Page:Through South Westland.djvu/236

144 assisted. A bag of horse-feed was roped on behind, the saddles on top, and the packages stowed below the seat; and bags and sticks and other goods tucked in somehow, and we mounted on top of all.

By this time most of the inhabitants had come into the hotel yard to see the start. I took the reins, the horses strained at their collars, the Berline groaned, the children whooped, the crowd cheered, and we were off! Once down to the level of the lake, the horses dashed off right merrily: up and down, in and out of ruts and streams, till we gained some higher ground where the road followed the curves of the many bays—each one, it seemed to us, more lovely than the last.

Sometimes a rough pasture sloped to the white beach, its surface starred with white gentians and pink centaurea; sometimes the rocks jutted into the blue water in miniature capes and islets, and beautiful clumps of the giant flax, Phormium tenax, or the tall, pampas-like toe-toe grass with its drooping plumes, lined the shore. A little farther a group of manuka scented all the air with its long sprays of white flowers, growing beside tree-veronicas in full bloom. We passed little homesteads nestling among familiar English poplars and fir trees—beloved of the settlers for their rapid growth—with gay gardens full of the old familiar flowers, asters and sweet peas and stocks. And beyond these we drove along a cutting in the face of a cliff, where we looked over into twenty