NOTES OF AN EXCURSION TO MASSACRE BAY.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 38, 9 December 1842, Page 4

NOTES OF AN EXCURSION TO MASSACRE BAY.

(Extracted from a letter to England.) (Continued from No. 35 J But, even when the heat of argument had in some degree subsided, and the tempering Captain had retired to his berth in the inner cabin, our evening was generally far from concluded; J'or then would another of. the party to whom I have, not vet introduced yon —a fellow of tolerable good nature and extremely good appetite—in a state of effervescent Carlylism, pounce upon a book the Merovingian had with him, and give out aloud, for an hour or two, with rampant enthusiasm, possibly heightened a little by appropriate moistenings of that beverage which, on the authority of Dr. Johnson, is peculiarly suited to the subject (“ brandv for heroes”), the choicest passages of the dry-liumoured, deep-thinker’s lectures on Hero-worship. Perhaps an occasional quiet chuckle would be heard from the Captain in his inner berth (still wideawake) ; the Merovingian listening, with interest and remark at intervals—Pliilotoddydes. with impatience, till put to sleep; while a grave-eyed Scotch servant-girl, with freckled cheeks, and a somuolent baby in her arms, sate intently watching the reader, in a middle state between edification and alarm, suspecting something pious from the number of “ good words” interspersed throughout, but keeping always the " tail o’ her ee” upon the inner cabin, where slept her mistress, to be certain a good retreat was secured her in case the spouting Carlylonnmiac should suddenly become dangerous. No doubt she took it for a sermon, as people of her class do everything serious that is read aloud. All this, of course, tended to bring i.aie’s appetite round again, especially as everybody had been fasting since the cold ham and great thick squares of pic-crust, with a dry internal layer of Adelaide jam, which gave solidity to the repast called “ tea and about midnight the Merovingian would in consequence emerge from the berth into which he had some time since ensconced himself, and with a solemn and somewhat care-worn face, and an air of mystery, commence a series of divings with the right hand under and between the table’s legs and tormenting cross-bars, or into awkwardshaped and un-comc-at-able lockers; the result of which operations would be seen in the gradual disengagement of a solid substance wrapped in a clean towel, which, being unrolled, displayed a glorious and most unsubduable round of cold boiled beef—provided by Philotoddydes for the general benefit, as well as his particular consolation when his aversion, pork, was lord of the ascendant. This “ en cas de besoin,” as Louis Quatorze called his, was no sooner produced, than a volley of ejaculations and remonstrances assailed the unconscionable Merovingian. He, however, with remorseless deliberation and a philosophical knowledge of the force of evil example, would content himself wit'll giving out in full-volumed voice the four first words of the song, “ A te, o ca - - ra,” which magnificent burst of undulating passionate devotedness was addressed, I suppose, to the cold round, though neither it nor his unchanging features betrayed any consciousness of such being the subject of the apostrophe. Then, suddenly silent, with the same grim gravity, he would coolly proceed to pull out and open a large clasp-knife with cross-lined pink bone handle, and a hole to hang it by, and silently saw off sundry delectable slices of beef, with which, ship biscuit, and mustard, one might have blunted the edge of an appetite as keen and sharp as Meclii’s razors or Mordan’s everpointed pencils. Hardly had we begun ere Misoporcus and relenting, had thrust out their hands as in right earnest to the propriety of the proceeding, and the meal became general. .1 jest by the way you should think this resurrection of the Merovingian involved any disagreeable exposure to cold, or damp oil-cloth, or knockings of sensitive little toes against sharp table-legs and locker corners, you must be made acquainted with another peculiarity of the Merovingian, perhaps adopted to be in keeping with everything else out here —that is, directly the opposite of what it is in Europe. All tilings, like ourselves, are turned topsy-turvey. You know we have winter in July, and Christmas in the height of summer. Bishops travel on foot, and in hob-nailed shoes ; the sunny south is the region of ice-bergs and gloom; your melons grow worse for manuring the bed; and Governments can hardly get credit for their most necessary expenses. On these principles I suppose the Merovingian used to dress at night and undress at morning. By day he went about in most unbraced, unbuttoned, colonial negligence of costume —a quite South Pacific abstinence from cravats and waistcoats—a belt for the waist—and in hair an Absalom redivivus (cut down from his tree) —“ For when he polls his head—at every year’s end he polls it (?), because the hair is heavy on him, therefore he polls it—he weighs the hair of his head at two hundred shekels, after the King’s weight.” But at night, as aforesaid, or at four a.m., you would see him emerge from among the blankets and behind curtains, in a pilot-cloth great coat, collar turned up and buttoned over the chin, as from

