Among the friends of colonists at home in Britain, among those who talk most and know least of this land of the blest, I specify three classes. First, there are the people who talk of "roughing it" with an air of rapturous enjoyment, and a Micawber-like roll of the voice, as if that were really something good, something both pleasant and praiseworthy in itself. Again, there are those who shudder at the bare idea, and who conceive it, perhaps, to be a good deal worse than it really is. Lastly, there are some who are quite vacuous in the matter, either because the term conveys no meaning to their minds, or because Nature has made them indifferent to personal comfort and discomfort.

Now, in the first place, roughing it is not a nice process. There is nothing at all delightful or charming about it. Plainly, it is suffering. Suffering of numberless discomforts and privations, slight in themselves as a rule, though not invariably so, but certainly a serious matter in the aggregate. Nor is there anything grand or glorious in the prospect of roughing it. Merely in itself it does not add to a man's good in any particular way. It has to be got through in order that certain ends may be achieved. That is about the sum of it.

On the other hand, there is nothing to daunt healthy young fellows in the prospect of roughing it. Only those who are delicate, or who are of sensitive nature, need turn back from the possibility of it. And it must be remembered that, to succeed eventually in any path of life whatsoever, some sort of hardship, toil, and self-sacrifice must be undergone.

Of course, you cannot carry the drawing-room with you into the bush. That side of life, with much of the refinement belonging to it, is swept completely out of your reach. And what is of more importance still, your existence is apt to grow somewhat unintellectual. Yet these are matters that are already remedying themselves. As comfort and competence are gradually achieved, and as society becomes large, so do the higher results of civilization follow. And as pioneering progresses into the more advanced stages of improvement, so do the opportunities and possibilities for mental work and culture become more generally and readily appreciable.

To us, when we first came out from England, the life here seemed utterly delightful, because it was so fresh and novel. We were quite captivated with it. Our existence was a perpetual holiday and picnic, to which the various difficulties and discomforts that cropped up only seemed to add more zest. But we soon got over that. We soon began to find that it did not rain rosewater here. A rude picnic prolonged day after day, year after year, soon lost its enchantment, and merged into something very like suffering. We began to yearn after those flesh-pots of Egypt which we had left behind us; and there were times when we have regretted that we ever emigrated at all.

Now we have settled down to a calm and placid contentment with our lot. We begin to see what results are possible to us, and there are signs that our chrysalis condition is finite after all, and that some reward for our toil will be ours ere long. The days of our worst poverty and difficulty lie behind us, and better things are in store.

We have been thankful for one thing. Our society in this district is limited; but it comprises persons of some small amount of cultivation and intelligence. We appreciate this at its fullest, for most of us have, at one time or other, had to work in other parts of the colony, where our only associates were of the rudest and dullest mental organization. We are kindred spirits, and are happy in our way, making light of difficulties, laughing at hardships and privations, and mocking at poverty and toil. By this means we believe that we enjoy to the utmost all the good that there is in this life of ours, and that we measurably lessen the struggles and troubles that have to be gone through.

And now to revert more particularly to our home life in the shanty.

The insect world is a great feature in Northern New Zealand, both as to variety, which is extensive, and as to quantity, which is illimitable. Within our shanty there are certain species which make themselves felt, smelt, or otherwise apparent to our annoyance, without taking into consideration the hosts that, as far as we are concerned, are innocuous.

St. Patrick is reported to have driven all the snakes out of Ireland; and, according to O'Gaygun, he afterwards journeyed over here, and performed the same service in these islands. The deed was done, says my informant, in order that this Canaan of the South Sea might be made ready for descendants of Hibernian kings, when the proper time should come; and that time, he continues, was when loyal and true sons of Erin should be seeking afar for a home, where the Land League would cease from troubling; and the landlord be at rest!

Well, we have no snakes, thanks to St. Patrick, but if that gentleman had only continued and completed his work, so far as to have excluded certain insect pests as well, we could have felt more beholden to him. We have them both out of doors and indoors, but it is with the invaders of our sanctuary that I have at present to deal.

