THE BALLAD OF THE TERAWHITI.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 108, 8 May 1909, Page 15

T HE BALLAD OF THE TERAWHITI.

Telling of a Rough Nighfc at Sea, and the Return of the Weathersfield. By "The Purser." "Let go there aft !" And her stern swings out From the dim-lit, desolate quay ; Therc'6 nobody there with a choer to spare Or a parting shout to speed our little craft. We're a tug putting out to sea. Tho night is dark, and tho blast come 3 bleak Up from Antarctic snows, But nobody cares how a tugboat fares, Only orders speak of a stranded barque, And that is why she goes. But why I'm aboard is a mystery; I know I'd had just a few. "Take a trip from the city in the tug Terawfriti?" Said the the mato to me, and now I am — oh, Lord — Well, I am one of the crew. Away from town on a Saturday night, From the glamour of the glittering street, From tho good, good cheer of the long, long beer, And the eyes so bright and the sweet little frown Of the girl I'd promised to meet. But theyVe cast her off into the murky night, And now she's under way, And when a vessel's gteamin', it's goodbye to your dreamin' ; But I'll be all right when my Sunday duds I doff. And we'll get back 6ome day. But duty is a-callin' to a vessel in diß tress And we've got our work to do. "Now stow away that hamper, or the fires'U get a damper, And then there'll _be a mess, when she comes in for her maulin' !" Yelled the captain, as it blew. So wo shoved it all inside and battened down the hatch, And we made all fast on deck. "We're in for dirty weather, so pull yourselves together ; We'll soon begin to catch it !" the good old bosun cried, As we steamed out to the wreck. Yes, we Caught it in the billows, booming past Pencarrow Head. We caught it in the seething foam. We caught it on our uppers and we lost it through our scuppers ; And we lost our daily bread, too, pining for the pillows We'd left behind at home. Then sleeti,ng 6urged a squall, and like a lion roared, Till you couldn't hear a word for the din, And it blew like a blizzard, till it fairly froze your gizzard ; And seas came- aboard over funnel, bridge, and all, And 6oused you; to tho skin ! And she reared and she rolled, and she lurched and she lunged. Like a sailor standing on skates ; Like a mad wild horee, as we shifted her course, She pitched and she plunged, and she bucked and she bowled, Sou'westerly into the Straits. And when it came my turn to go and take the wheel, I was feeling mighty queer, For the job I wasn't ready, and the captain calls out "Steady !" As he turns upon his heel, shouting "Where the d'ye learn — Starboard! Can't you steer?" But steering thro' the dark, I got her on the track, As we staggered past Island Bay. And the glare looked so pretty from the lights of tho city, That I wished I was back beyond Athletic Park, Where I'd seen the games that day. "'A life on the. ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep !' I don't think — not for me." As it threatened to immerse her, quoth the skipper to the purser, Who was trying hard to keep his bearings bold and brave, "Who'd sell a farm and go to sea?" Then we bore to the west, after rounding Sinclair Head, And we passed the Penguin's grave ; j In the stokehold's a survivor of the men who used to drive^ her, But now his mates are dead — some beyond the breakers rest ; And some still welter in the wavo. And the light they tried to find before the waters dashed Their own light to eternity. To us, too, now >vas lost, as «c round the headland tossed, When suddenly there flashed, oh ! "The Brothers" on the blind, Leading those in peril on the sea. "Let her rip through the Rip," and the skipper rang, "Full speed," And she put forth her heart and eoul, Swung round the Cape whose name she bears, until she came, Like a swift staunch steed in the straight beneath the whip, Galloping triumphant to the goal. What a night we had on the tumbling tug! Down in the engine-room below, They shipped such a sea, sir, that Jimmie, the greaser, • ] Got it right in the lug. and the water was that bad That it dripped on the dynamo. In the sweat and steam and smell of the engine-room and stokehold, The chief and the second engineers, With the firemen — Lord ! they're toilers ! — belting coal into the boilers — That's the place to make us foik old, I enn tell you; it's a hell — Kept her going and relieved our fears. Through all that dreary distance they stood beside the flanks Of their engines — sea-sick, too — And amid the frenzied fevers of the leaping, living levers, And the crashing of the cranks and the pulsing of the pistons, • They nursed their darling through. And thus we won our prize, the dear old Wealherslield, From the hazard of the long lee shore, Where once she lay entombed and seemed for ever doomedy But the sand its prey did yield, though there many a good chip lies, That sailed the big worfd round in daj's of j'ore. And o'er the leagues of w ater beneath the shining stars With their image on the smooth sea cast, We towed her all forlorn in the gray light of the mornin', With her sore bedraggled spars, like an errant, wayward daughter, Home to safe anchorage at last. Now that ia all mv story, as I told it to the purser. Who said he would stick it in rhyme, For a sailorman's ditty to the tug Terawhiti, ' ' But it's rough and rocky verse, sir, with the metre all to gloiy, But thpn we had a rough and rocky time.

Mr. Bray, the Government. Inspector of Apairiet. in the South' Island, has just returned from a visit to the West Coast, Nelson, and Kaikoura. In conversation with a 'Frees lcporter he said that he had been very favourably imprepsed with Kaikoura as a bee-keeping district. There was plenty of grass and clover, and as th 6 district Mas a dairying one, there should never be a scarcity of % euitable pasture. Mr. Bray commented* on the prevalence of foul brood in the South Island. The principal cause Avas the practice of leaving diseased comb lying about, ?o that all the baas In the country-side could get at it. The box hive was still used very largely, as out of 744 place.*, visited last year, fully three-fifths were using that undesirable pattern. Mr. Biay has on exhibition at the Agricultural Department's office a sample of a frame hive made from kerosene case* — a cheap, easily manufactured, and quit* efficient contrivance.