natives, who voluntarily perform the hardest
and most dirty work, and consider themselves
fully recompensed by a sight of his mysterious
labours, every portion of which fills them
wTith astonishment. Here is heard daily the
sound of the sawpit, while piles of neat white
planks appear arranged on the beach. -These
laborious and useful Scotchmen interfere with
no one, and pursue successfully their industrious
career, without either requiring or
receiving any assistance from home.
But there is another class of Europeans
here, who are both useless and dangerous, and
these lower the character of the white people
in the estimation of the natives. These men
are called “ Beach Rangers; ” most of whom
have deserted from, or have been turned out
of whalers for crimes, for which, had they
been taken home and tried, they would have
been hanged ; some few among them, having
been too lazy to finish the voyage they had
begun, had deserted from their ships, and
were then leading a mean and miserable life
amongst the natives.
There is still a third class of our countrymen
to be met with here, whose downcast and
sneaking looks proclaim them to be runaway
convicts from New South Wales. These unhappy
men are treated with derision and contempt
by all classes ; and the New Zealanders,
being perfectly aware of their state of degradation,
refuse all intercourse with them.
They are idle, unprincipled, and vicious in the
extreme, and are much feared in the Bay of
Islands; for when by any means they obtain
liquor, they prove themselves most dangerous
neighbours.
My friend Shand and myself were most
comfortably situated. An intimate friend of
mine (Captain Duke, of the whaler “ The
Sisters”) had, in consequence of ill health,
taken up his residence on shore while his
vessel completed her cruize. In his hut we
found comfort and safety ; and from his information
and advice we were enabled to
avoid the advances of all whom his experience
had taught him were to be shunned.
On terms of the closest intimacy, and with
his hut adjoining that of my friend Captain
Duke, lived Shulitea, (or King George, as
e 3