ns. In 1864 a
few tents were pitched on the place; in 1865 one of the largest towns
in New Zealand was to be seen. Wood and canvas were the building
materials--the wood unseasoned pine, smelling fresh and resinous at
first, anon shrinking, warping, and entailing cracked walls, creaking
doors, and rattling window-sashes. Every second building was a
grog-shanty, where liquor, more or less fiery, was retailed at a
shilling a glass, and the traveller might hire a blanket and a soft
plank on the floor for three shillings a night. Under a rainfall of
more than 100 inches a year, tracks became sloughs before they could
be turned into streets and roads. All the rivers on the coast
were bar-bound. Food and supplies came by sea, and many were the
coasting-craft which broke their backs crossing the bars, or which
ended their working-life on shoals. Yet when hundreds of adventurers
were willing to pay L5 apiece for the twelve hours' passage from
Nelson, high rates of insurance did not deter ship-owners. River
floods joined the surf in making difficulties. Eligible town sections
bought at speculative prices were sometimes washed out to sea, and a
river now runs over the first site of the prosperous town of Westport.

It was striking to note how quickly things settled down into a very
tolerable kind of rough order. Among the diggers themselves there was
little crime or even violence. It is true that a Greymouth storekeeper
when asked "How's trade?" concisely pictured a temporary stagnation
by gloomily remarking, "There ain't bin a fight for a week!" But
an occasional bout of fisticuffs and a good deal of drinking and
gambling, were about the worst sins of the gold-seekers. Any one who
objected to be saluted as "mate!" or who was crazy enough to dream
of wearing a long black coat or a tall black hat, would find life
harassing at the diggings. But, at any rate, in New Zealand diggers
did not use revolvers with the playful frequency of the Californians
of Mr. Bret Harte. Nor did they shoe the horse of their first Member
of Parliament with gold, or do a variety of the odd things done in
Australian gold-fields. They laughed heartily when the Canterbury
Provincial Government sent over the Alps an escort of strapping
mounted policemen, armed to the teeth, to carry away gold securely
in a bullet-proof cart. They preferred to send their gold away in
peaceful coasting steamers. When, in 1867, one or two Irish rows were
dignified with the titl