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Potona or Unknown New Zealand

Chapter VIII. We Erect a Habitation—Winter Quarters on the Lake Shore

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Chapter VIII. We Erect a Habitation—Winter Quarters on the Lake Shore.

Next day the rain ceased, and we determined to lose no time in removing all our goods, tent, etc., up to the lake, and select a place to build a hut.

It took us some days to transport everything; but eventually we had all our worldly possessions stowed away under cover of the tent, which had been pitched under some high trees, about twenty yards from the right shore of the lake. Here we decided to erect the hut also, and lost no time in setting to work upon it. While some of us selected and cut suitable timber, others removed it to the appointed site, where a third party, under the direction of Harry, shaped the logs and planted them in the ground to form the sides and ends of the building.

A short description of the hut we were putting up will not here be amiss. First, we traced the outlines of its walls on the ground by digging a narrow trench. It was to be about thirty feet long by fifteen in width, and to consist of two apartments—the inner to be used as a sleeping-room; the outer as a dining room, kitchen, and for all general purposes. Next we planted upright logs, of about ten feet in page 48 length, side by side in the track above alluded to, leaving a, narrow entrance for a door. Along the tops of the logs we nailed slabs, which, being also joined to one another at the four corners, kept the uprights in a firm position. To strengthen the walls we nailed additional beams along the logs, at about four feet from the ground inside the hut. The roof was composed of strong rafters, fastened by nails and wooden pegs to a ridge-pole; the whole securely thatched with the same long grass that I had noticed in the deserted native hut, and which we found growing in some marshy ground near the lake.

We had fortunately brought a stock of nails from the schooner, otherwise we should have had a great deal of extra trouble, boring holes for wooden pegs, which, as it was, we had to do in some cases.

To make the hut warm and tight we filled up the interstices between the logs with stiff clay mixed with grass. We also managed to erect a rough chimney with slabs and clay. In the outer, or general room, we put up a rude table, with seats round it, and embellished the apartment in every way possible to ensure comfort.

In the inner or sleeping apartment we put up bunks all round the walls, one for each of the party, and the floors of both rooms we first covered with logs, and over the whole strewed a plentiful supply of fern, dry grass, and moss, to keep us off the damp ground.

All round the outside of the hut, and close to its walls, we dug a ditch to carry off the water to the lake, and keep it from lying in the vicinity.

The only thing that inconvenienced us was the want of glass windows. True, we had left two small square holes in the walls of each room, into each of which we had fitted a rough shutter, but we could only open them in fine weather, page 49 and in wet we were left quite in darkness inside. The outer door, which was in the large general apartment, we could also only open in fine weather for a similar reason. However, we were very comfortable in our way, and everyone seemed satisfied and in good spirits.

It must not be supposed that the hut was erected, and other necessary preparations made for the winter, in a day. It cost us fully a month's hard labor before everything was ready.

As we did not know but what the numerous kinds of waterfowl on the lake might migrate to milder parts during the winter, we thought it best to lay in a stock of them at once; and either Harry, myself, or one of the men, sometimes all of us, would start early in the morning, not only to shoot waterfowl, but also pigeons and several kinds of parrots which abounded in the bush about us, and it was rarely we returned without full game-bags. Amongst other birds, we killed numerous woodhens, which yielded us a large supply of oil and fat. This, during the winter, we found of great service, as we managed to make rough lamps with it and some cotton-yarn.—It was not till some years after, when living in Canterbury, that I found out the names of all the birds and trees which we found in the vicinity and neighborhood of our hut; but to save confusion I will give them their proper names, though I have only learnt them since. The ducks and pigeons we preserved by first roasting them, and then putting them in rough barrels, or rather boxes, and pouring boiling fat over them. When thus packed they would keep for months.

We hollowed out a good-sized tree, and made an attempt at a canoe with it. It served well enough, and would carry two of us on the lake when we went duck-shooting. While these various operations were in progress, we did not omit page 50 to explore the locality as much as possible. The small islet with the deserted hut on it had been duly examined by all the party, and the contents of that mysterious abode had been ransacked times without number, but without any further discoveries.

