Page:Through South Westland.djvu/48

12 of an old passport. He was gnarled like an oak, and bent with rheumatism. I sat down by our host, for he loved to talk of the golden days of fifty years ago, when he first came from the “Ould Country” to try his fortune in Australia. He sent his wife to fetch a chain he had made in those days to show me. It was made of nuggets, none bigger than a pea, which he had linked together with gold rings. “Surely that is very valuable,” I said. “May be a matter o’ fifteen pounds,” he replied, “but I would not part with it for that and more.”

Beside the house the brawling Taipo river sweeps down from the hills, where they said there was still much gold, could it but be found. Taipo was the embodiment of peace—a place to slumber in, for since the railway was made, fewer and fewer seem to care to spend their time as we were doing: the towns are the attraction for the country dwellers. We left it to its sleep, feeling host, servitor, and inn would soon all be at rest.

As evening drew on we entered a country which has been utterly changed by gold mining. Hills have been torn down, valleys have been made; the whole countryside was a series of scars and furrows on a gigantic scale.

Desolation spread around in blackened tree-stumps and heaps of stones, the mangled remains of what had been once the virgin bush. But it was all still and silent. Rude wooden tramways