THE PARTNERSHIP OF H. G.-S. AND T. J. S. 



233 



which we handled bit by bit. The bare dry story of the breaking-in 

 of a typical block of fern-land has been given, but nothing has been 

 told of the personal equation, the huraan element, the hopes and 

 fears, the ups and downs, the disillusionments and triumphs of the 

 process. 



Though the work done never fulfilled our expectations, yet 

 these years were years of considerable realisation, and of still more 

 pleasurable anticipation. The process from start to finish was of 

 absorbing interest : it was pleasant exploring the details of the 

 block, discovering how far cliff and gorge were available in lieu of 

 post and wire ; pleasant searching for surface timber, quantities of 

 which then existed timber which must have lain seasoning for 

 centuries on the dry pumice ; pleasant flagging out the exact line 

 for the native fencers ; pleasant taking delivery of the posts stacked 





Packing-posts. 



in piles of a hundred each, most of them split and shaped by the 

 axe, although sometimes enormous boles unspoiled by fires necessitated 

 the saw and blasting charge. Then came their packing on to the 

 selected line. Timber is an abominable load, no two posts weighing 

 the same nor fitting into one another; the jig-jog of the horses over 

 hill and dale loosening the loads, untoward incidents occurred in each 

 day's work yet, in spite of all, jogging home in the dark, another 

 half mile of fencing laid was something over which to ruminate. 



During the whole of one winter we were thus occupied one 

 day preparing the forty or fifty loads, strapping them into evenly- 

 balanced lots; the next, running in the teams at daybreak, saddling 

 up, and, after the hastiest of meals, trotting our string into the 

 heart of the run, loading up, and driving them with jangle of strap- 

 rings on hooks, and groaning and creaking and straining of leather. 

 Each day saw something accomplished, something done, until at 



