182 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Ciiav. VU. 
houses, tents, sheds formed of boughs, frames of clay 
walls and thatched roof, and heaps of goods and 
chattels of various kind, were scattered over different 
parts of the flat. Here and there a newly-arrived 
party might be seen cutting a square encampment out 
of the high fern, and erecting their sheds and gipsy 
fires in the space thus formed. But the principal 
cluster of population was along the banks of the 
Maitai, and on the edge of the wood. 
The long straight lines cut by the Surveyors through 
the fern gave an odd appearance to the landscape ; 
and along these glades short posts were stuck into the 
ground at regular intervals, branded with the numbers 
of the sections on either side, in readiness for the 
approaching selection. As I walked along these 
future streets, quail, either single or in coveys, fre- 
quently started up before my steps. They abound all 
over this part of New Zealand. 
During the month that I remained here, the climate 
was certainly magnificent. There were only three or 
four days' rain ; and the rest of the time cloudless 
skies and calm air glowed upon the landscape. If I had 
any complaint to make, it was that I thought it too 
dry and hot in the day-time ; and that the nights were 
on the contrary very cold, when a light air breathed 
down from the lofty peaks inland. But I remembered 
that all these things are to be judged by comparison, 
and that I had just come from the more temperate 
tract of land near Wellington, which receives its tem- 
perature from a sea-breeze, whichever of the prevailing 
winds may blow. 
The climate in this deep bight of a bay is very 
remarkable. The wind, which blows almost inces- 
santly one way or the other through Cook's Strait, 
seems suddenly to lose its power before reaching the 