the top of a stage conch crossing Salisbury Plain on a March night. Really there was something frightful in the strangeness of such an apparition. It would have given Coleridge a new idea of the horrible, equal to that of meeting the richly clad beautiful ladye in the middle of a lonely forest at night, and he might have exclaimed—

“ I guess it was frightful thereto see A' gentleman so thickly clad as he, Pea-jacketed exceedingly.” You could not have believed him the suspenderless Merovingian of the preceding day. Talking of creature comforts, one evening coming on deck, we were assailed by that very peculiar odour given out by shell-fish when roasting, and beheld Philotocldydes engaged in vigorous deglutition of quantities of roasted oysters, small and delicious, and mussels, which he extracted and swallowed with wonderful activity and extraordinary cheerfulness, apparently stimulated by the fragrant smell of the briny mollusks. “ What a capital Mussulman he is,” said the wicked Merovingian, “ which ‘ fully accounts’ for his hatred of pork.” “Out upon you, Clovis !” cried we, at his desperate attempt —laughing nevertheless. “The divel mend you, lad !” prayed Philotoddydes, without raising his eyes from his occupation, but gulping down his fat fried sea monsters as rapidly as ever. On Friday morning one of the Maories brought a small present of potatoes on board; and , who wanted to buy a native cloak, half in joke, offered a chief ten “ herrings” (shillings) for one he had on his back. He pulled it off immediately, and held out his hand for the money. Going ashore, another “ korrero” was held ; Ekkawa of course having found a new chief, who could not possibly be left out of the number of those made presents to. Ekkawa, a truculent-looking fellow, very little tattoed, prominent eyebrows, and retreating forehead, generally got very excited and vehement. He maintained that the man whose interests he advocated was the first settler of their tribe, and described him, with corresponding action, as “ the anchor of the place,” to which, I suppose, the others had moored themselves. The matter was left as it stood for the present.

About noon we started in the Nelson Packet (Captain Jackson), which the Commodore had hired, for the Hauriri. The weather was calm and hot. The Hauriri chief Erino, his wife, and some of the tribe, were taken with us. Erino was very decently dressed in European clothes. He is a middle sized man, with an oblong face, and tattoed only about the upper lip and chin, with features tolerably regular and un-pronounced, and hair cut short. In manner he is very mild and quiet, with a touch of reserve and sufficient self-respect —in fact, more of “ a gentleman” than any chief we had seen. His wife, Eoni, a thin, middle-aged woman, delicate rather for a Maori, with light brown hair, short and uncombed, a very open, amiable, and almost pensive expression, was clothed in Maori blankets, with the shark tooth in her ear, and the under lip (like that of most Maori women) quite blue with tattoeing. There was something of sadness in her care-worn smile, which was interesting in a savage. She had had only one child, who had died, to their great affliction, as some one told me. Another Maori was an illlooking baboon, exceedingly wide, apparently swollen at the jaw-bones under the ears, whether naturally or from disease I could not tell. His wife, a younger woman, with a ruddy tinge on her dark cheeks, had a row of scars on the lower part of each of them. She occupied herself wholly in nursing a couple of ugly puppies she carried with her. The other native was a merry fellow, with thick black curling hair, and a face so like the busts of Socrates that he went by the name of that worthy all the time he was on board. There was another merry, roundfaced young woman, with hair smooth-combed and parted European-wise, living as wife with an Englishman. I had drawn a rude profile of Eoni in a pocket-book, which the latter no sooner saw than she begged me, in broken words and signs, to “ makey de write” of her face ; so, with much giggling and blushing, she allowed me to begin, but presently snatcheing the book to look at the sketch, she turned away her face, evidently thinking it did not do justice to her charms (which, by the by, small as they were, was probably the case), and refused to sit any longer. We had much chat find joking with them, and found them not so much unlike their fairer sisters on the top side of the world. They squatted down together on the deck, and scarcely moved all the time they were on board. Their dinner consisted? of a kettle of potatoes, out of which they took them one by one. We were much amused with the grave energy with which Socrates pursued this occupation. Most deliberately he dipped his hand into the receptacle, at the" same time beginning to open his capacious mouth, which roUnded and rounded slowly, like the luminous circle on a wall increasing as the magic lantern is pushed near eland nearer, until it attained the diameter of the potato extracted, which was apparently always the largest to be got. Whether it was ever extended to the full we could not tell; but every potatoe went in whole ; and just as slowly the satisfied chasm would contract and close, like that at Rome when Curtius was fairly in. The

