He was a queer little figure of a man--short, tubby, with scanty
red hair, and a brogue thick as pea-soup. Eccentric in most
things, he was especially so in his dress, which he seemed to
select on the principle of finding the most unfitting things to
wear. Rumour credited him with a numerous half-breed progeny--
certainly he was greatly mixed up with the Maories, half his crew
being made up of his dusky friends and relations by MARRIAGE.
Overflowing with kindliness and good temper, his ship was a
veritable ark of refuge for any unfortunate who needed help,
which accounted for the numerous deserters from Yankee whalers
who were to be found among his crew. Such whaling skippers as
our late commander hated him with ferocious intensity; and but
for his Maori and half-breed bodyguard, I have little doubt he
would have long before been killed. Living as he had for many
years on that storm-beaten coast, he had become, like his
Maories, familiar with every rock and tree in fog or clear, by
night or day; he knew them, one might almost say, as the seal
knows them, and feared them as little. His men adored him. They
believed him capable of anything in the way of whaling, and would
as soon have thought of questioning the reality of daylight as
the wisdom of his decisions.
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