to find my way to Moorehouse’s; on the latter, however, I decided, as I judged I was midway between the two, and started to explore the pass, leading my horse.  The exercise revived us both, and I succeeded in finding the trail I needed.  The journey was simple after what I had experienced on the other side, and I had the satisfaction of meeting one of Moorehouse’s shepherds before the day was much older, who accompanied me to the station, and who would scarcely believe that I had passed the night where I did.

I found Mr. and Mrs. Ben Moorehouse at home, and was, as always, most hospitably received, and soon found myself with a change of kit, seated before an excellent meal, to which after thirty hours fasting I did ample justice.  After that I slept till morning.

On my arrival at Christchurch an offer was made to me to join an expedition to the Fiji Islands, just then creating some interest as a possible place for colonists.  The previous year some explorer had brought from thence a ship load of curiosities, including war clubs and spears of hard polished and carved wood, mats and numerous other articles in use among the cannibal tribes, and an exhibition of them was held in the Town Hall.  I now learnt that an acquaintance of mine, a Mr. Gibson, had chartered a small vessel called the “Ocean Queen,” 40 tons burthen, and intended to sail in her, with his young wife, for the Fiji Islands.  Also that four other men had joined him in the enterprise.  I knew Gibson to be a plucky fellow, but when it transpired that neither he nor the others possessed money beyond what the voyage would cost them, and that what they intended to do when they arrived at the Fiji Islands was to be left to chance, the proposed expedition assumed a different complexion.  The Judge denounced it as sheer madness, specially for a man to take his wife to such a place.  It was true that some missionaries had settlements there, but these are generally safe, as the savages, as a rule, fear and respect the missionaries of the Great Spirit, be it that of the white man or the black, and they know that the missionaries mean no harm to them or their possessions, but it would be very different in the case of a number of white men arriving unprotected in a small boat with the intention of settling on their land.  However, nothing would dissuade Gibson and his party.  Whether the “Ocean Queen” arrived at the Fiji Islands was never known.  Certainly she and the party who sailed in her were never again heard of.

CHAPTER XX.

     DECIDE TO GO TO INDIA—­VISIT MELBOURNE, ETC.

For the following six months I kept steadily to work.  I was gradually adding to my stock of sheep, and had nothing occurred to disturb me I should doubtless have continued at work and in time have become a veritable squatter.  I was able to command constant employment in any colonial capacity, and had been more than once offered the overseership of a run, but the old distaste for the life of a sheep-farmer was as strong as ever.