First, there is the mosquito. We have them here of all sorts and sizes. Sometimes they come by twos and threes, and sometimes they come in swarms. They are a deadly nuisance anyway, and a most obnoxious addition to the inhabitants of our shanty. The peculiar delight of a mosquito is to arrive just at the moment when you are falling off to sleep, properly fatigued with your day's work. You hear a long, threatening boom, which finally ends with a sharp jerk, like buzz-z-z-z-z-z-zup. Then you wait in anxious expectancy for what you well know will come next. It does come, a sharp prick on some part where you least expected it. You slap angrily at the place, and hurt yourself, but not the mosquito. O no! he is gone before you can satisfy your just vengeance, and he leaves a mark of his visit that will worry you for days after.

Wise people envelope themselves in gauze mosquito-bars, but we are not wise, and we do not. Conceive the fury of O'Gaygun at such an innovation, such pampering, effeminacy, luxury! Who would venture to introduce a mosquito-bar into a community of which he is member? What might not be expected from this most conservative of pioneers? Even Old Colonial says it is better that we should "harden ourselves to it." But occasionally, in the stilly watches of the night, I hear a hasty remark from his corner of the shanty, which leads me to believe that, with all the years of his mosquito experience, he is not wholly hardened yet.

Then there is the sandfly, another enemy of our peace. This creature is not so bad as the first, though. It is true his sting is sharp, and always draws a drop of blood, but there is no after irritation. Sometimes, when sandflies abound about us, we make them contribute to our amusement in moments of leisure. Bets are made, or a pool is formed, and we stretch out our closed fists together and wait. By-and-by a sandfly settles on the back of some one's hand, and proceeds to browse. Once his proboscis is buried in the skin, the hand is opened, and he is caught, for he cannot withdraw his weapon from the now contracted skin. Then the capturer pockets the stakes, and executes the bloodsucker. Such is one of our simple pastimes.

Another insect foe of ours is one not wholly unknown in other parts of the world. It is the nimble flea. St. Patrick is not to blame for leaving this reptile here. He is not indigenous. He was unknown to the Maoris until the coming of the Pakeha; but he has naturalized himself most thoroughly now. The "little stranger," as the natives playfully term him, is to be found in abundance in every Maori wharÈ. Excluded with the greatest difficulty from the best appointed houses in the colony, in the humbler residences of the bush, and in our shanty, for example, his name is Legion. Why this should be so, we have never troubled our heads to inquire; we simply accept the fact as it is. Possibly our floor, that, in spite of a daily brooming and a weekly sluicing, is ever well carpeted with dust and mud, is one source of these pests. And, now I think of it, there is a nightly scuffling underneath the boards, which leads to the conclusion that pigs, dogs, and fowls, are harbouring among the piles beneath.

Every night, before turning in, we are accustomed to shake whole regiments of fleas out of our blankets. Not infrequently we sprinkle the blankets with kerosene oil; and, sometimes, in hot weather find it necessary to anoint our bodies all over with the same thing. That keeps off the crawling plagues until we have time to get to sleep, and then we do not care for them. But I think we really have got hardened to the fleas. We feel the annoyance of them but little now.

One of the chums, a harmless, peaceable fellow yclept "The Fiend"—I know not for what particular reason—has lately invented a new game for our evening's diversion. He calls it flea-loo. After supper it is our usual custom to sit on the edge of the floor, where it abuts upon the fireplace. That part of our domicile, it will be remembered, is paved with a sort of gravel of loose stones, and, sooth to say, with a good deal of dÉbris of every sort and kind. The stove stands in the middle. As we sit there, the sensations in our legs remind us that fleas like warmth too, and that the gravelly bottom of the chimney-place is a favourite assembly-room of theirs. But they are of aspiring nature, and this fact was known to the Fiend. Under his advice, each man plants a stick upright in the gravel before him. Then we make a pool and await the result. The fleas soon come out, and begin to crawl up the sticks; and, by-and-by, some individual of the race reaches the top of the stick. The owner of that stick takes the pool. Here is another gentle and Arcadian sport.

