Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/56

 This district has not yet "been through the land court," as is the phraseology of our informant. The precise ownership is not yet finally determined. And so, as there is no safe title procurable, there is no tenancy. This explains what I had been remarking, namely, the absence of flock or herd or house or tilled field. And yet, there is grand pasturage among these hollows. The briar is fast becoming a dangerous pest here, as in parts of Australia. The Maoris are too lazy to milk cows, so they do not keep them. The whole district, so far as being made productive goes, is a sad wilderness—a regrettable waste. It is Good Friday, and yet here is a road-maintenance man, hard at work, with his shovel and pick and barrow.

"What, Jim? workin' on Sunday?" says Joe, our driver.

"Oh, if I wasn't workin', some blasted cove, wot wants my billet, 'ud be makin' remarks. They can't say much if I keeps at it. 'Sides there ain't much to do here if I was idle, 'cept it might be to get drunk."

With which philosophical summing-up the old fellow shovelled away again. What a grim satire on the resources of modern civilization, and the brotherly love of the 'orny 'anded to each other!

Now we enter the cool green bush, with its pleasant shade, its humid smell, and all the lovely profusion of its ever-changing forms of vegetable beauty. Who could ever tire of the glorious bush