Balkans, or the Himalayas, is tame and prosaic. A coach traverses this road three times a week. On this coach I booked myself for a box-seat. My Christchurch friends cheerfully asked me where my will was, in case of accidents, warned me to sit tight, and if I got nervous to shut my eyes; and away I went by train across the fertile Canterbury plains to Springfield, the village at the foot of the mountains where the railway ends and the coach begins.

It was a staring red vehicle was the coach-hung in the American plan on long leather bands from front to rear. The team consisted of a pair of wheelers, and three leaders harnessed abreast. The coachman was a quiet self-contained man, a friendly companion, and apparently not bothered with any nerves. It was a pleasant ride until the gloaming. There had been awkward descents done at a hand-gallop, that suggested unpleasant speculations as to the vehicle's, not to say the passengers' ultimate destination if a wheel should come off. But there had been nothing very trying, and much that had been very beautiful. The gaunt mountain tops all around, the lovely lakes down in the basins, whose deep blue waters we had skirted; the long pale green stretches of upland; the romantic wooded valleys into which we had plunged so abruptly and emerged with equal abruptness; the cheery wayside taverns, lonely in the midst of the solitude, whose succulent mountain mutton we had eaten with appetite whetted by the pure keen mountain air-all went to make up an exceptionally pleasant and indeed memorable experience. We had lost time somewhere, and the short southern gloaming was about us, when the driver quietly muttered, as we turned sharp round a corner, "I don't like the Waimakariri

gorge after sundown." It is with every emphasis that I record my assent to this expression; and yet when it was all over, I was not sorry that the experience had befallen us. We went at a hand-gallop on a track just wide enough and no more, for our three leaders abreast. About five hundred feet sheer below-sheer except in places where the cruel jagged crags reared their horrid heads-roared and boiled the furious torrent of the Waimakariri river. One could just discern through the gathering gloom, the deep blackness of sullen gloomy pool alternating with the dingy white of the tortured rapids writhing their vexed course through the rocks that impeded the riverbed.

Above us towered a beetling crag-wall as high, where the eye could catch its sky-line,

as the drop on the side next the river was deep. But this was only in places, for the most part it actually overhung us, and the narrow road was notched out of its looming face. It overhung worst at the sharp bends of the road, as it followed the curves, the projections, and the indentations of that serrated precipice. Not once, but often, the leaders as they galloped round a turn were clean out of our sight, and there was but the point of the pole projecting over the profound, ere as yet the wheelers, urged close to the verge that the wheels might clear the projecting buttress, complied with the sharp bend, borne round on their haunches by the driver's strong left arm. His attention was concentrated on his work, but once he spoke, and I would rather he had held his tongue. "Do you see those dim white specks on the flat top of that crag below us! Those are the bleached bones of some horses. They were pasturing on the upland above us, when a sudden scare sent them over the precipice. They fell clear outside the road without touching it, and brought up where you see their bones down there."

It was full dark ere we got through the gorge. Then the moon rose as we galloped across the upland flat, and drew up in front of "The Bealey" Hotel, the half-way house. "The Bealey" is a sort of hospice several thousand feet above the sea-level. All around it hang the everlasting glaciers. From their smooth, cruel, cold blue faces, we saw the moonbeams refracted inhospitably. But there was no inhospitality inside "The Bealey." A great log fire blazed in the ample chimney of the old-fashioned panelled parlour, and how good was that juicy slice of mountain mutton eaten with the great floury potatoes! The landlord gave me a posy of edelweiss that he had culled the same day on the glacier edge behind the house; he had tried the plant in his garden, but it would not thrive. The thin ice was on the bath-tub next morning, and it was cruel cold when, long before sun-up, the coach renewed its journey. A long heavy stage in the shingle bed of the Bealey river, where we saw the wreck of a coach that had been caught in a freshet and whirled down a few miles ere it had brought up, led to a steep climb on to a bare saddle whose summit was the highest point of the journey. Then followed the abrupt tortuous descent into the dismal Gehenna of the Otara gorge.