And now, with considerable trepidation, and with something verging upon veritable awe, I approach a subject that I feel myself scarcely competent to handle. Fraught with the deepest interest to every new-chum, and a matter of no light concern to even the oldest colonist, it is one that demands an abler and more facile pen than mine to do full justice to it. Some one has boldly asserted that, throughout the infinite treasure-house of Nature, every separate and single thing has its particular and well-defined purpose. Without attempting to dispute a proposition so emphatically and dogmatically brought forward, it will be sufficient for me to say that men have asked in shuddering horror, and must still continue to ask, what part in the economy of creation is the sphere of duty or usefulness of that malignant thing we call the KAURI-BUG.[5]

We do not know whether this insect is known to naturalists or not. That is a slight matter, and not particularly pertinent to the question of its interest for us. We believe, however, that no naturalist has yet been found of sufficiently ardent temperament, and of sufficiently hardy nerves, to attempt to classify or examine this most infamous of bugs.

Appearances are deceptive very often; they are so in this instance. Nothing could look more innocent and inoffensive than the kauri-bug, yet few insects rival it in crime. It is an oval shape, anything under and up to the size of a crown piece. It is flat, black, hard, and shiny, and resembles a cross between the English black-beetle and the woodlouse or slater. It stinks. That is all it does, but it is enough. Look at it, and it is harmless enough. But tread on it, touch it, disturb it never so slightly, and instantly the whole surrounding atmosphere is permeated with a stench more infernally and awfully horrible than anything else this side of the Styx!

The kauri-bug inhabits dead-wood of various kinds, but chiefly does it love that of the tree from which it derives its name. It invades houses built with open joints like ours in regiments and battalions, bringing all its family and luggage with it. The best class of houses are here built in a fashion styled bug-proof, but even they cannot wholly exclude this fearful thing. It comes in hidden in the firewood, and once in the house it stops there, since no one is courageous enough to turn it out. It appears to be indifferent as to whether the house is new or old, well-built or ruinous. If the structure is of kauri timber the kauri-bug will be there, and it will put up with any other wood if kauri timber is not available. It is one of the peculiar products indigenous to Northern New Zealand, and it is the least attractive of all.

Dandy Jack, who has been in North America, is my authority for stating that the celebrated odour of the skunk is mild and refreshing, compared to the unutterable loathsomeness of that of the kauri-bug. I can well believe it. How well I remember one of my first nights in the bush! It appears that one of these diabolical insects had got into my blankets. I rolled over and crushed it in my sleep. Inured as I had been by circumstances to bad smells, this conquered me. I awoke perspiring from a frightful nightmare. I rushed from my bed, from the room, from the house, to escape the hideous effluvium; and—well, darkness veiled the rest!

Nature has in this insect achieved the very acme and culmination of repulsive villainy. Fortunately she has mitigated it in two ways. The stench is volatile and soon disappears; while settler's noses get used to it in a measure. Were it not for these merciful provisions, colonization in this land would be an utter impossibility for people who had olfactory nerves at all. The kauri-bug would have driven us back to England long ago.

As an instance of an earnest but mistaken striving after the true colonial fertility of invention and readiness of resource, I put on record the following. The Fiend once evolved from the obscurest depths of his inner consciousness a truly fearful and alarming plan. In this gentleman's somewhat feeble intellect there floats a sort of hazy reverence for a mysterious force denominated by him "kimustry." And to this occult power he appears to ascribe a magical potency, that recalls memories of the "Arabian Nights."

We conclude that, at some time or other, the Fiend had been told, or had read, that a certain delightful perfume, eau de millefleurs I think it is called, was derived by chemical agency from sewage, or some equally malodorous matter. He appears to have formed the idea that any disgusting stink could be turned, by "kimustry," into a delicious perfume; and, further, that the more horrible the original stink might be, the more ravishingly delightful would be the perfume to be derived from it.

