Page:Through South Westland.djvu/95

Rh and occasionally she cannot enter at all. This time she could not get out, and after a fortnight’s waiting the Captain sent for his wife; one of the crew did the same, and they prepared to spend Christmas there. Okarito likewise prepared. There were to be pic-nics, to which everyone would go old and young; races on the sands, and a ball. Alas! the night before the festivities were to have commenced, a change of wind set the tide scouring out the bar; the ladies were hastily taken on board, and at daybreak the “Jane Douglas” steamed away, leaving the town lamenting over its unfulfilled social engagements, and one promising romance at least unfinished!

I don’t know why one gets so interested in all the events on the Coast. I think it must be because all the people know each other, and are mostly related. Every place we stopped at we brought messages from relatives further north—no such formalities as letters of introduction, except in one instance—and we were thus handed on by a kind of post, being ourselves both mail-bag and letters. And these messages served as so many links in a long chain that stretched from Hokitika to Okuru.

As we stood outside the house on the signalling platform, I was shown a lagoon in the sand beneath, left by a high tide a month before, and in it they said was a ten-foot shark. When I strolled back I found Transome sitting contentedly smoking on a bench before the hotel. He remarked: “At last I found a decent bathing-place