488 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. XV. 
himself ever ventured into them without my permis- 
sion. In the absence of established laws and usages, 
I found this sort of feudal system very effectual. I 
liad always a crowd of attendants ready to perform any 
task ; the natives who partook of the shelter and hos- 
pitality of the house would have felt ashamed if they 
had not kept it constantly well supplied with food ; 
and it soon became a word of reproach among the 
natives to any man, that he had been refused permis- 
sion to enter the outer door. 
Having loaded a cargo of potatoes in bulk, I started 
for Port Nicholson towards the end of January, with 
several passengers who were returning, and who spread 
their blankets on the top of the potatoes. We made a 
prosperous run to Kapiti ; and, after remaining there 
one day, and taking two natives as passengers, started 
early in the morning with a freshening breeze from 
north-west. 
When we rounded Cape Terawiti an hour before 
dark, the breeze had increased into a gale ; and we 
flew along before the squalls which dashed down the 
gullies of the high land, and raised the spray in 
whirling columns high over our little masts. Hugging 
the shore in order to avoid l)eing driven to sea, we 
rounded Sinclair Head in safety ; but the night came 
on pitchy dark, and the gale increased in fury, so that 
we could not see our way to an anchorage in which I 
had before taken refuge under the eastern head ; and 
I was obliged to heave-to and drift till the morning, 
after passing within half the craft's length of one of 
the reefs. The gale was so violent that the sea was 
white with foam and almost smooth, for some miles 
from the shore ; but when we were well out, and ex- 
posed to the steady blow through the Strait, a heavy 
and dangerous sea knocked us about like a nut-shell. 