One night, when the parliament of our shanty was assembled in full conclave, the Fiend enunciated his views. Seriously and circumstantially he put forward his proposition. This was that we were to form ourselves into a joint-stock company; that we were to cultivate and make collections of kauri-bugs; that we were to find a "kimust" who could "do the trick," and employ him; and that we were to introduce to the world, and grow rich by, the sale of a sort of celestialized essence of kauri-bugs. In proof of good faith, the Fiend produced a box full of kauri-bugs that he had collected for experiment, and handed them among the midst of us.

Conceive our horror and consternation at this unnatural and appalling proposal. Springing instantly to his feet, O'Gaygun demanded that the Fiend be forthwith taken out and hung from the nearest tree. But the Fiend saved his life by immediately withdrawing his proposition and his bugs, humbly suing for mercy. It was then thought that our duty to humanity would necessitate our sending the unhappy Fiend for incarceration in the Whau Lunatic Asylum, where they were in want of "subjects," as Old Colonial significantly remarked. That point is still under debate. Meanwhile, the Fiend still lives, but is kept under strict surveillance.

There is another of our insect enemies which must have special mention, and that is the Maori blow-fly. We have flies of many sorts, house-flies and blue-bottles among them. The latter, the blue-bottles, get very big, and have an increased propensity for multiplying themselves, and that in their usual unpleasant manner. But over all the blue-bottles' old-fashioned systems the Maori blow-fly soars supreme. It is a colonizer with a vengeance. It does not go to the trouble of laying eggs or nits; it carries its family about ready hatched. The blow-fly is always ready, at a moment's notice, to deposit an incredible number of lively, hungry maggots upon any desirable surface.

The difficulty of keeping fresh or cooked meat, and various other provisions, will be readily appreciated. The blow-fly will cause its disagreeable offspring to take part in every meal. Maggots are showered down on your very plate. A string of them may be deposited on the mouthful on your fork. The blow-fly is not particular. If you have a wound, cover it up, or the maggots will speedily be in it. The eyes of cattle and sheep are often full of them. If blankets or clothes are hung up to air in the sun, they will soon be white with living organisms; though, for want of moisture, they cannot live more than a few minutes in such a situation, luckily. There is little or nothing we can do against these foes. We get used to them, and try to forget their existence. We keep them out where possible. We salt our food, which they do not like. But we are unable to keep them down, or fight with them. Even argument with a blow-fly is inadmissible.

We have spiders as big as walnuts, with great hairy legs two or three inches long. We would rather encourage them, as they help to keep down the flies, and they do no harm, though not pretty to look at. There is said to be a poisonous spider in the country, but no one in the North seems to know anything about it. We regard it as a myth. Other insects we have in profusion, but none that affect us like those I have specially spoken of.

After all, we have no great cause for complaint. Some trivial annoyance is the worst we have to suffer in this way. We have no scorpions, snakes, poisonous centipedes, or any other vile thing of that sort. I have told the worst of our indoor plagues. Rats and mice we have, of course, as they swarm in the bush; but our dogs, and a cat or two, keep the shanty fairly clear of them.

Our commissariat is plentiful and varied enough. With slight exception we are our own providers, living almost entirely on our own produce, as farmers should. Sometimes the pressure of work leads to carelessness in catering and cooking, and we are consequently reduced to short commons, for which there is no sort of need. In the worst times of poverty we should not starve. The river is always full of fish; and things must be more than bad if one could not get credit for a sack of flour or potatoes with the Mayor, or with some other storekeeper on the rivers. And, after the first year, the garden ought to produce enough vegetables, potatoes, kumera, taro, pumpkins, and maize, to keep the family going, even if everything else failed them.

Pig-meat, in its various forms, is our staple article of food. We breed and fatten a large number of pigs on the clearings round the shanty. These we butcher in batches of six or eight, as required, and turn into salt pork, bacon, and ham. We have occasionally sent a cask or two of pork, some flitches or hams, to market; but as a rule we consume our pigs on the farm. Pig-meat is most reliable as a staple. One does not tire of it so utterly as one does of either mutton or beef, if one of these be the invariable daily food.

