As we get nearer to Riverhead the stream narrows. This is the point to which the tide reaches. Beyond it the Waitemata is supplied by two creeks, the Riverhead Creek and the Rangitopuni. Here the banks are steep and high, somewhat picturesque, with varied ferns and shrubbery. On the north side the ranges rise into a background of hills.
This is the end of our river journey, as is evidenced by the Riverhead wharf, built out from the bank. Here we land, and are received by two men, who represent the population of the district, and who apparently are idle spectators. By their advice we shoulder our traps, and climb up some steps to the top of the bank. Right before us here is an unpretending house, built in the usual rambling style of architecture peculiar to frame-houses in this country. A board stuck up over the verandah announces that this is the hotel; and, as the arrival of the steamer is the signal for dinner, every one makes for the open French windows of the dining-room.
Dinner is ready we find, and we are ready for it. Perhaps about a dozen passengers came up from Auckland in the boat, and as many of these as are not at home in the immediate neighbourhood sit down to the table. The party is further augmented by the skipper and his assistants, the wharf-keepers, one or two residents in the hotel, and the host and hostess with their family. Quite a large company altogether, and of very promiscuous elements. The only persons not entirely at their ease are Dobbs and his wife. They find themselves dining with the "quality," as they would have said at home, and have not yet learnt that that word is written "equality" in this part of the world.
At the head of the table sits somebody who is evidently a personage, judging by the flattering attentions paid to him by the daughters of the house, and by the regard with which all but we strangers treat him. It is Dandy Jack, afterwards to become one of our most intimate and cherished chums. As I shall have more to say about him, perhaps I may here be allowed to formally introduce him to the reader.
The first glance at him reveals the origin of his sobriquet. Amid the rawness and roughness of everything in the bush, its primitive society included, the figure of Dandy Jack stands out in strong relief. Contrasted with the unkempt, slovenly, ragged, and dirty bushmen with whom he mostly comes in contact, he is the very essence of foppery. Yet, as we are afterwards to learn, he is anything but the idle, effeminate coxcomb, whose appearance he so assiduously cultivates. Here is a photograph of Dandy Jack.