Page:Through South Westland.djvu/175

Rh nineteen, its maximum. This man, who had travelled all the world over, was content to till this small corner, cut off from all the world. I thought I should like to teach school in Okuru!

Then we put our saddles in the boat, the two horses followed willingly, and swam behind us to the opposite shore. Near where we landed was a large house—once the hotel. Some beautiful dark-haired children were playing about—one, nursing a very brown baby, might have been a southern French child, and indeed I found they were descended from a French settler. She led me up to the house, chatting all the way, as the West Coast children do: telling me of her six sisters and two brothers (the boys who had rowed us over). Here we had some lunch and then walked to the house of another settler, whom we had already met. He had sent a letter by us to his wife, but it did not need that to ensure us a welcome from Mrs. Powell.

It was washing day, and the lady stood surrounded by kerosene tins, each one boiling on its own little fire; she received us stir-stick in hand, and pressed us to come in—if only for a cup of tea. She also pressed us to come back, and indeed I should have loved to stay there. But time was flying; we had still one more visit to pay—to the oldest settler in the district, Mr. Nolan. We heard he lived a mile up the river, but it was a very long mile, and the heat was very great. For the first part of the way we were H2