FIVE BROTHERS' FIVE FIXES.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 970, 18 August 1868, Page 4

FIVE BROTHERS' FIVE FIXES.

(From ? Chambers' Journal.) PAET III.— JACK THE SAILOK'S FIX. Sailoe Jack, as his brothers called him, . was in reality a . commander in the royal navy.. At thfe momenlhe is in command ; of H,M,S.~-t4, and owing to several circumstances, he will, though very young, probably spon be made a post-captain. He has. the'' ""V^iptoriet. Cross, besides sundry medals. Akipon^aß Ned had finished his tale, Japky wirqwirig 'iaway. the end of his cigar, .-: began.';. .^-\\. ,'!.'• '"-'.'"' '.'.• -- , I do not much fancy,, now that I am a -;• .small-great man,, and commander in the navy,- to relate iiny story of, a fix;, but as : Dick has; ; bound. us all,, honour bright, to tell the; whole truth, I : must even speak out, ■J\ and create a laugh at my own expense, for v laugh at me I : am sure you will; v Some ten or twelve years ago, when I was 'very young, and had just been made acting lieutenant- on; board H.M.S. Lion, 90 guns, we were • cruising ' in the South Pabificp-and had' been compelled, by bad weUtheiytOput into the Bay of Islands, on the -north-east coast of the northern island of New- ! Zealand. I was very ; fond of botany;, ,and^ had: often heard of the richness and; beauty of -New Zealand "ferns, and kne\? wellithat ;the neighbourhood of the Bay* of Islands was noted for. anany. rare i kinds* r As our ship was going to Auckland, ! and Would/ inia^ew days' time, return, and again pass 'near the bay, I asked leave of our captain to remain on shore till the Lion came ba"ck. :' The permission/I sought was readily grantedji and 1 'was much laughed afc;by my brother-officers for; wish- | ing to waste : my-leavein such an outlandish spot} I cared little for i their ridicule. 1 Nor dfd Lpay as "much attention as I ought to have-done to the; kindly warning of my captain about Maoris. The last I recollect, as I went' over the ship's side, was a remark from one of my brother-officers to the effect that he would bet I ! brought back with me abrown wife; and I remember, as I was rowed to land, that , I noticed a whaler just j entering the . bay. I: little thought, how nearly* -my brother-officer's remark would come true,. nor ; what a nuisance the whaler wouldprbve. "■ ' '. ; ' I landed in-due time at Kororarika, and after engaging a room at the public, for it would be wrong; to use the word inn, I started on ■ a fern expedition. Here and there I wandered, through one gully, and then" through another, till at last I found myself on a beautiful sandy beach. Being tired with' my walk, I sat down to arrange ray specimens in my portfolio. At my feet lay Boatswain, a large Newfoundland dog., who belonged more or less to the Lion, but who, although he was the common property of all on board, always made a point of specially attaching himself to me whenever he could. A low growl from Boatswain caused me to turn my head, when I saw a canoe with five Maoris in it pulling towards the beach.' When 'they reached land, I was struck with the peculiar interest they seemed to take in me. They looked at me most attentively, looked me all over in fact from head to foot, and then talked earnestly among themselves; then one of them spoke to me. I could make nothing out oi their horrible lingo save that two words, something like Johnson and Boatswain, were constantly repeated, and that the tone of my addresser was evidently that of a person asking questions. Nor could I make anything out of the signs used. The man pointed to the other side of the bay, rolled up a small blanket, and hugged it, and danced it in his arms,- then held up. two fingers, and went through pantomimic action expressive of great joy. All I could do was to shake my head, and wonder what on earth the fellow was about. At last, to my relief, after they had had another good stare at me, another go at unintelligible questions and .pantomime, and another consultation among themselves, in which the Words Johnson and Boatswain again figured, they departed. Four of their number went up, the hill towards the town, and one remained, as I supposed, to take care of the boat, but in reality to watch me. I closed my portfolio, and began to make preparations for departure. The four Maoris were not out of sight, but they were walking fast; and' I intended to saunter slowly, so that we should not again meet. Meantime, ■Boatswain had rambled off to a considerable distance. I whistled and called out