810 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. XI. 
In two or three days, the Surprise having completed 
her discharging, we sailed for Kapiti with a light 
north-east breeze. Soon after crossing the bar and 
standing to seaward on the starboard tack, we saw a 
large ship bearing down from Kapiti under a press of 
sail, with studding-sails alow and aloft. I at once 
decided that she was a man-of-war ; but the skipper 
said that it might be an emigrant ship, or even a 
whaler, as these had plenty of hands to reduce sail. We 
stood across her bows about two miles from her, and 
watched her to the southward. She appeared to 
heave-to or anchor for some time at Mana, and then 
stood on, between that island and the main, towards 
Cape Terawiti. When we arrived at Kapiti my con- 
jecture was confirmed. It was the Herald frigate, 
which had picked up Rauperaha in his canoe and sailed 
on, after holding but little communication with the 
whalers. 
While I remained at Kapiti, I was most kindly and 
hospitably treated by all the whalers, as well as the 
natives. I soon became as it were free of the place, 
and could reckon on being a welcome guest in any 
house. I was much interested in observing the life of 
these rough men, and in finding that many generous 
and noble qualities redeemed their general inclination 
to vice and lawlessness. 
This is a class of men peculiar to the South Seas, 
and deserving of especial notice by those who take inter- 
est in looking back to the first introduction of civilized 
habits among the aboriginal inhabitants of Polynesia. 
They are peculiar in a curious contradiction of cha- 
racter ; and deserving of especial notice as having been 
the real pioneers of civilization. And their history is the 
more worthy of being recorded now, inasmuch as they 
have only existed in their purity while they were 
