I remember parts of the voyage. I recall fish leaping from the waves, and skimming through the air to dive beneath the water once more. What a marvel. And I remember the days as we crossed the Equator, when the sun burned down so fiercely, our bare feet couldn’t walk on the wooden deck, and hot tar bubbled out between the planks. Then there were days of storm, when our ship plunged and bucked as if it would thrust itself down to the bottom of the sea, and we huddled on our mattresses, waiting for death to come crashing upon us. I remember, too, the deaths that did come: the children who died of fever; a sailor falling from the mast. I will speak of some of them later, too.

But finally we arrived, on a beach of black sand with dark trees massed behind. No bonnie purple heather, no woods where the leaves turn gold and float to the ground in autumn. The woods — the ‘bush’ — are always green and shadowy here.

We walked for three days. Father, other men who had sailed on the Princess Louisa, with Haare’s father and others from the pa, went in front, carrying our luggage, then coming back to help the women and children through rivers, along narrow trails among the trees.

We might have died if Haare’s people had not aided us. While their men helped carry our goods, their women and girls brought us the sweet-tasting kumara; plump pigeons they call keh-reh-roo; river eels smoked over fires. Our flour had gone rotten on the long voyage; many of our seeds would not grow. Maori food kept us alive through that first winter.

We made mistakes with food in those early days. And one mistake nearly killed Janet.

She was about four years old, I suppose. After lunch one day, Haare and I wanted to go exploring for the fat keh-reh-roo pigeons, to find where they roosted, so Haare’s family could come with long spears to hunt them. Janet asked to come with us, but we said no. She would make too much noise.

So Hahona and Aggie said she could go with them, to collect water-cress by the side of the river. We all ate so much water-cress in those first years, I worried I might start turning green.

We set off down to the Why-Mow-Ana together, Hahona and Aggie hand-in-hand, Janet prattling along beside them. Haare and I turned off into the bush to look for birds, and the girls went on together. We could hear them chattering — as girls always do — while we searched among the trees.