damper under the hot ashes so as to be ready for the morning, we
rolled our blankets around us and with feet to the fire, slept soundly.

My duties consisted in dragging the chain or humping a theodolite knee
deep in water or swamp, but I learned much even in this short experience
which proved of subsequent value.

On our return, Mr. D---- had to diverge to a small farm, if it could be
called such, owned by two brothers named Drew, having some work to look
into for them. These Drews were the sons of a clergymen in England, and
they had lately come to New Zealand with a little money and no
experience, taken a small tract of land in this swampy wilderness, and
settled down to farm it. The buildings consisted of a wretched mud hut,
some twelve feet square, a small yard, and a few pigsties. What a
habitation it was, and what filth and absence of management was apparent
all over it! Failure was stamped on these men, and on their
surroundings; it was clear they could not succeed, and yet they were not
drunkards or scamps or reckless; on the contrary, they were quiet and
good-natured, and appeared to be hard-working, although it was
difficult to see what work they really did.

For two days we stayed here, all five of us sleeping at night on the
floor of the hut. There were no bunks. I was very glad when that duty
was over.

These Drews soon after gave up the farm; one died, the other I saw two
years afterwards, the part-proprietor of a glass and delph shop in
Christchurch, but only for a time. That inevitable tendency to failure
engraved on the Drews followed him to the glass shop, and the latter
became, in due course, the sole property of Drew's partner.

If these men had gone upon a farm or sheep-run for two or three years'
apprenticeship, investing their money safely meanwhile, they might have
become in a few more years, prosperous colonists. It was their absolute
ignorance, added to a want of sufficient means to carry out what they
undertook to do, that brought depression and failure upon them. And a
percentage of the emigrants who go to the Colonies act under similar
circumstances as they did, and from being on arrival strong, hopeful and
brave, they, from lack of something in themselves or from want of the
needful advice and sense to adopt it, gradually deteriorate past all
recovery. I recollect the billiard-marker at one of the Christchurch
hotels was the younger son of a baronet. He worked as billiard-marker
for