Todea 
371 
over his back. After four miles up and down gullies lit- 
tered with logs, they came to a terrific spur, where the 
horses’ heads seemed to overhang a precipice on one side 
and their tails a sheer drop on the other, and eventually 
got down to a small piece of bush, very damp and 
swampy, where they searched for an hour and a half for 
a good specimen. The old growth had been battered and 
bruised by winter storms, and the young was not mature. 
At length a plant was found in a sheltered nook with 
perfect fronds. The box was opened, the moss gathered, 
the rag damped all ready, and then the fronds were cut, 
nailed into place, and the lid screwed on. 
To cpiote my daughter’s letter: — “The wind was so 
cold and cutting that the fronds were inclined to shrivel 
before we cut them, I expect they will arrive a withered 
up mass. We got home with it at 6 p.m., and went 
straight down to the train, which was late, and a good 
deal later by the time the guard had finished being an 
idiot (he refused to give the box to the stationmaster at 
Te Ivuiti, as had been arranged). We found a very im- 
patient family waiting for dinner when we got back at 
7 - 3 0 -” 
In Auckland I had been studying the weather — it had 
been a wet week — for I knew that much rain would 
render the bush tracks impassable for horses. On look- 
ing at the paper for the weather report on Friday even- 
ing I was dismayed to see that there had been landslips 
on the Main Trunk railway. In answer to my inquiries 
at the station, I was informed that the train would be 
twelve hours late! thus defeating all my plans for con- 
fining the railway journey to the cool hours of the night. 
If everything had gone without a hitch there was just 
a chance of success ; now that chance was gone. I was 
very much disappointed. For the last ninety-nine days 
the express had come through to time, and now, on the 
hundredth, the day that was to see the consummation of 
all my carefully-laid plans, it failed. 
