As a rule she did her best to keep her man sober.
Her cottage, thatched with reeds, was perhaps whitewashed with lime made by burning the sea-shells.

With its clay floor and huge open fireplace, with its walls lined with curtained sleeping bunks, and its rafters loaded with harpoons, sharp oval-headed lances, coils of rope, flitches of bacon or bags of flour, it showed a picture of rude comfort.[1] [Footnote 1: Wakefield, _Adventures in New Zealand_; Shortland, _Southern Districts of New Zealand_; S.Thomson, _Story of New Zealand_: Sir W.T.Power, _Sketches in New Zealand_; G.F.

Angas, _Savage Scenes_.] If the seats were the joints of a whale's backbone, there was always food in plenty, washed down with grog or tea made from manuka sprigs.
Whale's heart was a delicacy set before guests, who found it rather like beef.

Maoris, sharks, and clouds of sea-gulls shared much of the flesh of the captured whales' carcasses.
Maori relatives learned to envy and, to some extent, to copy what they saw.

They took service as oarsmen, and even bought and equipped boats for themselves.