Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/74

56 the sermon, so that I perceived that his negatives and affirmatives were, in fact, marks of approval. One great advantage, I think, in this somewhat unconventional work, is that it brings one into personal contact with all sorts and conditions of men.

Sunday morning, 6 a.m. A breakfast of milk and bread and butter provided for me over night, and my horse to be looked to before a long and difficult journey. I get away about 7 a.m., my track being through mountain valleys, traversed by numerous streams, strewn with boulders, and bristling with the prickly Acacia plant, "Wild Irishman," and spiky yellow speargrass. The going is very troublesome, and with all I can do in making the pace, where opportunity offers, it will be eleven o'clock before I can accomplish the twenty-seven miles to my destination. The scenery is magnificent, I doubt if Switzerland can beat it, but sometimes I begin to sympathize with our forefathers, who lived before our comparatively modern appreciation of landscape, and regarded Scotland and Switzerland as inhospitable and savage wastes, where a traveller might easily perish. Certainly, on a fine morning, with a good horse under you, and a companion, all goes well, and in this highland atmosphere you taste the joy of mere living, but 'tis a very different matter in showers of sleet, or rain that seeks out every crevice of your waterproofs, soaking your saddle, whilst your horse flounders through mountain bog and swollen streams. This is not unusual in summer, and in winter, even with a clear sky overhead, but with snow underfoot and ten or twelve degrees of frost, it is hard work for man and beast.

Towards the latter part of the route I speak of