Volltext Seite (XML)
To make matters worse, the dining-room had not even a shed. So they had no course left but to take shelter in the best way they could, under a projection from the roof of the house, extending about three feet; and here they contrived to take their repast, without being very much drenched. However, they were not allowed this indulgence without many anxious scruples on the part of their friends, who con sidered even their venturing so near to the house on such an occasion as an act of daring impiety. As they had got possession of the potatoes, their entertainers, though very much shocked and alarmed, did not proceed to such rudeness as to take these from them again; but whenever they wanted to drink out of the calabash that had been brought to them, they obliged them to thrust out their heads for it from under the covering, although the rain continued to fall in torrents. Fatigued as he was, and vexed at being in this way kept out of the comfortable shelter he had expected, Nicholas at last commenced inveighing, he tells us, against the inhospitable custom, with much acrimony; and as Tooi, who was with them, had always shown so strong a predilection for European customs, he turned to him, and asked him if he did not think that these notions of his countrymen were all gammon. Tooi, however, replied sharply, that “it was no gammon at all”; adding, “New Zealand man say that Mr. Marsden’s crackee