her bows pointed towards the little toy island in the middle of the
lake; it was no question now of rowing, a nice fresh breeze from the
south (the _cold_ point here) sent us swiftly and steadily through
the water. What a morning it was! The air was positively
intoxicating, making you feel that the mere fact of being a living
creature with lungs to inhale such an atmosphere was a great boon.
We have a good deal of disagreeable weather, and a small proportion
of bad weather, but in no other part of the world, I believe, does
Nature so thoroughly understand how to make a fine day as in New
Zealand.

A little after mid-day we ran our boat to the lee of the island,
and: whilst she was steadied by the same primitive method of holding
on to branches of manuka and other scrub, I scrambled out and up a
little cliff, where a goat could hardly have found footing, till I
reached a spot big enough to stand on, from whence I anxiously
watched the disembarkation of some of the provisions, and of the
gridiron and kettle. In a few moments we were all safely ashore,
and busy collecting dry fern and brushwood for a fire; it was rather
a trial of patience to wait till the great blaze had subsided before
we attempted to cook our chops, which were all neatly prepared ready
for us. Some large potatoes were put to bake in the ashes; the tin
plates were warmed (it is a great art not to overheat them when you
have to keep them on your lap whilst you eat your chop). We were
all so terribly hungry that we were obliged to have a course of
bread and cheese and sardines _first_; it was really quite
impossible to wait patiently for the chops. The officiating cook
scolded us well for our Vandalism, and the next moment we detected
him in the act of devouring a half-raw potato. The fragments of our
meal must have been a great boon to the colony of wekas who inhabit