Page:Through South Westland.djvu/235



day the hotel handy-man came to tell us there was a buggy we might hire, with collars and traces, for the magnificent sum of five shillings, for as long a period as we liked. We went to look at it forthwith.

Indeed it was a curiosity, quite the earliest type of buggy, and made me think somehow of Alice’s rocking-horse fly, with its small body hung between immense spidery wheels. The paint had long ago become a uniform brownish-red, and bolts and screws were very frail; but it would hold our stores, and the handy-man assured us of its strength and endurance, so we struck the bargain, and promptly christened it the “Berline”—not that our exploring expedition at all resembled the flight from Paris, or this very ancient buggy the brand-new Korff-Berline!

Next thing to be done was to pack on the stores, at which five men, a boy, and several children