
fertile region, by the mediation of Barrett and the 
ambassadors from Port Nicholson. 
Considering a large district as secured on each side 
of the Strait, only subject to satisfying the least im- 
portant inhabitants. Colonel Wakefield named the two 
provinces respectively North Jind South Durham, in ho- 
nour of the then Governor of the New Zealand Land 
Company. 
Having promised a passage across to JVaikanae to 
some of the chiefs, we sailed for Kapiti on the 11th ; 
but a N.W. wind and baffling tide detained us in the 
Strait until the next morning. At daylight Kapiti 
lay about five miles to the S.E. of us. A small barque 
carrying the New Zealand flag passed between us and 
the island, and then hove to under our lee. We were 
in great hopes that this might prove our surveying-ves- 
sel, and hove to in order to communicate with her. A 
whale-boat came on board from the stranger, and soon 
dispersed our sanguine conjectures. She proved to Ijc 
an American whaler, which, having been wrecked in 
the Bay of Islands, had been purchased by some one 
there, repaired, and fitted out under the New Zealand 
flag, and sent down here to tfike up a whaling captain, 
previous to going on a voyage in the South Seas. Cap- 
tain Lewis, or " Horse" Lewis, as he was more gene- 
rally called, the American of whom I have spoken be- 
fore as heading a station on one of the small islets near 
Kapiti, was the man of whom they were in search, 
and the sailing captain came on board of us to ask where 
Kapiti was. We shewed it to him under his nose, 
and told him to follow us in to the anchorage ; giv- 
ing him also as pilot an old whaler who accompanied 
Barrett, named Heberly, but more commonly known 
as ** Worser." We then rounded the north point 
of Kapiti, and anchored in the outer roadstead off 
Evans's Island. The whaling Imrque was christened 
