Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/63

Rh river, it being no easy matter to find the way in and out of patches of forest, and over many swampy creeks. There we found a small hut, with a shepherd in charge, who had also our horses ready for us; also a very rough slab-built hut in which lived two Scotch sawyers, cutting timber for the owner of the run. They offered us shelter for the night, but as a fall of snow came on, we remained there for two days. They were kindly, but dour Scotchmen, of few words, big, stalwart men, living in the roughest possible manner. The food consisted of boiled beef, without mustard or potatoes, hearth-baked cakes, and tea without milk, and by way of a bed they offered the Bishop and myself their own, which consisted of rough wooden planks, some bags of sawdust by way of mattress, and blankets. One of them camped down on the clay floor, whilst with the other we occupied the bed;—there was not a scrap of literature in the place, and our only resource was to watch the sawyers, under a canvas shelter, at work in the forest, sawing up Rimu, i.e. Red Pine, a finely grained timber which literally seemed to bleed under the saw, as its red sap flowed out.

The snow ceasing, we left our hosts early in the morning on horseback, the shepherd giving us very minute directions how to reach the river, about a mile distant, through an intricate network of swamps and rivulets. "Be careful, when you arrive at the river, to go down the bank by a track that leads to shallow water, but on entering keep in the shallow for a long way up stream; don't attempt to cross till you see on the other side, up-stream, a sort of landing-place; make for it carefully, for the shallow water, except at that one possible ford, ends abruptly