Yet this was once intended for the capital of New Zealand.  When the large and splendidly-built city of Dunedin, Otago, was a barren bush, haunted only by the “morepork” and the apteryx, Russell was humming with vitality, her harbour busy with fleets of ships, principally whalers, who found it the most convenient calling-place in the southern temperate zone.  Terrible scenes were enacted about its “blackguard beach,” orgies of wild debauchery and bloodshed indulged in by the half-savage and utterly lawless crews of the whaleships.  But it never attained to any real importance.  As a port of call for whalers, it enjoyed a certain kind of prosperity; but when the South Sea fishery dwindled, Russell shrank in immediate sympathy.  It never had any vitality of its own, no manufactures or products, unless the wretched coalmines adjacent, with their dirty output, which is scoffed at by the grimiest tug afloat, could be dignified by the name.

Remembering, as I did, the beauty, the energy, and prosperity of the great New Zealand ports, some of them with not a tithe of the natural advantages of Russell, I felt amazed, almost indignant, at its dead-and-alive appearance.

Our anchor was no sooner down than the captains of the James Arnold, Matilda Sayer, and coral lowered and came on board, eager to hear or to tell such news as was going.  As we had now grown to expect, all work was over immediately the sails were fast and decks cleared up, so that we were free to entertain our visitors.  And a high old time we had of it that afternoon!  What with songs, dances, and yarns, the hours flew by with lightning speed.  Our Kanakas, too, were overjoyed to find compatriots among the visitors, and settled down to a steady stream of talk which lasted, without intermission, the whole night through.  It was a wonderful exhibition of tongue-wagging, though what it was all about puzzled me greatly.

Life on board those three ships, though described in glowing terms by the visitors, was evidently not to be mentioned for comfort in the same breath as ours.  But we found that our late captain’s fame as a “hard citizen” was well known to all; so that it is only ordinary justice to suppose that such a life as he led us was exceptional for even a Yankee spouter.  Our friends gave us a blood-curdling account of the Solander whaling ground, which we were about to visit, the James Arnold and coral having spent a season there that cruise.  I did not, however, pay much attention to their yarns, feeling sure that, even if they were fact, it would not help to brood over coming hardships, and inclined to give liberal discount to most of their statements.  The incessant chatter, got wearisome at last, and I, for one, was not sorry when, at two in the morning, our visitors departed to their several ships, and left us to get what sleep still remained left to us.