Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/38

 all northern New Zealand scenery as gum-trees are of Australia, or heather of the Scottish Highlands. The perpetual unbroken stretch of dun brown or green fern soon grows very monotonous. In all the swamps, flax and green sedge (the raupo of the natives) form an agreeable contrast to the eternal ferns.

In places, black tracts show where the fern has been burned down, and in many a distant valley and on the flanks of all the hills we see the smoke of fires, where the annual autumn burning is even now being proceeded with. The cattle are fat and sleek. The sheep, compared with the ordinary Australian "muttons," look gigantic. At one village we see a rustic mill, with its water-wheel busily revolving, and the water splashing from its glistening blades. It is the first water-mill we have seen for years. Clear water and foaming rivulets, plashing over black rocks; still brooks, gleaming from a sedgy margin; or small still lakes, glistening like jewels in some emerald setting, all testify to the fact that here Nature is kinder than with us in drought-haunted Australia.

At Mercer, which is a tidy compact village with wide streets, we stop for lunch, and see our first batch of Maoris, dressed in gaudy prints and blankets. Every woman has a child a-straddle on her back, and a short black pipe in her mouth. The men look awkward, shambling, and out of place in their ill-fitting European garments.

Here, the strong Waikato flows with a peaceful, sluggish-looking current. Deceptive enough this,