for country, and ultimately took up a run which is still called
Mesopotamia, the name he gave it because it is situated among the
head-waters of the Rangitata.

It was necessary to have a horse, and he bought one for 55 pounds,
which was not considered dear. He wrote home that the horse's name
was "Doctor": "I hope he is a Homoeopathist." From this, and from
the fact that he had already contemplated becoming a homoeopathic
doctor himself, I conclude that he had made the acquaintance of Dr.
Robert Ellis Dudgeon, the eminent homoeopathist, while he was doing
parish work in London. After his return to England Dr. Dudgeon was
his medical adviser, and remained one of his most intimate friends
until the end of his life. Doctor, the horse, is introduced into
'Erewhon Revisited'; the shepherd in Chapter XXVI tells John Hicks
that Doctor "would pick fords better than that gentleman could, I
know, and if the gentleman fell off him he would just stay stock
still."

Butler carried on his run for about four and a half years, and the
open-air life agreed with him; he ascribed to this the good health he
afterwards enjoyed. The following, taken from a notebook he kept in
the colony and destroyed, gives a glimpse of one side of his life
there; he preserved the note because it recalled New Zealand so
vividly.


April, 1861. It is Sunday. We rose later than usual. There are
five of us sleeping in the hut. I sleep in a bunk on one side of the
fire; Mr. Haast, {3} a German who is making a geological survey of
the province, sleeps upon the opposite one; my bullock-driver and