natives slept on deck, Erino and the others first having wrapped up the women in extra blankets with very civilized attention to the weaker sex. (To be continued.)

A Forty Fret Leap !—While a train on the Glasgow and Ayr Railway was coming forwards the latter place one day last week, and when on the highest part of the embankment between Kilwinning and Irvine, a man who was a passenger in one of the third-class carriages, asked a fellow-traveller when it was likely the train would arrive at Kilwinning. He was informed that he had just passed that place. “What! past Kilwinning am I ? Gude faith, if that be the case I’m lang enough here.” So saying, he fastened his skull-cap firm on his cranium—buttoned his coat, and in spite of every remonstrance, lept over the side of the carriage, at the steepest part of the embankment, nearly 40 feet, down which he rolled like a ball, casting a series of not most graceful summersets, while the passengers in the train were in great terror lest he had killed himself by his rashness. He, however found his level, where he was accosted by a labourer in the adjoining field, who inquired if he was hurt. “ Hurt! no an inch o’ me atweel,” and giving his jacket a shake or two, to deprive it of the dust which had collected during his descent, he stepped off across the field, exclaiming as he went —alluding to the train now in the distance —“ That wad be ago indeed ! You haulin’me on to Irwin, and me dressed and a’ for our Mall’s weddin’ at Kilwinnin’!” English Good Feeling to France. —The Moniteur contains a report to the King from the Minister of Marine, recommending that a gold Medal should be given to Dr. William Davis, an English physician, of’Port Jackson, for his prompt and effectual assistance to several of the crew of the French corvette, Aube, who had become dangerously ill in consequence of having eaten poisonous berries. The report states, that when Dr. Davis was asked what his charge was, he replied, “ I should be ashamed to receive payment for assistance rendered to an English ship of war, and I have the same feeling as it regards a French ship.” It is almost needless to add that the recommendation was attended to. Fossil Remains. —One of those extraordinary animals of a former world has lately been restored, and may now be seen at the Medical Hall. It is the fossilized remains of the Ichthyesurus, of Fish Lizard, in a very wonderful state of preservation. The skeleton measures nearly eight feet in length. The length of the rostrum, or mouth, is 15 inches, and is completely filled with perfect teeth. The orbit of the eye, which is beautifully preserved, is five inches in diameter. It has 100 vertebrae, and the ribs are partially covered with what the discoverer is of opinion is the actual skin. The blocks of stone, upon which the bones were found, are laid, together with the case, exactly in the same relative position which they occupied the quarry, and joined together with cement.' The weight of the specimen and case is nearly half a ton. Altogether it is a grand and imposing object, and well worthy an attentive examination by the curious in fossil geology.