Beef we rarely see in our shanty. The steers we breed are too valuable to be used by ourselves; they have to go to market. Only occasionally we find it necessary to slaughter some unmanageable rusher, a cow, or bullock, and then we have beef, fresh and salted down. Mutton was just as scarce for several years, as we could not afford to kill out of our small flock; and mutton is not good to salt down. Now, we kill a sheep every week, sometimes a couple, as the township will take the surplus meat, and so it pays us.

We keep a great number of turkeys on the clearings, as also a less number of ducks and poultry, to diminish the crickets, caterpillars, and other insect foes. These birds are now practically wild, and give us something like sport to shoot them. There are hundreds of turkeys, as they thrive amazingly, consequently we often have them at table. Eggs, too, are plentiful enough, whenever any one takes the trouble to hunt up some nests.

As to wild game of any sort, we get little enough of that; for we cannot spare time to go after it. Sometimes we may shoot some of the splendid wild pigeons, some kakas, parrots, tuis, wild duck, teal, or the acclimatized pheasants. Wild pig is nauseous eating, so that is not sought after.

Every now and then we go in for fish. There are schnapper, rock-cod, mullet, mackerel, and herring, or species that answer to those, to be had for very little trouble. There are also soles, which we catch on the mud-banks and shallows at night, wading by torchlight, and spearing the dazzled fish as they lie. When we make a great haul we salt, dry, or smoke the capture for lasting use. The endless oyster-beds, and other shell-fish, we rarely touch, they are not worth the time and trouble, we consider.

Tea is the invariable beverage at every meal, and almost the only one, too. Milk is generally available in our shanty as a substitute, but somehow we stick to the tea. We drink quarts and quarts of it every day, boiling hot, and not too weak. Throughout New Zealand and all the Australian colonies this excessive tea-drinking is the universal practice. Even the aboriginal races have taken to it just as kindly. It is such a good thirst-quencher, every one says, so cooling in warm weather, and so warming in cold seasons.

We had an earnest medico on a visit to us lately. He inveighs strongly against tea-drinking, which he says is the curse of these countries. I think he would preach a crusade against it if he dared; for, of course, he would have to join issue with Good Templars, Sons of Temperance, and all the fanatical anti-alcoholists. These zealous reformers are so blindly infatuated with their hatred for alcohol, that tea seems to them its natural antithesis, and they vaunt it as if it were a celestial boon. And such people are a political power out here—worse luck!

The doctor declares—"Tea-drinking is one of the most serious mistakes of our age and race in these new countries. It produces, first of all, a low form of chronic dyspepsia, whose effect is immediately perceived in early decay of the teeth. It often seriously affects the great organs—the liver, kidneys, stomach, and heart—predisposing them to derangement, and aiding the progress of organic mischief in them, should that arise from other causes. It affects the nerves, causing irritability and debility in them. Nervous power becomes impaired, reacting with evil effect upon the ganglionic centres and the brain. Hence the mind must become insidiously affected also. I am quite sure that the character of our colonists is being modified by their practice of excessive tea-drinking, and I cannot believe that the change will be for the better. I believe that we may trace to tea, gloominess, misanthropy, loss of cheerfulness, a restless energy without fixity of purpose, a sour temper, a morbid and abnormal simplicity, leading to intellectual retrogression instead of progress, and to a tendency to yield to superstitious fancies, with loss of control over reason and its advancement. What will be the future of these young tea-drowned nations?"

Fortunately, we only understood a fraction of this tirade, yet we trembled and shivered ever afterwards as we drank our tea. Then the doctor showed us how to make sugar-beer, treacle-beer, cabbage-tree-root-beer, honey-beer, peach-cider, corn-cider, and various other drinks of a more or less unlicensed kind. So now we have usually something else to quaff besides tea. Peaches we have in any quantity; and the cider they make is capital stuff. Honey abounds in every hollow tree; and the mead or metheglin we compound is a fine drink.

