s is done to afford a firm hold for the sharp
needle-like teeth of an inquisitive eel, who might be tempted to find
out if this strange round thing, floating near his hole, would be
good to eat. I was impatient as a child,--remember it was my first
eel-fishing expedition,--and I thought nine o'clock would never come,
for I had been told to go and dress at that hour; that is to say, I was
to change my usual station-costume, a pretty print gown, for a short
linsey skirt, strong boots and kangaroo-skin gaiters. F----, and our
cadet, Mr. U----, soon appeared, clad in shooting coats instead of their
alpaca costumes, and their trousers stuffed into enormous boots, the
upper leathers of which came beyond their knees.

"Are we going into the water?" I timidly inquired.

"Oh, no,--not at all: it is on account of the Spaniards."

No doubt this sounds very unintelligible to an English reader; but every
colonist who may chance to see my pages will shiver at the recollection
of those vegetable defenders of an unexplored region in New Zealand.
Imagine a gigantic artichoke with slender instead of broad leaves, set
round in dense compact order. They vary, of course, in size, but in our
part of the world four or six feet in circumference and a couple of feet
high was the usual growth to which they attained, though at the back of
the run they were much larger. Spaniards grow in clusters, or patches,
among the tussocks on the plains, and constitute a most unpleasant
feature of the vegetation of the country. Their leaves are as firm as
bayonets, and taper at the point to the fineness of a needle, but are
not nearly so easily broken as a needle would be. No horse will face
them, preferring a jump at the cost of any exertion, to the risk of a
stab from the cruel points. The least touch of this green bayonet draws
blood, and a fall _into_ a Spaniard is a thing to be remembered all
one's life. Interspersed with the Spaniards are generally clumps of
"wild Irishman," a straggling sturdy bramble, ready to receive and
scratch you well if you attempt to avoid the Spaniard's weapons.
Especially detrimental to riding habits are wild Irishmen; and there are
fragments of mine, of all sorts of materials and colours, fluttering now
on their thorny branches in out-of-the-way places on our run. It is
not surprising, therefore, that we guarded our legs as well as we could
against these foes to flesh and blood.

"We are rather early," said the gentlemen,