escription of one of the picnics,
which were favourite amusements in our home, nestled in a valley of
the Malvern Hills of Canterbury. These hills are of a very respectable
height, and constitute in fact the lowest slopes of the great Southern
Alps, which rise to snow-clad peaks behind them. Our little wooden
homestead stood at the head of a sunny, sheltered valley, and around it
we could see the hills gradually rolling into downs, which in their turn
were smoothed out, some ten or twelve miles off, into the dead level of
the plains. The only drawback to the picturesque beauty of these lower
ranges is the absence of forest, or as it is called there, bush. Behind
the Malvern Hills, where they begin to rise into steeper ascents, lies
many and many a mile of bush-clad mountain, making deep blue shadows
when the setting sun brings the grand Alpine range into sharp white
outline against the background of dazzling Italian sky. But just here,
where my beloved antipodean home stood, we had no trees whatever, except
those which we had planted ourselves, and whose growth we watched with
eager interest. I dwell a little upon this point, to try to convey
to any one who may glance at these pages, how we all,--dwellers among
tree-less hills as we were,--longed and pined for the sights and sounds
of a "bush."

Quite out of view from the house or garden, and about seven miles away,
lay a mountain pass, or saddle, over a range, which was densely wooded,
and from whose highest peak we could see a wide extent of timbered
country. Often in our evening rides we have gone round by that saddle,
in spite of a break-neck track and quicksands and bogs, just to satisfy
our constant longing for green leaves, waving branches, and the twitter
of birds. Whenever any wood was wanted for building a stockyard, or
slabbing a well, or making a post-and-rail fence around a new paddock,
we were obliged to take out a Government license to cut wood in this
splendid bush. Armed with the necessary document the next step was to
engage "bushmen," or woodcutters by profession, who felled and cut the
timber into the proper lengths, and stacked it neatly in a clearing,
where it could get dry and seasoned. These stacks were often placed in
such inaccessible and rocky parts of the steep mountain side, that they
had to be brought down to the flat in rude little sledges, drawn by
a bullock, who required to be trained to the work, and to possess so
steady and equable a d