Flour and meal we have to buy. By-and-by there will be a flour-mill at the township, for already some of the more forward settlers near are growing wheat. Maize we do not use ourselves, except as a green vegetable. Some people grind it and use the meal for cakes, but we principally turn it into pig-meat or fowl-flesh.

Our garden department, though not always so well managed as it might be, yet adds largely to our food supply. The principal crops are potatoes, kumera (sweet potatoes), and pumpkins; good substantial food that will keep, and, should we have a surplus, will sell. We don't bother with green vegetables; they don't pay, we think, and boiled green maize-cobs suffice us for that class of thing. But, in such seasons as it has occurred to any one to go in for more extensive gardening, we rejoice in a profusion of carrots, turnips, parsnips, onions, taro, beet-root, and sundry other things.

Fruit can hardly be looked on as a food; it is merely an ornamental accessory to it, in our opinion. We are great fruit-consumers, but we look on such trifles as only refreshers for odd moments, and not as having anything to do with the serious business of eating. We have pretty well all the fruits that are seen in English gardens, and besides them we have quantities of various sorts of melons and peaches, also specimens of oranges, lemons, shaddocks, grapes, loquats, quinces, pomegranates, guavas, Cape gooseberries, figs, almonds, and some others. We have even bananas, which are a success in most seasons. The marvellous profusion and richness of our fruit-crops, leads to the belief that industries connected with fruit-growing will eventually be found to succeed best in the North.

Of course, long practice in cooking has made us tolerably proficient in the simpler processes of the art. Several of us are very fair all-round cooks, but Old Colonial is supreme in this, as in most things. He is a veritable Soyer of the bush. When he chooses to exert his skill he can turn out the most wonderful dishes. Where he learnt, and how he learnt, no one can tell; but he seems to be a perfect master of cookery in every shape and form.

In spite of the peculiarities of our table-service, we fare sumptuously often enough, much more so than many people who would disdain to feed without linen and dishes and plates, forks, spoons, and other things that we hold in slight regard. Old Colonial's name has gone abroad through the country. When any one of our neighbours goes in for the luxury of a wife, Old Colonial is not infrequently called in to educate her in culinary matters. He is a past master in endless wrinkles, dodges, makeshifts, and substitutes of all sorts; and has, besides, an unbounded faculty of invention that is highly satisfactory to our little commonwealth.

One hot and blazing Christmas-tide we invited all the married people, who lived within anything like reasonable distance, to visit our shanty—Bachelor's Hall, as the ladies termed it. Such an entirely novel and unusual event as the visit of some of the gentler sex to our shanty was an occasion of no light moment. Old Colonial determined to banquet our visitors in the superbest possible style, and vast preparations were at once undertaken.

Two days before the expected arrival, all hands set to work in the arduous and unavailing endeavour to render the shanty approximately clean and respectable. Such a turn out as that was! Such an unlooked for bringing to light of things that must be nameless! We broomed and we scrubbed, we washed and we sluiced, we even tinkered and mended, we cleaned and we swore, and made our lives temporarily miserable; and yet, with all this, how grimy, and dirty, and mean, and wretched, that shanty of ours would continue to look!

Never had our household property been subjected to such a cleaning up as that was. Gradually some order was introduced into the chaos, and at last we began to think we should convey a favourable impression after all. But our chief concern was in the matter of table equipage.

One of us was sent over to the township, with orders to beg, borrow, or steal, all the crockery and table-cutlery in the place. Another was dispatched on horseback through the bush somewhere else, and on the same errand, that something like proper table furniture might grace the feast. Then our wardrobe underwent inspection. Some one had to go over to the township and buy new shirts for all of us, with several pairs of trousers, and other things. O'Gaygun stormed and wept at this outrage; but our boss was firm for the proprieties, as he estimated them. The worst of it was, we had to contemplate frightful expenditure. And more, it was humiliating that our previous condition should be made known to the Mayor, who, with his wife, were to be among our guests. But, what matter? The Mayor is a good fellow, and a friend; and what can be too great a sacrifice to make for England, Home, and Beauty!—especially the last.

