I Did So With Some Regret, For We Had Good Fare Enough In It, And I Rather Liked It; We Had Only Stones For Seats, But We Made Splendid Fires, And Got Fresh And Clean Snow-Grass To Lie On, And Dried The Floor With Wood-Ashes.

Then we confined the snow-grass within certain limits by means of a couple of poles laid upon the

Ground and fixed into their places with pegs; then we put up several slings to hang our saddle-bags, tea, sugar, salt, bundles, etc.; then we made a horse for the saddles - four riding-saddles and a pack-saddle - and underneath this went our tools at one end and our culinary utensils, limited but very effective, at the other. Having made it neat we kept it so, and of a night it wore an aspect of comfort quite domestic, even to the cat, which would come in through a hole left in the thatched door for her especial benefit, and purr a regular hurricane. We blessed her both by day and by night, for we saw no rats after she came; and great excitement prevailed when, three weeks after her arrival, she added a litter of kittens to our establishment.

CHAPTER VII

Loading Dray - Bullocks - Want of Roads - Banks Peninsula - Front and Back Ranges of Mountains - River-beds - Origin of the Plains - Terraces - Tutu - Fords - Floods - Lost Bullocks - Scarcity of Features on the Plains - Terraces - Crossing the Ashburton - Change of Weather - Roofless Hut - Brandy-keg.

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