I remember nothing so weird. Whatever lay before us beyond the summit of the saddle lay unrevealed and mysterious in a veil of dense white mist. Into this vagueness we plunged

water, clinging on the slopes between the river-meadows and the ferns, there were pretty picturesque cottages over whose porches and gables trailed the roses and honeysuckles. About ten miles from Hokitika we pulled up at a lone public-house where we were to leave the vehicle; for the rest of the way to where Humphrey's nozzle played on the "face" of his Gully was to be done only on foot, and not very easily thus, as I had occasion to discover.

As we halted, there emerged from the bar of the public-house, a man. He wore the long boots and the woollen jumper of a miner, but he had accentuated his mission by accoutring himself with a tall hat considerably the worse for wear. This article of attire he took off, and deliberately set down on the stoop under the public-house veranda. From its depths he produced a voluminous blue pocket handkerchief which he used with effusion and replaced. he accosted the inmates of the vehicle.

Then

He set forth, using grotesquely the longest words he could unearth, that he was a delegate from Doughtown, which he explained was across the swamp and beyond the ridge. Doughtown had heard that I was being brought out to visit Humphrey's Gully, and had sent its representative to beg with all respect, but with vehement urgency, that I should pay a visit to Doughtown, and favour the inhabitants of that camp with a lecture. It was a young and sequestered place, was Doughtown, he explained; still chiefly in the canvas stage of development. He had been appointed town clerk in advance of the town; and he spoke therefore with some official position. If I consented, he would immediately return to Doughtown with the news, whereupon a deputation should betake itself to where we now were, to await our return from Humphrey's Gully, and escort me across to Doughtown in worthy and seemly fashion.

There was only one reply possible to so flattering a request. The delegate reinstated his hat, and diffidently offered to "shout for drinks round; he was told, he explained, to spare no expense, only he wished to avoid seeming presumptuous. We walked on into the Gully; he started across the swamp for Doughtown. Of the Gully I will only say that it was very rugged, very slippery, and not a little damp. But even in the remote recesses of Humphrey's Gully, civilisation was justified of her children. We had "afternoon tea" with a miner's wife in a shanty whose canvas walls were lined with pictures from the Illustrated News and

Graphic. The good lady had some children, but professed concern about her eldest son, a live youth of twelve. She could not get him to mind his books, for there was no minute of any day that he did not spend in assiduous prospecting. The young gentleman took me aside later on, and tried to open a negotiation in relation to a claim which he averred would beat the Humphrey's Gully into fits.

As we appoached" Webster's Corner," on the return journey, the Doughtown deputation were visible, lounging under the verandah. We were greeted with a cheer as we drove up, and every member of it, duly introduced by the "town clerk," who by this time was himself rather limp although his tall hat retained its aggressive stiffness, solemnly shook hands. They were a fine manly-like set of fellows, those Doughtown men; strapping, upright, bearded, with heads well up, and frank honest eyes. The speech bewrayed that most of them were Scots. They had a final drink round, and then we set out for the two miles' trudge to Doughtown. There was no cart road to that place, and no wheeled vehicle had ever been 66 nearer it than "Webster's." The "town clerk" hilariously led the way; we followed in a posse; and a lone man in the rear trudged with a big stone jar slung by a strap over his shoulder. When we got into the swamp, the miners insisted on carrying me on a "king's cushion." With interclasped hands two abreast made a sort of seat on which I sat with an arm round the neck of each of my bearers. I was not in robust health, and they had somehow come to know this: they all but resorted to physical force to ensconce me in the living chair in which I sat. Then we climbed a low green-ridge, and lo, Doughtown lay at our feet.

As regards looks, Doughtown had no great pretensions. There was a higgledy-piggeldy of tents and shanties among the stumps, and all around was the oozy stunted sour-looking forest. Some holes there were, and hillocks of sweaty soil, and here and there a “whim," and yonder a windlass with a bucket close up to the cross-bar. The population, numbering about two hundred able-bodied men, a good many women, and a large assortment of children, had clustered in the foreground. and welcomed our appearance in the distance with vehement cheering and a desultory gunfire. A few flags waved in the damp languid wind. As we drew near, Doughtown came out to meet us. A grey-bearded man was in advance; him the "town clerk" introduced under the high-sounding title of

"the reeve of Doughtown." Then with indiscriminate hand-shaking we passed on, until the reeve halted in front of a central shanty which I assumed was the Guildhall and Mansion House of Doughtown all in one. Wemy Hokitika friends had accompanied me— were invited inside, where the brown jar made good its appearance, and where, after formal introduction to the conscript fathers, the health was enthusiastically drunk of the person whom the worthy reeve was so good as to call "our distinguished visitor." After those preliminaries, the formal business commenced on the stoop outside.

