who always conduct service in their own house. We were too many for the house itself, and, with several others, I slept well in an outhouse, on straw, with blankets. Filleul asked me to take the services. One of the party was a Mr. Valpy, a relation of the well-known Dr. Valpy of Reading Grammar School, whose Latin Delectus you remember well. He had settled in Dunedin, and named his place "The Forbury," after the street in Reading, and was on his way to Christchurch, riding with, as his custom was, two horses, as hard as he could go, and, as usual with travellers here, he questioned me as to the state of the rivers, and told me of how one of their well-known settlers in the neighbourhood had been washed off his horse and drowned in that same Water of Lamentation, the Waitangi. At supper I met another man on his way to Christchurch, who lives near Moeraki, whither I was bound, and, being a local Magistrate, had much to do with the Maoris there. He told me that a native boy had lately come there from Christchurch, bringing with him a ring of some value; the native Chiefs had brought it to him, having found that the boy had stolen it. He said the Maories are noted for their honesty. It so happened that the ring was mine, given me by an old friend at Oxford, with my initials upon it; I had mislaid it while the boy in question was doing some work in and about my Father's house. As I could easily identify it, he handed it over to me.
A day or two afterwards I went on, and arrived at Moeraki, a very picturesque headland, which juts out into the sea, forming a sheltered bay, with sandy beach, the headland and the sloping sides of the bay dotted with low trees, noticeable for their glossy green
