Page:Through South Westland.djvu/44

10 words, they’re for Jackson’s and the missus is away’; and I’ve just brought along a chicken and things: I’ll do for you to-night.”

Here was a good Samaritan in very deed. Thus everything being comfortably settled, we strolled off to the river that had been calling to us all the morning. There was an ideal bathing-place in a deep backwater, where the rock ledges lay hot in the sunshine. When we returned, a most appetizing meal was ready spread for us on a clean table-cloth; and our kind friend did not seem even to thinly she had done anything out of the way. Leaving all ready for breakfast, she bundled into her cart, and drove away with a cheery “good-night,” pursued by our grateful thanks.

Next day was, if possible, even more beautiful. At times the country was less wooded, and views of blue ranges opened across the river; while on our left the spurs of the mountains were clothed with the crimson-flowered rata. The tree-tops were a scarlet glory—not an isolated tree here and there, but splashed over red as by a giant’s brush. There are seven or more varieties of this myrtle to be found in New Zealand; and although at first sight I was puzzled by the ratas, yet once the idea is put in one’s head that it actually belongs to the myrtle family, the resemblance is striking enough. This was the common Metrosideros lucida, a tree of exceedingly hard wood, growing to sixty feet or more. The petals are insignificant, but the