be married to the daughter of one of the settlers, amongst whom Howell was a kind of King. The Bishop, hearing that the poor girl was distraught by her loss, and well-nigh out of her mind, went to visit the family, and I went with him. Coming to the house, he was on the point of entering by the door, whilst I was behind him, when the girl, catching sight of me, and being possessed with the idea that her fiance would somehow return to her, rushed out, flung herself upon me, and finding her mistake, fell to the ground in an agony of disappointment.
Jacob's River is the last inhabited place in the extreme south of New Zealand, except that there are a few fishermen settled in Stewart's Island, which is separated from the mainland by Foveaux Straits, apparently about fifteen miles distant. The country here looks fertile; the hills and the mountain country westwards lie open to the explorer, with a good deal of forest in view; one cannot doubt that in future years this Southland, which is the furthest habitable country in the Southern hemisphere, will cease to be the wilderness it has been for untold centuries, and will support a large and prosperous population.
In a few days' time we began our homeward journey, on foot, across the Mataura plain, making for the Station where we could pick up our horses and baggage. On the way we spent a night with a settler, finding characteristic hospitality in his one-roomed house; in this, to accommodate us, he rigged up a blanket screen between his bed and the rest of the room; behind the screen we slept on the floor, clearing out of the house in the morning to enable him and his wife to get up and prepare breakfast. Then he came with us to the Station on the southern bank of the