Modesty needs that I bury in oblivion the flattering expressions which his worship permitted himself in introducing me to the Doughtown audience. It was necessary for me to explain that having been taken by surprise, I could only speak from memory. But the excellent folks of Doughtown were not exacting. Any pause that occurred from a lapse in ready words they filled up with applause. One longer interval than usual they melodiously utilised by singing "For he's a jolly good fellow," right through to the bitter end. When I had made an end of speaking, "God save the Queen" was sung, partly as a finale, partly as introduction to the speeches in which a vote of thanks was proposed. Then it became time for us to go. But I must not go emptyhanded as it seemed.

I had noticed the "town clerk " with his hat in his hand, dodging about among the audience, standing there out in the open. Presently he came up on to the stoop and whispered to the reeve. That civic chief spread his red cotton handkerchief on the table which had been brought outside, and the "town clerk " emptied into the handkerchief the contents of his hat. It was a curious collection. There was a sovereign, several half sovereigns, one threepenny piece at least, and quite a number of little nuggets. And this miscellaneous assortment of metal the reeve announced was Doughtown's contribution in requital of my lecture. He wished, said he, he was sure all wished, that the collection had been four times as lavish, but "things," he explained, "are just now rather quiet with us." Of course I could not take the offering that was out of the question. I declined with some expression of full satisfaction in the compliment that had been paid to me, the pleasant memory of which any recompense would utterly mar. I picked out a small nugget which I would have set in a shirt pin as a souvenir, and concluded by wishing success to Doughtown.

But the authorities were obviously not fully satisfied with this arrangement. There was a consultation between the reeve and the "town clerk." The latter went inside, and came back with a small packet which he handed to his worship. Then his worship commanded silence, and spoke thus :

"Sir, to-day will be memorable in Doughtown annals. It marks the first step in Doughtown's intellectual career. You, sir, have come among us. We are a remote community, but we have energy, perseverance and industry. You can tell the old country when you go back to it, that in becoming New Zealand colonists, we have not ceased to be Britons. You have heard us, sir, sing 'God Save the Queen,' and that with us, sir, was no unmeaning chant; it came from out our very hearts. We are a peaceful folk. You have described battles to us, and I am sure you had no listener who was not glad that his lot has not been cast in such scenes. But there is no man of us who would not brave all the dangers and horrors you told us of, on behalf of queen and country. You will do us a good turn if you will let that be known at home. And, sir, you decline to take any recompense for the trouble you have given yourself this day on our account. But we may beg of you to take away with you such a souvenir as may give you an interest in the fortunes of Doughtown. Some of our citizens have just united their mining interests into a company, the prospects of which, it is true, are still in embryo, but in which we allow ourselves firmly to believe. I hold in my hand, sir, the scrip of two hundred shares in the Doughtown United Gold Mining Company, Limited,' and of that scrip, sir, in the name of the community of Doughtown, I respectfully request your acceptance. For the present you will find it unsaleable at any price; but the time may come, sir, when, in the words of Dr. Johnson, it may enrich you beyond the dreams of avarice.' Your acceptance, sir, will give Doughtown a fresh incentive to make the enterprise a success!”

6

The

I took the scrip. One share I have pasted into my album as a souvenir. The rest I do not care particularly about holding. rumour of an imminent call has reached me. Perhaps I should mention that there is a liability of fifteen shillings on each share. The worthy reeve did not mention this petty circumstance, and of course I could not look the gift-horse in the mouth. Are there any applicants then for 199 shares of the "Doughtown United"?

ARCHIBALD FORBES.