halts, from one to a score of these points are thrust into him. The sand-flies of Milford Track are especially fond of tourists, and the only way to baffle them is to wear gloves and veils or mosquito-netting; anoint the hands, face, and neck with ointments which the insects do not like; or stay within closed doors. These winged gluttons are acrobats—they stand on their heads when they alight on your hand. But they do not do it to amuse you; they are "going down" for blood.
There was a lure about Milford Track that made me eager to get across the Clinton and disappear into the stately forest it divides. Ahead, blotting out a great expanse of sky, was Mount Mackenzie. Other colossal forms as mighty as it rose to its right and its left. And away ahead, beyond Mackenzie, was formidable Balloon Peak, unsealed until recently; and beyond it and on every side of it, peak succeeded peak from five thousand to nine thousand feet high. These splintered tops of granite ranges overlooked a jagged world that ran northward until it met the greater wilds of the Southern Alps.
As I proceeded, between the straight, shapely trunks of beech trees—from one foot to three feet in diameter—there appeared ever-changing vistas of river, rapid, cascade, and cliff. For about six miles there was an unbroken forest; thereafter the continuity was interrupted by clearings and areas of scrubby growth. In this bush was a wealth of ferns, moss, and lichens. There were coarse, wiry ferns, soft, fragile, and beauti-
