Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/35

Rh trees, toi-toi grass, and flax; and when clear of these for many miles a long stretch of grass, yet practically paved with stones. The going was slow and evening was coming on apace as I approached Mt. Peel, to all appearance rising right out of the plain. Then, suddenly, I found myself on the edge of what looked like a gigantic railway cutting, so steep that descent seemed impossible, and down below the river Rangitata running through a beautiful valley; on its further side the mountain rose to a height of 5,000 feet, buttressed by spurs and terraces, forest-clad, lit up by the evening sun, in all the glory of primaeval vegetation untouched by the hand of man. Up-stream I saw some huts and a few men at work, and discovering a place where I could lead my horse down, met a fine specimen of a Yorkshire man, lately settled, with a few sheep, and a newly made home. His wife, baby in arms, was with him. "Come in," he said, "we are only too glad to have a visitor." His house deserves description: a single room, built of rough slabs of wood, worked with an adze, allowing plenty of ventilation, covered with thatch; a hardened clay floor, no ceiling, furniture homemade; a wide slab-built fireplace, one or two "easy" chairs made out of barrels cut down to serve as a back with arms; and, across a part of the room, blankets fastened to a rafter forming the bedroom of my host and hostess. After a comfortable meal he took me to his shearing shed, where they had just finished work. Shearers here stand to it, holding the sheep between knees and feet, and shearing far more rapidly than at home; indeed an expert hand will accomplish his eighty sheep per day. Then came the question of bed, a problem