loudlj "Boatswain,; Boatswain ! " At the first •mention of that unfortunate word, I saw the; Maori who was left by the boat raise h|s' head quickly. No sooner had I callei. my dog two or three times, than he gave a most' unearthly screech,. that might hav< been <heardt half-way across the .Pacific, i The four* other Maoris rushed back down ■the hill; 'there was a hurried consultation. {With joyful faces they seized me, placed meiri the boat, and then shoved off, and <began ; to pull or paddle as hard as they could. Boatswain had jumped in after me. '■"• The whole thing took place in a few seconds. would have beenuse•Jess. Before I had time to think, the dog and I were in the most comfortable part ol the canoe. Four of our captors were fast paddling us across the bay, and the fifth was steering. I 'began seriously to calculate whether Boatswain and I might , make a fight of "it; but no — it would hot do : the odds against us were too "great, and the Maoris were all tall, broad, -powerful men. Besides— strange as it seemed — though they were determined to carry me off against my will, they were very kind and attentive. They gave me 'blankets to sit on, offered me tobacco and drink, and kept on grinning at me in a sort of complimentary manner. There was no- ' thing fqrrme to do but to grin and bear it ; • so 'I- smoked;; aWay, and philosophically waited theissue of events. After a sharp pull of some ten miles, we arrived at the V opposite^idej-of the bay, where was the small yillagft, of ißawhiti. Directly the canoe reached .land, the men took me out, hoisted me on their shoulders, and trotted off with me at a good round pace. Soon we came to a house rather better than those around it, with several people outside. There were loud shouts as I approached. With great rapidity, and, as I thought, without much ceremony, I was hurried into one of the rooms. Immediately I was surrounded by a. lot. of semi-nude Maori women, who kept on dancing about me, and with great' glee, rubbing, or rather, I should say, gently touching the tip of my nose with the tip of theirs, uttering at the same time a low wailing sound. This, I must tell you, is the Maori manner of salutation. In another moment, an old hag — for so 1 then thought her — thrust two very small, very nasty, whity-brown babies into my '*- arms, and put first the face of one of them, arid then the face of the other, against my . nasal organ. I could stand it no longer ; 1 - expostulated, gesticulated, and used, 1 :. ram afraid, pretty strong language. But it was, all of no use; I .could not make v ~\ '] . iriysetf. understood, nor could I under,v. stand why ; I should -be so persecuted, ' such a manner. I sat down '■■'■^/". ;pri Ahe floor, quite sulky. Soon I perceived :/ >?;arrangeriierite were being made for my in--/■^itrbauctipri into another hut, . probably that : '.:.--; .' iniWhich no doubt |he interesting mother \v,c^;df the nasty brats was lying. I was not ;??;{- gomg; to bear" that-^-I was getting rather mad;;'l made up my mind to fight my way die. A loud noise out of doors K^^3ausi?d^me ; tfx t: ivxn my head towards the ;M|||^n46W/;1I saw v* whaler's boat rapidly ap- : Ithe Jand*' young man jumped i^^ijOT^^ttiM^u^o the house iwhere I was. i^|^Ei^e^yi?%-|?7as; : captain -.of a whaler. ■fa£'suitiof plot-cloth .with -. some

brass buttons, and on his head a sailorkind of cap, with some brass ornament round it. He was about my age and size ; and though, of course, very different from me in manners, style, and conversation, he might possibly, by some foolish persons, have been said to be not unlike me. He was followed by a large black dog, somewhat of Boatswain's breed. He and his dog bounced into the room where I was sulkily sitting on the floor, with one baby on my lap, and another by my side. I hardly know how to describe the scene which followed, or the order of events. Boatswain and the strange dog were at it at once hammer and tongs, fighting, barking, howling, gnashing. I cannot repeat the language of the new-comer; but with an awful Yankee twang, and with horrible oaths and odious epithets, he at once began:— " Waal, stranger, I calculate you are a tarnation skunk of a Britisher. . I'll clear you out in a moment, and pay you off for your impudence, and chaw you up considerable." The man was in a furious rage. The language he used, the abuse and imprecations he hurled at me, was enough to set any one's blood boiling, especially that of a person already irritated as I was, and_ who was now sworn at, and