thought everything delicious.



Letter III: On to New Zealand.


Christchurch, Canterbury, N. Z. October 14th, 1865.
As you so particularly desired me when we parted to tell you
_everything_, I must resume my story where in my last letter I left
it off. If I remember rightly, I ended with an attempt at
describing our great feast. We embarked the next day, and as soon
as we were out of the bay the little _Albion_ plunged into heavy
seas. The motion was much worse in her than on board the large
vessel we had been so glad to leave, and all my previous sufferings
seemed insignificant compared with what I endured in my small and
wretchedly hard berth. I have a dim recollection of F--- helping me
to dress, wrapping me up in various shawls, and half carrying me up
the companion ladder; I crawled into a sunny corner among the boxes
of oranges with which the deck was crowded, and there I lay helpless
and utterly miserable. One well-meaning and good-natured
fellow-passenger asked F--- if I was fond of birds, and on his
saying "Yes," went off for a large wicker cage of hideous "laughing
Jackasses," which he was taking as a great treasure to Canterbury.
Why they should be called "Jackasses" I never could discover; but
the creatures certainly do utter by fits and starts a sound which
may fairly be described as laughter. These paroxysms arise from no
cause that one can perceive; one bird begins, and all the others
join in, and a more doleful and depressing chorus I never heard:
early in the morning seemed the favourite time for this discordant