tch bag, and devoured its contents.'

It had been carried express from London, first overland to Suez where the
"Elphinstone" awaited, and then by sea to Adelaide. The British
Government, much alarmed as to affairs in New Zealand, borrowed the
"Elphinstone" from the East India Company. In effect, it was adopting the
Suez Canal route, long before the Suez Canal existed. Not often, perhaps,
did the Colonial Office, of the young Oceana period, have such a healthy
attack of nerves. Also, it spoke of Sir George Grey handsomely in these
despatches; which was encouraging.

Noting his career as a whole, you seem to perceive the scales of official
praise and disgrace rising and falling, like a see-saw. Now, he was being
set to the straightening-out of some twist in Oceana, to the healing of a
sore which threatened one of her limbs. Then, when Oceana, in that
quarter, was waxing strong on his regimen, Downing Street, not having
prescribed it all, would trounce him. The calls to South Australia, New
Zealand, and South Africa were in the agreeable key. The other note piped
in the good-byes to South Africa and New Zealand, and in the registered
blue-book phrase 'a dangerous man.' It was the ancient, merry way of
regarding the Colonies; with, in conflict, a masterful Pro-Consul who,
being on the spot, would there administer. Whether the see-saw had him
up, or dropped him down, Sir George kept the good heart, as school-
children do.

The tribute of Lord John Russell was that, in South Australia, he had
given a young Governor as difficult a problem in administration as could
arise. He pronounced the problem to have been solved with a degree of
energy and success, hardly to be expected from any man. In New Zealand,
Lord Stanley gave Sir George difficulties more arduous, duties even more
responsible. The ability they demanded, the sacrifices they involved,
were their best recommendation to one of Sir George's character. 'Before
I mounted my horse again, after reading the despatches,' he recalled his
decision, 'I made up my mind to go to New Zealand. Indeed, I had not two
opinions on the matter from the moment I became acquainted with the wish
of the Colonial Secretary. It was a clear duty lying before me, and that
is ever the light to steer by.'

He sailed for New Zealand in the "Elphinstone," and retained her on war
service there, another of his new departures. 'As far as I know,' he
said, 'no East India Company's ship had previously