Chap. VI. A DANGEROUS VOYAGE. 165 
away sailors, and probably worse regular "beach- 
combers" of Kororareka. The captain was a lazy, 
indolent old man, fond of grog, and of sleep, and of 
a good charter by the month. The mate was the 
former doctor of the vessel when whaling, perfectly 
ignorant of navigation and seamanship, and, like the 
captain, perfectly devoid of influence over the rascally 
crew. 
Dr. Dorset, Doddrey the storekeeper, and I, were the 
only ones who took up our berths on board. The ne- 
cessary quantity of goods being on board, we proceeded 
down the river ; and, on the morning of the 29th of 
January, left the Heads with a light south-east breeze and 
ebb-tide. The captain got up to the mast-head, and a 
hulking, cowardly, half-bred Dutch sailor placed him- 
self in the chains to sound. The breeze died away as 
we got to the perilous pass between the "middle patch,'' 
on which the Tory had been wrecked, and the south 
sand-bank. The ebb-tide set us broadside on to the 
patch, on which there was a heavy break. The coward 
in the chains began to holloa with fright as soon as the 
water shoaled to five fathoms ; the skipper scrambled 
down from his high perch, and looked quite perplexed ; 
the crew rushed aft, and lowered the boats after the 
vessel had bumped heavily two or three times, and 
jumped in without any attention to rules of precedence. 
In such a hurry was this done, that ten men jumped 
into one of the boats before the plug-hole was stopped, 
and only two got into the other, when both pulled 
away, leaving me and two of the crew in a very dis- 
agreeable situation on board. The brig bumped away 
at a great rate ; but we three managed to brail up the 
spanker ; which caused the brig to be head on to the 
swell instead of side on, and probably saved her. One 
of the boats was at last persuaded to approach near 
