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It was quite dusk by this time, so the gentlemen worked hard at collecting a great supply of wood, as the night promised to be a very cold one, whilst I remained to watch the kettle, full of that precious liquid poor F had carried up with such care, and to prevent the wekas from carrying off our supper, which I had arranged just inside the tent.
We had the eels made into a pie by our shepherd, who assured me that if I entrusted them to my cook she would send me up such an oily dish that I should never be able to endure an eel again. He declared that the Maoris, who seem to have rather a horror of grease, had taught him how to cook both eels and wekas in such a way as to eliminate every particle of fat from both.
The fragments of our meal must have been a great boon to the colony of wekas who inhabit the island, for as they increase and multiply prodigiously their provisions must often fall short in so small a space.
Ah, how delicious it all was, the Robinson Crusoe feel of the whole thing; the heavenly air, the fluttering leaves, the birds' chirrups and whistle, and the foreground of happy, healthy men! Rose and I had enough to do, even with Nettle's assistance, in acting as police to keep off those bold thieves, the wekas, who are as impudent as they are tame and fearless.
No quadruped is indigenous to New Zealand, except a rat; but then, on the other hand, we are as free from snakes and all vermin as if St. Patrick himself had lived here. Our host has turned several pheasants into this forest, but they increase very slowly on account of the wekas. However, the happiness of this morning was made complete by our putting up two splendid rocketers.
Whilst I was drinking in all the glory and beauty before me, some of the others had been busy striking the tent, repacking the loads, very much lighter without the provisions; and we had one more excellent cup of tea before abandoning the encampment to the wekas, who must have breakfasted splendidly that morning.
"Fly" put up several, one after another, and soon ran them down. At first I thought it very cruel to destroy such a tame and apparently harmless creature, but I am assured that they are most mischievous, and that it would be useless to turn out the pheasants and partridges which Mr. L has brought from England, until the numbers of the wekas are considerably reduced.
So I kilted up my linsey skirt, and hung up my little jacket, necessary for protection against the evening air, on a bough out of the wekas' reach, whilst I followed F through tangled creepers, "over brake, over brier," towards the place from whence the noise of falling trees proceeded.
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