climate is rather less windy than with us in the northern portion of
the island; and the capital of Otago (Dunedin) had risen into
comparative position and importance before Christchurch,--was in
short an elder sister of that pretty little town. Most of the
settlers in Otago were Scotchmen, and as there are no better
colonists anywhere, its prosperity had attained to a very
flourishing height. Gold-digging had also broken out at the foot of
the Dunstan range, so that Otago held her head quite as high, if not
higher, than her neighbour Canterbury. Of course all the
first-class pasture-land "down south," as it was called, had been
taken up long before; but we heard rumours of splendid sheep
country, yet unappropriated, far back towards the west coast of
Otago, just where its boundary joined Canterbury.

With our minds in this state of desire for what poor Mazzini used to
denounce as "territorial aggrandisement," we paid our usual
post-shearing visit to Christchurch. F--- had his agent's accounts
to examine, a nice little surplus of wool-money to receive, and many
other squatting interests to attend to; whilst I had to lay in
chests of tea, barrels of sugar and rice, hundreds of yards of
candle-wick, flower-seeds, reels of cotton, and many other
miscellaneous articles. But through all our pleasant, happy little
bustle ran the constant thought: "What shall we do for more
country?" A day or two before the expiration of the week's leave of
absence which we always gave ourselves, F--- came into my
sitting-room at the hotel, flung down his hat on the table with an
air of triumph, and cried, "I've heard of such a splendid run! One
hundred thousand acres of beautiful sheep-country, and going for a
mere song!" Now I had lived long enough in the world to discover
that one sometimes danced on the wrong foot to the tune of these