Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/371

Rh "I am afraid he's turning us down," spoke a woman as we neared Clay Point.

So it seemed. Other white gulls raised our hopes as they rode distant waves, and as quickly dashed them by rising on the wing. An hour elapsed, and still we shivered, and strained our eyes until they pained us. As we neared the Chetwodes our hopes were lowered like a thermometer in a blizzard; for we were told that if Jack did not appear before we were abreast of them, we should not be likely to see him at all. "Do show yourself," we thought in unison.

But not a fin was thrust above the sea. The Chetwodes were on our port bow; now they were at our stern; still Jack we did not sight. The passengers abandoned their vigil and returned disappointed to warmer quarters aft—disappointed because a grampus would not come to meet them! And why wouldn't the dolphin meet them? Probably because he had piloted the Pateena on the morning of this same day as it was en route to Nelson. Between Nelson and Wellington lies the maze of waterways known as the Marlborough Sounds. Here, where a ragged peninsula thrusts itself well north of the southern extremity of the North Island, is the most broken part of the Dominion. It is a gouged-out land; a land excavated as with giant fingers; a land wonderfully indented with beautiful bays and inlets, coves and narrow channels; a land of many islands and