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Chapter XXX And of How They Came Home

—Kingsley,

TheHonorata was the first of the great procession of transports that swept across the Atlantic through the Panama Canal and so to the blue waters of the Pacific. She made no stops and the eager men on board desired none. Some had been away from their homes for over four years and all their desire was for the sight of loved ones and the dear familiar faces and the green hills of their native land. At last the Pencarrow Cliffs rose up out of the sea and the transport ran in past Seatoun and Miramar and Point Halswell to the wharves at Wellington that were black with the waiting people. Three days later on a brilliant day she steamed past the yellow cliffs of Coromandel and into the Hauraki Gulf, passed Tiri and Waiheke and Motutapu, and then through the Rangitoto Channel with Milford and Takapuna on the right-hand side. And as she swung round North Head the sirens of all page 316the vessels in the harbour blared with sound; there were flags on every building and across the streets; and as she swung to her berth at the King's Wharf an immense multitude thronged every pier and street and eminence; and there was laughter and cheering and weeping as New Zealand welcomed home her sons.

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