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 th