damp, maggots make their appearance in a few hours, and the very
suspicion of them is attended with an unpleasant creepy crawly
sensation. The blankets in which I slept at the station which I have
been describing were perfectly innocuous.

On the morning after I arrived, for the first time in my life I saw a
sheep killed. It is rather unpleasant, but I suppose I shall get as
indifferent to it as other--people are by and by. To show you that the
knives of the establishment are numbered, I may mention that the same
knife killed the sheep and carved the mutton we had for dinner. After
an early dinner, my patron and myself started on our journey, and after
travelling for some few hours over rather a rough country, though one
which appeared to me to be beautiful indeed, we came upon a vast river-
bed, with a little river winding about it. This is the Harpur, a
tributary of the Rakaia, and the northern branch of that river. We were
now going to follow it to its source, in the hopes of being led by it to
some saddle over which we might cross, and come upon entirely new
ground. The river itself was very low, but the huge and wasteful river-
bed showed that there were times when its appearance must be entirely
different. We got on to the river-bed, and, following it up for a
little way, soon found ourselves in a close valley between two very
lofty ranges, which were plentifully wooded with black birch down to
their base. There were a few scrubby, stony flats covered with Irishman
and spear-grass (Irishman is the unpleasant thorny shrub which I saw
going over the hill from Lyttelton to Christ Church) on either side the
stream; they had been entirely left to nature, and showed me the
difference between country which had been burnt and that which is in its
natural condition. This difference is very great. The fire dries up
many swamps--at least many disappear after country has been once or
twice burnt; the water moves more freely, unimpeded by the tangled and