We were invited to meet at dinner at the Chief Justice’s a Mr. and Mrs. Lee from Nelson Province.  Mr. Lee was a large sheep-farmer, and before we left that evening we had accepted a most kind invitation from him to go to his run for a month or two at any rate, before deciding finally to take up the rough and uncertain business we had proposed for ourselves.  The Judge so strongly advised this course for us both, that C——­ could not refuse, although he was by no means keen about it.  The judge explained that the opportunity was an excellent one, and would in all probability lead to his (C——­’s) being offered the overseership, if he decided to take up the life after a fair trial.  I did not know then, as I did soon after, that C——­ had serious intentions of abandoning the country before giving it a fair trial; everything he saw was obnoxious to him, and he evidently yearned for his home in Ireland and his little farm again.

I purchased for my own use a small but powerful bay mare, C——­ obtained a mount from Mr. Lee, and in the course of a few days we started in company with Mr. and Mrs. Lee, all on horseback, for their station of Highfield.

Highfield was, as well as I recollect, nearly three hundred miles from Christchurch, and we accomplished the distance in a little over a week, Mrs. Lee riding with us all the way.  Indeed, there was no other means of travelling over that wild track, and she was, like most squatters’ wives in those days, an experienced horsewoman.

Our luggage was carried on three pack horses, which we drove before us, and in this manner we accomplished from thirty to forty miles each day.

At night we rested, either at a rough accommodation house (a kind of private hotel) or a squatter’s station, and during the day’s ride we sometimes halted for lunch at any convenient locality where we could find water to make tea and firewood to boil it with.  Then the packs and saddles were removed from the horses, which were allowed to roll and feed on the native grass while we refreshed the inner man with the usual bush fare, of which a sufficient supply was carried with us.

After crossing the Hurunui river, the boundary between Canterbury and Nelson, we soon left the plains behind and entered a fine undulating country watered by abundant streams and some large rivers, which latter could be forded only with considerable care and judgment, being sometimes full of quicksands, and always rapid.

On approaching our destination, which, as its name implies, stood on an elevated situation, the gorges and river-bed flats, along which our track ran, narrowed and became more wooded and picturesque, till we at length passed through the narrow precipitous gorge that led us to the open plateau upon which the station buildings stood.  These comprised the dwelling house, a long, low, commodious building, furnished most comfortably in English fashion; the men’s huts, comprising three sleeping rooms, the kitchen