CoLENSO. — On the Tougariro District. 493 



scrub had been very lately burnt off. We had been travelling 

 through this "black country" for more than an hour, in hopes 

 of seeing its end, but in vain. Here, where we were, we could 

 not find a level spot on which to put up our tent, so, in the 

 darkness and the rain, we were obliged to dig away with our 

 axes on the steep side of the hill before we could set it up. 

 That night was a tenible one of wind and rain, insomuch that 

 we expected every moment to be smothered in our half-pitched 

 tent. Few of us slept that night. 



" 20th.— Our most wretched night was followed by a dirty, 

 lowering morning, with furious wind and heavy rain : it was 

 also bitterly cold. We w^ere here caught in a southerly gale 

 in one of the worst spots possible in the whole North Island 

 of New Zealand, and we could not help ourselves. To retrace 

 our steps and go back to Taupo (over Te Onetapu Desert) our 

 guide flatly refused, and my natives joined him, he saying 

 that high open desert-sand was now covered with snow, and 

 that from the falling snow and sleet he could not tell the 

 course — which, perhaps, was really the case. Fi'om him we 

 had the story of seventy men having been once lost at one 

 time in attempting to cross that place in snowy weather. 

 Murmurs, loud and deep, throughout this long and dreary 

 day reached my ears, — of my having been the means of bring- 

 ing on this weather through my uprooting some small trees 

 (Dacrydi-mns), mid my cvossing the "sacred" desert without 

 first observing certain superstitious ceremonies, and my sac- 

 rilegiously eating some Gaidtheria berries while crossing 

 it, which the guide had detected, &c. The worst to me 

 was — (1) That 1 could not get anything whatever to lay on 

 the wet mud floor of my tent (nor fern, nor grass, nor leafy 

 shrubs were there to be found ; all had been destroyed by 

 fire, the very lower branches of the Fagus trees in the wood 

 before us having been scorched) ; (2) that we had scarcely 

 anything to eat ; (3) that my specimens were becoming 

 spoiled, which caused me to fret pretty considerably ; and (4) 

 that, at the rate it was then raining, when the gale should 

 abate the rivers we should have to cross would be unfordable 

 for some days. As the day began, so it closed — no change 

 whatever in the weather, save that even about us, at our con- 

 siderably lower altitude, the rain was changed to sleet and 

 snow. 



" I shudder now, while writing this, in thinking of that 

 wretched time, though more than forty-six years have since 

 passed. 



"Often enough did those highly-suitable words of my 

 favourite old poet, Ossian, cross my memory : ' It is night ; I 

 am alone, forlorn on the hill of storms. The wind is heard on 

 the mountains ; the torrent pours down the rocks. No hut 



