Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/90

72 was to keep up a big fire, for our beds consisted of wool packs laid on the clay floor, with others in lieu of blankets, the very roughest sort of bed clothes I have yet experienced. Nevertheless we fared fairly well, for Dr. Haast was excellent company, full of anecdote, and, having a rich, baritone voice, kept us alive with his songs. A very keen frost set in as the snow ceased, and the next morning I made a start, finding that the snow, two feet in depth, was sufficiently frozen to bear my horse. After a few miles, however, the snow lay deeper, and in places so drifted that the going became dangerous, and I determined to make tracks for a shepherd's hut, lying rather out of my way, some distance up a valley. I had travelled only at a foot's pace, and made but little way; soon I found myself in difficulties and, noticing a clump of black birch trees which might shelter my horse for the night, I unsaddled him and provided him with some oats I had in my saddlebags, and left him there. Then on foot towards the hut, only a mile distant, but it took me more than an hour to reach it, as I had to cross snow bridges formed over streams and gullies, on which I crawled on all fours, afraid of sinking through the snow, and when at last I reached the hut, my leather overalls were frozen so that they stood upright by themselves. It was a veritable haven of refuge, in which I was made welcome by the shepherd and his family, and there I spent the next day. Fine weather came, and hard frost, and we managed to rescue the horse and get him into shelter, and then I was able to travel homewards on the hard frozen snow. For a fortnight or so after this such travelling as I was able to accomplish was of the same kind, and, to give you some idea of what a winter can be