Page:Through South Westland.djvu/131

Rh Williams’s pleasant farmstead. Beautiful grasslands cleared of bush, and tenanted by sleek Herefords; enclosures with gates, and fine horses knee-deep in lush grass, gave an air of prosperity. Yet, sixteen years before, this was virgin forest. There were seventy calves in a big paddock near the house—for this was, perhaps, the best cattle-farm on the Coast. The owner came to meet us, and he and his wife gave us the usual hearty welcome, and the children soon made friends. There being seven, a beneficent Government regards them as a school and allows a teacher, and a wooden shed erected in the yard represented the school-buildings. However, it was holiday time just then. My hostess was kindness itself. She often made me laugh, telling me of the shifts she was put to in this outlying corner. Some time back she had sent to Hokitika for a new outfit of glass and china. Two pack-horses carried the crates by the very road we had come, and all went well apparently till close to home, when the horses crowded each other in their haste—the packs collided, and to the dismay of the waiting mistress, when the crates were opened her wares “All ran out on the ground like water,” as she described it, and since then there had been no opportunity to get more.

That same afternoon my whistling gentleman offered to conduct us to the glacier. He armed himself with a hatchet, borrowed a horse, and we set out. F