d guardians
to ship off to New Zealand young men who have received the up-bringing
and education of gentlemen, without a shilling in their pockets, under
the vague idea that something will turn up for them in a new place.
There is nothing which can turn up, for the machinery of civilization is
reduced to the most primitive scale in these countries; and I have known
500 pounds per annum regarded as a monstrous salary to be drawn by a
hard-worked official of some twenty years standing and great experience
in the colony. From this we may judge of the chances of remunerative
employment for a raw unfledged youth, with a smattering of classical
learning. At first they simply "loaf" (as it is called there) on their
acquaintances and friends. At the end of six months their clothes are
beginning to look shabby; they feel they _ought_ to do something, and
they make day by day the terrible discovery that there is nothing for
them to do in their own rank of life. Many a poor clergyman's son,
sooner than return to the home which has been so pinched to furnish
forth his passage money and outfit, takes a shepherd's billet, though he
generally makes a very bad shepherd for the first year or two; or drives
bullocks, or perhaps wanders vaguely over the country, looking for work,
and getting food and lodging indeed, for inhospitality is unknown, but
no pay. Sometimes they go to the diggings, only to find that money is as
necessary there as anywhere, and that they are not fitted to dig in wet
holes for eight or ten hours a day. Often these poor young men go home
again, and it is the best thing they can do, for at least they have
gained some knowledge of life, on its dark as well as its brighter side.
But still oftener, alas, they go hopelessly to the bad, degenerating
into billiard markers, piano players at dancing saloons, cattle drivers,
and their friends probably lose sight of them.

Once I was riding with my husband up a lovely gulley, when we heard
the crack of a stockwhip, sounding strangely through the deep eternal
silence of a New Zealand valley, and a turn of the track showed us a
heavy, timber-laden bullock-waggon labouring slowly along. At the head
of the long team sauntered the driver, in the usual rough-and-ready
costume, with his soft plush hat pulled low over his face, and pulling
vigorously at a clay pipe. In spite of all the outer surroundings,
something in the man's walk and dejected attitude struck my imagination,
and I