We all had our tasks. There was the path between the shanty and the landing-place to be put in proper condition; various muddy places in it to be covered with fascines; a certain watercourse we were in the habit of jumping to be newly-bridged, and so forth. Then there was the catering. Two of us were out with guns, shooting turkeys, pheasants, pigeons, fowls, and anything else that was eatable. Others were butchering the fairest and fattest pig in our drove, and doing the same by a lamb. Two were out on the river diligently fishing, or collecting oysters and cockles. Some, too, were employed in the garden, picking fruit, gathering vegetables, and so forth, and so on.

All day and all night the stove was redhot, while a supplementary fire blazed outside the shanty. Between them oscillated Old Colonial, pipe in mouth, hirsute and unkempt, grim, grimy, and naked to the waist. His two aids, the Saint and the Fiend, had a bad time of it. They were his scullions, marmitons, turnspits, or whatever you like to call it. They had to keep up the supplies of firewood, to prepare the fowls and fish, and generally to do all the dirty work; and the way that Old Colonial "bossed" them round was an edifying sight to see.

The preparations were stupendous. Victuals enough had been laid in to feed a regiment, and the variety of them was endless. But Old Colonial, once having given way to the mania of extravagance, was determined to lay under contribution every conceivable thing, and to turn out more dishes than even an American palace hotel would put on its bill of fare.

Finally, it was discovered that the shanty was far too small a place for our banquet. So, on the appointed morning we were up at sunrise, and, from then till noon, we laboured at the construction of a bower; while Old Colonial was busy with his hot meats and confections. The bower was an open shed, running all along the shadiest side of the shanty and beyond. It was a rude erection of rough poles, latticed and thatched—Maori fashion—with fern-fronds and flax. Under it was the table, supplemented by another of loose boards on such supports as we could fabricate; and round it planks resting on kegs and boxes made sufficient seats.

Hardly were our preparations finished when the first boat was descried, coming through the mangroves from the river down below, and a parasol was visible in the stern. Then there was a hasty stampede down to the gully to wash; an agonized scuttle into the new shirts; and a hot and anxious assumption of restful calm. And so we welcomed the guests as they came.

What a feast that was, and how it astonished everybody! And such a party as our shanty had never witnessed before! For curiosity brought half a dozen ladies—all there were in the district—and fully a score of masculine friends honoured our establishment with their presence.

It is not to be supposed, of course, that all our neighbours inhabit rude shanties like ours. Some are further forward, or had more capital at the start; and men do not bring wives into the bush until they can manage to furnish forth a decently comfortable house for them. Our married friends live in respectable comfort. Still, the ladies, living in the bush, get to know its more primitive ways, though they may not experience them themselves. So, our domestic arrangements, though made the occasion for a great deal of banter and fun, were neither unexpected nor novel to our lady visitors. But the banquet that was provided for them made them open their eyes indeed. It was something altogether new to the bush. Such a miracle of catering! such marvellous unheard of cookery! It surpassed anything any one of them had ever seen before, anywhere.

The table was covered with white linen, borrowed at the township, and all the equipage we could muster was displayed upon it. Plates, forks, spoons, and knives, there were in plenty; but we had not been able to collect enough dishes and bowls for the profusion of viands Old Colonial had provided. Some parts of the service were therefore peculiar, and caused much addition to the merriment. There was always such incongruity between the excellence of the comestible and the barbaric quaintness of the receptacle that happened to contain it. Soups in billies, turkeys in milk-pans, salads in gourd-rinds, custards in cow-bells, jellies in sardine-boxes, plum-pudding in a kerosene case, vegetables, fruits, and cakes in kits of plaited flax; anything and everything was utilized that possibly could be.