about to be kicked out like a dog, because, forsooth, I was in a room into, which I had been unintelligibly brought against my will. I gave the Yankee a sharp answer ; he returned a sharper reply, arid with it a kick and a blow. All this passed in a second or two. In another moment, he and I were fighting, and that too most desperately. We luckily had no weapons, but were both in a terrible -rage. In our fury, we felt no pain. We hit, we kicked, we wrestled, . and grasped each other's throats/ It was no fair fist-fight, but more like a struggle for life and death. I felt at the moment that I would kill him if I could ; and he, I am sure, had the same feeling. Our clothes were torn ; our faces were streaming with blood ; the small bone of my left arm had been broken by a fall against the table; half the Yankee's teeth had been knocked down his throat ; the women were howling around us ; the two dogs, locked in a deadly embrace, were writhing about ; while my antagonist and I, sometimes one of us on the top, and sometimes the other, were rolling over and over on the ground. It was a scene, I assure you. At length a number of men entered. The Yankee and I were forcibly separated, the dogs were torn asunder. I do not recollect much more ; I suppose I fainted. When I came to myself, I was in bed, my left arm in splints, an English doctor sitting by my side, and I had a hazy idea of a bloodstained Boatswain limping across the room. "There now, lie down," said the man at my bedside. "Drink this. You will be quite well to-morrow, except your arm. It is all right ; Johnson says he is very sorry indeed." "Johnson sorry. Who, what, is all this ?" I began indistinctly to murmur ; but in a few moments I was fast asleep. Next day, I awoke about twelve o'clock, rather stiff, rather sore, and with my left arm, of course, still in splints, but, thanks to a good constitution, not bad in other respects. In my room was my antagonist of yesterday. His face showed signs of severe punishment, but he was quite calm and goodhumoured, and, in spite of black eyes and partycoloured bruised features, looked more gentlemanly than he had done the day before. He smiled a somewhat ghastly smile, and advanced towards my bedside holding out his hand. I shook it warmly as he said he was eternally sorry for the mistake — a mistake, he added, which, he guessed, would lick all mistakes in creation ; he calculated I would stop with him the rest of that day . and night, and that we would liquor up awfully. * I did stop, and spent a very pleasant evening. Either the Yankee's baccy was too strong, or I was too weak in my battered state to drink much, or perhaps I did liquor awfully. All I know is, I had a most rattling headache, next morning. The explanation of the whole matter was this : Mr., or Captain Johnson, as he liked to be called, had married a Maori woman from a jistant part of the country. Just before he started on his last whaling voyage, he brought Mrs. Johnson to Rawhiti, having bought a house there. He was so very 'short a. time at Rawhiti before he sailed, that hardly any of the natives knew him by sight. On the day that his whale-ship returned to the Bay of Islands, Mrs. Johnson had twins. A lot of natives who were very much, pecuniarily and otherwise, interested in the swell Maori lady or Maori woman who had gained the dignity of being a white gentleman's wife, on recognising the whaler, set off to find Captain Johnson, that they might be the first to give him the good news, and row him across the bay. Unfortunately, all they knew of Captain Johnson was, that he was a good-looking gentleman, with light hair, dressed like a sailor, and accompanied by a large black dog, called 3oatswain. Unfortunately, too, they met me. They could not explain matters to me, nor Ito them. My calling the dog Boatswain, settled the matter. Once started on a false scent, nobody dreamed of the mistake. Johnson, coming on shore in his own boat, was naturally enough in a rage at finding me installed as master in his house, and apparently the owner of the affections of his wife ; and so I first got into a fix with my supposed babies and Maori friends, and then into a bigger fix with my JTankee double. Improbable as the story may seem, it really did occur, and I have exaggerated nothing. For many years, my friends and acquaintances used to inquire after my Maori wife and children ; and to this day I believe I am known to the youngsters in the nayy — behind my back, of course — by the name of "Maori Jack."