Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/188

 Now we skirt Lake Waihola, generally a clear shallow bed of water, averaging a depth of about twelve feet. It is now muddy and turbid, and swollen with the floods from a branch of the Taieri River, which flows into it. A piercing wind comes whistling over the Taieri plains, and lashes the lake into mimic mountains.

Oh, could I but transport this wealth of water to poor drought-smitten Australia. "Water, water, everywhere" here. Lakes, streams, standing pools. Great shallow meres, with crowds of wild ducks, stocks standing in water in many of the fields. The bare brown hills, and cheerless stubbles, all dank and sodden with the plashing rain. All the noses in the carriages are blue. Our feet feel like lead, and it is very hard, indeed, to resist the depressing influence of the cold.

At and about Stirling there is a lakelet in every hollow, and the snow is lying very low down on the hills. Near by, at Kaitangata, there are some rather famous coal-mines, which are being vigorously opened out and worked.

We are now in the Clutha district. All the settlers are Scotch here, with but a few exceptions. They are deep-chested, big-headed, ruddy-faced people. Kindly hearted and keenly intelligent, they are the right stamp of men to found a noble nation.

The Clutha country is prettily diversified and more wooded than the long ranges of dun hills and undulating slopes we have been passing hitherto. The Clutha River is a broad stream,