Page:Through South Westland.djvu/200

116 growth was no more, and other signs began to show themselves. Instead of cantering over that smooth, green lawn, we had to go very carefully. It was riddled with rabbit-holes. The rabbits were there in hundreds, popping about—grey, yellow, and black, and with them a colony of English starlings.

When we left this fair spot behind us, we entered a narrow gorge, passing near its entrance the second hut—a more miserable and forlorn erection than the Clark, where we had spent the night. Deep in the bottom of the ravine a tumbling torrent roared and plunged. The rock walls in places overhung the path, propped up once or twice by tree-trunks; there was only just room to pass under without dismounting. Our guide left us here to go on ahead to a second camp. The one and only bridge in the pass, thrown across an otherwise impassable torrent, was threatening to give way, and another brother of Ted’s, with five or six men, were felling timber to build a new one. The bridge carried us safely over at the junction of two waterfalls, where it was thrown across between creeper-grown precipices. Here the bush was pine again, and very heavy; big rimus lay about, stripped of their branches, ready to be sawn up and hauled into position. High above, on a rocky ledge, a row of small tents betokened the permanent camp, but the men were far afield, for the suitable trees have to be sought often at a great distance. A little beyond this lies the Divide,