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 He backed out of the galley as he spoke, but he left Tim refreshed.

At last, too, we did get out of Hicks Bay, and round the Cape. After that a good deal of maize-shipping was done. Here and there, as we proceeded north, a smoke signal would go up ashore, the Tikirau would lie-to, and the whaleboat would fetch off the load. Sometimes the natives would come off in their own boats—I remember one that looked exactly like a flax-leaf, for it was painted bright green both inside and out, and had a gunwale of red—and our deck was full of brown faces and melodious with talk that lacked the “s.” The scene ashore meanwhile was most picturesque. Beside the open storehouses of bright yellow grain, groups of natives would be gathered about the fragrant fires of corn-cobs. Perhaps a few of the girls would be shelling maize, and a pretty sight that was. Dressed generally in dark-blue cotton, their long hair rippling glossy down their backs, they squatted beside the yellow heaps already shelled, against which their smiling faces showed like darkly sparkling jewels, and from between their brown fingers the maize fell fast from the cobs in showers of golden rain. The mothers, meanwhile, would most likely be using the signal-fire as a community cooking-stove. Roast sea-urchin I never could induce myself to taste, but steamed fish à la Maori is super-excellent, and never have I eaten more toothsome kumaras and potatoes than those taken all piping hot between the finger and thumb (one’s own) and consumed without further sauce or ceremony, upon the windy beach.

Of my many hostesses, I remember especially one.