V CAUGHT IN THE QUICKSANDS 211 
clover blossoms, and the summer fly went by with a 
darting swish. High up from the edge of the hilly 
ridge where the house stands, you look down upon 
a deep gorge, with a clear - running stream, and 
beyond is a dense bank of tall trees and ferns, with 
here and there a scarlet mass of rata blossom. Hills 
and valleys stretch away into the distance, where the 
snowy guardian Taranaki rises in the background. 
The sea is in front of us, and the long coast-line of 
broken hills and high white cliffs, where we had made 
our home at Pukearuhe when first married. 
These cliffs, which have been called the Key of New 
Zealand and have witnessed many scenes of violence 
and bloodshed, now look peaceful enough. One 
day I started off to revisit these old haunts. We 
crossed the mouth of the river on dry sand, where 
long ago we were once caught in the shifting quick- 
sands, that never-to-be-forgotten ride where for more 
than an hour we were struggling with death ; then 
came another race for life round the point, with the 
tide so high against the cliffs that it meant a swim 
for our horses, or turning back by the river again. 
How terrified I was I yet too much ashamed to confess 
it before the two strange Englishmen who were coming 
to spend Christmas with us. What an experience 
for them, poor things I Once round the point we 
were safe, and then what a gallop we had on the long 
stretch of hard, yellow sands, and what canters after- 
wards in the early dawn of the frosty mornings : it was 
always a race between man, bird, and Maori, as to which 
would be first to pick up that most delicate of all, the 
frost fish, which only comes ashore in this particular 
weather and was never once known to have been 
caught with a line or a net Those were halcyon days 
of sea-breezes and happiness. 
Digitized by LnOOQ IC 
