new country things are wholly different in this respect. One
can get about one's self easily enough; travel can always be
accomplished somehow, even if one has to walk; but it is quite another
thing to move baggage. In a roadless country, where labour is scarce and
dear, the conveyance of goods from place to place is a difficult matter.
It can be done, of course, but the cost of it is frightful.

Our old schoolfellow, who, by the way, will be known under the
appellation of "Old Colonial" in these pages, had apparently had some
experience of new-chums before. His agent in Auckland had been
instructed to see to us, and one of that person's first inquiries was
regarding our impedimenta.

We had been out-fitted in London by the world-renowned firm of Argent
and Joy. There being no experience to guide us, we had placed ourselves
unreservedly in the hands of the firm, and had been provided by them
with a sumptuous stock of what they were pleased to term necessaries.
Altogether, these formed a goodly pile. Our bedroom at the hotel was
cram full of boxes, trunks, and portmanteaus; and their contents were
now spread out for the inspection of our adviser.

"Good gracious!" was his exclamation when he surveyed our property, and
then he mused awhile.

"Look here!" he said suddenly. "I've got some distressing intelligence
to break to you. Prepare your minds for a shock. This inheritance is a
_dead horse_. Chuck it overboard at once!" And he waved his hand
impressively over our belongings.

We did not understand; we thought this was some new kind of joke--which
it was, but not to us. We asked for explanations; all that we wanted was
to know how we were to get these things up to the Kaipara. Our colonial
friend sighed deeply, and proceeded mournfully to expound the position.
He told us that we could not afford to possess more personals than were
absolutely necessary, and these ought to pack into one box of easily
portable size. In the first place, the freight of our baggage into the
bush would cost us something approaching to the expense of our passage
out from England. In the second place, we were not going to a house of
our own, but were going to work on different farms, and might be moving
about a good deal. We could not carry such a cargo about with us, for
the cost of doing so would be simply ruinous. It appeared, too, that we
could not even keep the things until we _had_ got a house of our own to
store them in. For, our onl