Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/269

Rh stolen, "the larrikins took it"; if windows or park seats are broken, "the larrikins did it." On Flagstaff Hill one can see the whole of Dunedin, excepting small parts hidden by bush and brows of hills. From its summit, in a wilderness of tussocks and black boulders, the eye beholds beauty and grandeur. The visitor to Dunedin should not fail to climb Flagstaff's top, but as he goes, let him beware of Ben Rudd. The top of the hill is neutral territory, but not entirely so are its slopes. On New Zealand railways it is "Look out for the engine"; on Flagstaff Hill, when I reached its foot, it was "Look out for Ben Rudd." Externally, Ben Rudd, judging by an account of him I received, is a sort of miscellaneous man, like Hawthorne's Uncle Venner, but without that patriarch's geniality. I first heard of him when I stopped at a farmhouse to inquire the way to Flagstaff's summit. "There are several ways," said the pleasant, chatty woman who answered my knock. "But look out for old Ben Rudd."

"Who is Ben Rudd?" I asked.

"Oh! have you never heard of Ben Rudd?" cried she, throwing up her hands in amazement. "He is a hermit living at the foot of Flagstaff Hill. If you try to get through his rabbit-proof fence, he will shoot you. If you meet a small, crouching old man with a little black beard and fingers interlocked under his chin, and who says to you, 'Mister, what may you be wanting