Page:Through South Westland.djvu/67

Rh down before it in tons of red clay and rock. We saw the muddy water flow back from the cliff face into channels paved with wood, where it leaves its silt from which the gold is taken; heard how this, later, is melted into rude bricks to be sent away; and the man who explained it to us told us that they were at present taking out £4,000 a month. I think those bricks must be just like the talents of gold of King Solomon. The roar and noise were deafening; and they told us, were the man who seemed with such ease to direct the nozzle of the hose to get in front, he would be dashed against the cliff like a straw in the wind. Round the bend of the hill almost all trace of man and his works ceased, and we rode along the fringe of the bush some distance inland, with the sea on our right hand, through ever-changing scenes. Now it was across a wide river-bed, through blue streams breast-deep; now down a leafy tunnel where the great trees met, and all beneath, save for that lonely road, was a tangle of creepers, lianes, and ferns. The sunlight lay in bright patches among the tracery of mauve shadows on the road; or at times the shade was too dense for sun to penetrate. Vistas opened of far-rolling hills and purple gorges, clothed everywhere with unbroken forest—no impression had been made by the few small clearings along the coast on that great solitude. We saw ahead of us a house, the Waitaha, with name and sign, all alone in a clearing by the roadside; beyond it the road led