High enthroned upon a pile of potato sacks, Old Colonial presided over the feast he had created; while, as vice, sat O'Gaygun, his barbaric conservatism laid aside for the nonce in favour of grace and gallantry. What glorious fun we had! What a flow of wit beneath the august influence of ladies' smiles! And we were cool in our ferny bower, out of the strong hot sunshine. And in the intervals of eating and drinking, we could look about us on the splendid perspective of bush and river, across the clearings, where the air shimmered in the heat, where the crickets whistled and hummed, and where the cattle were lazily lying among the stumps. It was a magnificent picnic, so everybody declared. There never was anything to match it in all New Zealand!

I can fancy, that in days to come, when the full tide of civilization has overtaken this fair country, some of those ladies will be sitting in boudoirs and drawing-rooms talking to their children; and they will tell them of the early pioneering days. And one of their best-remembered stories will be that of the Christmas-time, when they were banqueted by Old Colonial and his chums at our shanty in the bush.

To a certain extent we are of musical tastes, and, though our time for practice is limited to an occasional half-hour of an evening, we consider ourselves no mean instrumentalists, and sometimes give public performances, as will appear hereafter. We have two flutes, a clarionet, a cornet, and a French horn, often supplemented by two violins and a concertina. Old Colonial does not play, neither does O'Gaygun. They fiercely decline to add to what they term the beastly uproar.

If we have a failing, it is to be found in an inability to hang together in our play, and an incapacity for comprehending the said fact. Set either instrumentalist by himself, and he will manage to stumble through a tune; but put the whole orchestra together, and the result usually falls short of what should be harmony. The hornist is our feeblest musician. He has not yet succeeded in eliciting more than two notes and a half out of his instrument, and these he lets off in spasmodic puffs, governed by a curious notion of the proper places for them to fit into the general performance. The flutes are a little unsteady and unreliable; the clarionet always squeaks in pathetic parts; and the cornet imagines that loudness is the chief thing to be desired.

There was a newly-married couple recently established a few miles away up the river. Of course, they were received in the district with great acclamation, when they first came up here, after being tied up in Auckland. Bonfires blazed on the ranges, guns were fired, and a procession of boats escorted theirs home. As a strictly bachelor community, we felt some hesitation about going to call and congratulate the couple. This was owing to our own shyness and uncouthness, you understand, not to any disfavour with which we looked upon matrimony as an abstract thing. For we were previously unacquainted with the bride. However, some demon prompted us to give them a midnight serenade.

By dint of tremendous practice, we had mastered, as we thought, those three famous melodies, "Home, Sweet Home," "Juanita," and "God Save the Queen." The orchestra was equal to them, anyhow, we considered. Neither of our two unmusical associates cared to be left out of the proposed excursion, so a drum was manufactured for Old Colonial, by stretching a sheepskin over the open ends of a cask; O'Gaygun was found incompetent to play on any other instrument but the ancient comb and piece of paper of his happy youth. Then we started, rowing up the river, and anchoring silently off the beach opposite our victim's residence, one night soon after their arrival.

The moon was at the full, throwing sombre shadows down from the woods upon the gleaming water, and making the splendid scenery of the river mysterious and romantic. The husband and wife were out on their verandah, enjoying the calm beauty of the night, and sentimentalizing, as newly-married couples will.

Suddenly, from the river below them, rises the melancholy and discordant clamour of our performance. Quickly, the voices of the night awake in earnest protest against it. Roosting shags and waterfowl fly screaming away. In the swamp a bittern booms; and strange wailing cries come from the depths of the bush. On the farm dogs bark energetically, cattle bellow, horses neigh, sheep bleat, pigs grunt, ducks quack, and turkeys gobble. Frightful is the din that goes echoing among the woods. And then the outraged bridegroom gets out his gun, and commences rapid file-firing in our direction.

But nothing daunts us, or makes us flinch from our fell purpose. Perspiring from every pore, we labour manfully on to the bitter end. Cornet and clarionet strive for the mastery, the flutes tootle along in the rear, the violins screech and squeal, the horn brays with force and fury, and Old Colonial pounds at his drum as if he were driving piles. Not until the last notes of "God Save the Queen" have been duly murdered do we cease; then, breathless and exhausted, we row down river on our homeward way, rejoicing in the performance of a meritorious deed.