( 4 ) 
Walilenhergia saxicola, and Gentiana saxosa (plate 24), were in great abundance, 
also some of the Veronicas, forming great masses of white and lilac. 
It was now February; the season was too advanced, and most of the Spring flowers 
had disappeared ; it was a great pity, but I had been detained both in Wellington and 
Nelson. I was anxious to hurry on so as not to lose those in Arthur s Pass. We 
drove again the twelve miles, and passed the burnt bridge a second time in safety, 
arriving at the little inn amongst the mountains, where we joined the coach. The 
view was most beautiful of the river winding down the valley many hundred feet 
below. The sides of the road were lined with Lomaria vulcanica, Aspidium vestitum, 
Hypolepis distans, Adiantiims, and other ferns. There were long bunches of blackberries 
and glossy black mako-mako berries, which we saw all the way to Hokitika. We 
went all along the banks of the Duller River, losing it now and then and coming 
back to it, seeing some of the most beautiful scenery in New Zealand, and by a road 
not much travelled, unfortunately we passed some of the finest parts in the dark. 
The drivers of the coaches on this road are brothers. They are most careful, and 
it is very necessary that they should be so. Your heart is in your mouth most of the 
way. At one place in particular, the road is built outside the cliff, and supported 
on piles, which are inserted somehow into the rock. The cliff rises perpendicularly 
above you, and there is only just room for the coach to pass round without 
touching, and there is hardly an inch to spare on the outside edge which has no 
wall or fence. If one of the horses shied or fell, coach and all would go over into 
the river, which rushes along two hundred feet below, and we saw all this from 
a turn in the road before we came to it, which made it worse. I kept my face 
turned to the cliff, but my niece, who was with me and had a stronger head, kept 
calling my attention to the magnificent scenery. We both drew a long breath when 
it was over, and were truly thankful to be safely through ; yet the coach goes every 
day with the same driver. The chief danger I believe, lies in some of the wooden 
piles becoming decayed, how the road was ever made is marvellous. We thought 
very little of the famous pass in the Otira Gorge after this, though this is con- 
sidered very bad. We travelled some distance in the dark, and so I missed Senecio 
Hectori, but Mr. Buchanan kindly supplied me with it afterwards (plate 20). 
We arrived about g p.m. at a small inn, and started at 6 a.m. next day through 
a cold mist from the river, which cleared away afterwards, and it became very hot. 
We were soon passing through country with gold-digging shafts, water-races, and 
other traces of mining. We crossed several rivers, sometimes bumping over the big 
boulders and struggling through the rushing water, others by ferry, and at one, the 
Teremakau, we left the coach and entered a kind of wooden box, hung on a rope, 
which was wound up by a small steam engine on the other side. We slid down 
one side and up the other. It was not an unpleasant but a very curious sensation to 
find oneself suspended from one to two hundred feet above a broad rapid river. 
