Page:Through South Westland.djvu/74

28 crossing many small rivers. The heat in this wide country was very great, and we were thankful to see an arcade of shady trees ahead. Their boles were literally stuck over with big black and grey crickets, whose myriad voices filled the air—so loud they almost prevented talk! Then we came to a hut, and a notice that one might, in an emergency, summon the ferryman by telephone. A little further the wide river-bed spread out in a fan-shaped desert of boulders and shingle, dead trees, and islands of grass and scrub. We could see the ferryman coming across to meet us, and we waited for him. He reported the river as fordable, and another wayfarer catching us up, we three entered it in single file. The Wataroa was decidedly the swiftest and deepest river we had crossed, but the horses came through bravely, without having to swim—although at one time it seemed like it. The accommodation-house was half-a-mile further on—the old one by the river having been carried away in a flood. This present one was really the barn and stables, and every inch of room was occupied by the party of thirteen who were cutting timber for the new bridge. We could vouch for it, it was not the only place which stood badly in need of one! The ferryman came with us to the house. He was a German, very powerfully built; and we heard he has saved many lives in the Wataroa—even when washed down with a drunken man, he could keep his head and bring his helpless charge out alive—no mean feat.