2i0 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. VIII. 
land, on the north side of a narrow gut l)y which the 
waters of Porirua harbour communicate with a deep 
bay, opening into the sea nearly opposite the island of 
Mana. The harbour consists of two arms ; along one 
of which I had come in the boat this morning, while 
the other, of nearly equal extent, runs in to the north- 
east. The gut which I have mentioned is not more than 
two hundred yards wide at high water, and both the 
ebb and the flood run through it with great rapidity. 
Jim Cootes, one of the three ruffians in whose 
company I had passed the night, very hospitably took 
me to a comfortable hovel near the whaling-station 
in which he lived ; for neither Toms nor any one 
whom I knew were at his house at the station, this 
being out of the busy season. Two or three houses, 
such as we had seen at Te-awa-ifi, and a filthy pigsty- 
like pa, were situated close to the sheers under which 
the whales are cut up. It appeared that the Polyne- 
sian Company, which I have before mentioned, had 
bought some land here from some former White pur- 
chaser, and had sent a surveyor to inspect it : but the 
natives had treated him roughly, and made him put 
up his theodolite and carry it away to Kapiti. 
I had not been long at Parramatta, when one of 
my boys, a free native from Pari-pari, or " Cliflf- 
" cliff," a settlement between this and Kapiti, came 
over in a canoe to tell me that the slaves refused to go 
any further. They were anxious to return and finish 
a house which they had commenced for the ^^''hite 
people at Port Nicholson, and fearful lest some other 
natives should complete the house and carry off the 
payment for the whole work. I therefore got into the 
canoe with him, and proceeded through the gut to a 
village called TVaikawa, or " Bitter Water," close to 
the southern head of the outer bay of Porirua, where 
I found them assembled in a house building for a 
