Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/267

Rh and show little desire to improve their condition, though the Government maintains native schools among them at its own expense.

"This district," he continued, "is much more pastoral than agricultural, and we think it is the best part of New Zealand for sheep and cattle. I wish you could be here at the time of our annual fair, so that you could see for yourself what we produce. The show of sheep is excellent, and the merinos, Lincolns, and Cotswolds exhibited cannot be excelled anywhere in the whole colony. Our horses are certainly good, and at the last show there was not an inferior animal in the cattle-pens. One class of eight heifers was so good that the judges commended all that did not take prizes. Then we had ploughs, horse-rakes, grain-sowers, wagons, pleasure carriages, and other things, all made in our own factories, together with jewellery and silver and gold work from New Zealand metals, various manufactured articles, such as farina, starch, glucose, and other products from the growth of our fields.



"And here," said the gentleman, as he took up a curious lump that resembled a dried and shrivelled mushroom, "here is something that will puzzle you."

The youths looked wonderingly at it, and confessed their ignorance as to its character.