And now the stormy weather became more continuous, and less interrupted by fine days, till at last we were almost entirely confined to the hut. We took it in turns to sally outside and collect fresh supplies of wood every day. We lived almost entirely on wild fowl and fish, the former falsifying our expectations of their deserting us, and with the latter the lake was swarming. Two kinds especially were numerous—namely, a kind of eel, very short and thick, and a species of trout, which was very good eating indeed. Besides these, we occasionally had a little variation in the way of salt beef and pork. As for vegetables, with the exception of a kind of cabbage, which was rather bitter to the taste, and the large leaves of a species of shrub, which, when boiled, tasted not unlike celery, we had none. The bags of Indian corn and wheat we had saved from the wreck were never touched.

We amused ourselves as best we could—by telling yarns, exchanging our respective histories, and in general conversation. The only books which we possessed were two found in the seaman's chest picked up on the beach; one a copy of “Gulliver's Travels,” and the other a “Guide to Knowledge”—a very useful book in its way, no doubt, but not likely to benefit us in our present situation. “Gulliver's Travels” were read and re-read aloud several times, and many were the remarks and conjectures passed on that wonderful book.

Young Smart had managed to capture two large parrots alive, and Pat had got hold of a young “laughing-jackass,” page 51 as we called them now, birds similar to the one which startled us so, soon after landing, by its extraordinary cries at night. Pat's great delight was to make this bird of his laugh and scream, and repeat its unearthly cries all day long. When he first caught it and brought it home, it used to commence after we had all turned in to sleep, till at last it was voted by common consent, Pat excepted, that unless he found some means of making “Rory,” as he called him, confine his noise to the day, the bird must either be banished from our community or put into the pot to atone for his sins. Pat promised the offence should not occur again, and that night tied up Rory's mouth, or rather beak, which effectively prevented him from crying out.

Smart, assisted by the men, managed to get his two parrots to chatter a few words and short sentences, and, amongst others, taught them to malign poor Rory. “Jackass! Rory, Rory, Rory,” one would scream; “Black sweep, sweep, sweep!” yelled the other. Then both at once would abuse poor Rory at the highest pitch of their voices. Nor was it only the bird that got thus abused; its master's name was very frequently also mixed up with Rory's in no very complimentary terms.

One morning, on coming in after taking a look outside, I was greatly amused.

“Rory—black jackass!” screamed Parrot No. 1.

“I'll break your blessed nut for ye,” said Pat, shaking his fist at the offending parrot.

“Pat! Pat! Pat!—black sweep Pat;” from Parrot No. 2.

“Hould yer tongue, I tell ye, ye foul-mouthed blaguard ye!” sang out Pat.

“Pat, Rory, jackass, black sweep! Pretty Poll!” answered both parrots at once. Nor were there wanting page 52 other epithets stronger still, and hardly fitted for ears polite.

“Rory, don't you take any notice of sich unmannerly spalpeens as thim two,” said Pat to the object of all this vituperation. “Right glad I am to see ye houlding no conversation with them at all; it does grate credit to yer bringing up, darlint.”

Rory all this time was quietly perched on a forked stick which his master had stuck into the floor for him, and seemed equally indifferent to the calumniations of his enemies and the praise of his friends. The parrots were just beginning at him again, when he burst out into a regular guffaw, followed by the usual ear-rending shrieks, etc., which so astonished his tormentors, that for the space of nearly half an hour they could do nothing but stare first at him and then at us, as if asking us for an explanation of such an uproar. At last one of them gave vent to the singularly concise expression—

“Golly!”

“Oh, golly!” repeated No. 2.

“Ye see, ye ugly varmints, the gintleman sated yonder only laughs at yer low-bred insinuations.”

“Very good reason why, Pat,” said Smart, “he knows they tell the truth, and tries to laugh it off.”

“An' do ye mane to say that Rory could not talk as well as your addle-headed cockatoo?” said Moroney indigdignantly, “Don't yer see as how he's dressed in respectable black clothes? an' shure he would'nt disgrace his calling by stooping to spake to sich low-bred birds as thim. Nary a bit of it; if he cannot git gintlemen to talk to, divil a spake ye'll hear from him;” after saying which he deliberately turned his back and began whistling—

“St. Pathrick was a gintleman,
And came from dacent people.”