ir edges overlapping and nailed them at the top to the
rail, or, more properly, wall plate, the feet of the slabs being set a
few inches in the ground. Over this enclosure we made a sloping
framework of wickers (fine saplings) and covered it with an old tent
which Metcalfe possessed. At one end of the hut we constructed a wide
fireplace and chimney in the same manner, and hung up an old blanket
over the space left for a doorway. The inside of the slab walls and
chimney we wattled with mud and laths, which we split up, and plastered
over with mud and chopped grass. We made rough cots with wickers and
slabs, raised a foot above the ground, so as to form seats as well as
beds, and covered them with a thick layer of minuka branches, which made
capital springy mattresses, and over all we laid our blankets. For a
table we split and dressed fairly smooth a pine slab a foot wide in
which we bored four holes and inserted therein wicker legs. Our mansion
was now complete and it had not occupied two days to build.

We rose at daybreak, boiled a kettle of tea, which with cold baked
mutton and damper formed our breakfast, then to work till 12 o'clock,
when we took an hour for dinner, and again to work till dark, when we
adjourned to the hut, and after a visit to the creek for ablutions, and
seeing that our horses were watered and put on fresh pasture for the
night, we sat down to supper by a rousing fire, then lit pipes and
chatted or read till it was time to turn in, when the fire was raked
over, and the damper of bread inserted under the hot ashes to be ready
for the morning. During the evening also one of us made the bread; the
camp oven would be put on the fire with sufficient mutton to last us for
two or three days. It was a grand life for healthy, strong fellows as we
were, living and working alone in a virgin forest, with no sound around
us but the rippling of the brook and the whisper of the wind through the
foliage of the tall pines, or the ringing of our axes, with every now
and then the crashing fall of a huge tree.

I should remark here that the black and white pine (so called) of New
Zealand is not by any means similar to that which grows in Europe. They
grow straight and tall, it is true, but for fully half their height
throw out heavy and numerous branches thickly covered all the year round
with very small evergreen leaves. The trees are easily cut up and split
into posts and rails, or sawn into boards. At the time I