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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
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