"interviewed" nearly to death,
F----employed himself in making excursions to different parts of the
run. One of the sawyers lent him a miserable half-starved little pony;
and he penetrated to another sawyer's hut, seven miles distant up the
Matukituki river. But no matter whether he turned his steps to north or
south, east or west, he met with the same disheartening report. There
was the ground indeed, but it was perfectly useless. Not only was there
was _no_ pasturage, but if there had been, the nature of the country
would have rendered it valueless, on account of the way it was
overgrown. It would be tedious to explain more minutely why this was
the case. Sufficient must it be to say that whilst F---- was only too
anxious to keep his eyes shut as to the ground he had alighted on after
his leap in the dark, and the sawyers were equally anxious to induce
settlers to come there, and so bring a market for their labour close to
their hand nothing could make our purchase appear anything except a dead
loss. As for the plans, they were purely imaginary. The blue lake was
about the only part true to nature; and even that should have had a
foot-note to state that it was generally lashed into high, unnavigable
waves, by a chronic nor'-wester.

No: there was nothing for it but to go home again to the little run
which had seemed such a mere paddock in our eyes, whilst we indulged
in castle-building over 100,000 acres of country. It was of no use
lingering amid such disappointment and discomfort; besides which my
listener, the sawyer's wife, had turned her husband and herself out of
their hut, and were sleeping under a red blanket tent. Poor woman, she
was most anxious to get away; and the lovely sylvan scene, with the tall
trees standing like sentinels over their prostrate brethren, the wealth
of beauteous greenery, springing through fronds of fern and ground
creepers, the bright-winged flight of paroquets and other bush birds,
even the vast expanse of the lake which stretched almost from their
threshold for so many miles, all would have been gladly exchanged for a
dusty high street in any country town-ship. Her last words were, "Can't
you send me a paper or hany thing printed, mam?" I faithfully promised
to do my best, and carried out my share of the bargain by despatching
to her a large packet of miscellaneous periodicals and newspapers; but
whether she ever received them is more than I can say.

We were afraid of lingering to