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