Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/123

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Letters from New Zealand
101

one hundred and twenty children; they pay from one shilling to half-a-crown per week, and also for books and stationery, and with a small Government grant all goes well. Every morning I am there for prayers and Bible teaching, and, finding that we have several children of the well-to-do, I spend an hour in elementary Latin, French, history, and some mathematics. Sunday School is held in the church, well attended, with the invaluable help of several young fellows, bank clerks, and Government officials, just the right sort, good Churchmen, and keen to do all they can to help me. The town has also a Presbyterian and Roman Catholic day-school, and some small private schools, but, so far as I can gather, the Church is in the majority here.

Come with me, this afternoon, on foot, for there are no roads in this forest country, only rough tracks at present, and we will go up the river side to a gold field, named Kanieri, about four miles distant. Boating across the river, it is possible to walk along the further bank, where the forest tapers down to patches of under-growth; the river itself, wide and swift, is scarcely navigable up stream, except by poling, though boats descend with ease. Our destination is a small settlement newly started, opposite the Kanieri diggings, where we have managed to build a small church, in amongst a considerable population. Meeting a man, I made some enquiries." Yes, there's some there, and doing well; the place goes by the name of Tiger Bay, for they are a roughish lot; you'll find them easily, as it's Saturday, and they've knocked off work as usual for the afternoon; but as to going across to the service in the church to-morrow, well, it's not much in their line." Rising to a spur which came down to the river