Lumsden, Lumsden and Lake Manapouri. They could not after that deny knowledge of the veldt, at all events! The two days it took us to do that journey were hot, dusty, brown, glaring, days for dust-coats, motor-veils, smoked glasses, anything and everything to prevent the headaches travelling in such desert country is likely to produce.
It began when we left the boat and joined the train at Kingston on Monday morning. The launch left Queenstown at 8.20; we remained on deck for about an hour, and then, when the best part of the scenery was behind us, we went down to the saloon and breakfasted in comfort and at leisure we could not have commanded at the hotel. The deck of the launch was crowded, but we had the saloon all to ourselves and saw as much of the lake as we wanted to from the windows.
When we got to Kingston at 10.45 the heat was stifling, and sitting stiffly in a crowded compartment with the blinds down to shut out the blazing sun, so that reading was impossible and what view there was hidden, was not a good preparation for the trial of patience that awaited us.
For Lumsden, where we had to put in time from mid-day until the next morning, is an awful place to be in. It consists of the railway station, a few houses, and a couple of hotels. It does not even boast a bank, and shops worthy of the name are equally unknown. It is situated in the midst of a flat, featureless plain, and apparently exists solely for the purpose of despatching visitors to Manapouri by coach and the farmers of the neighbourhood to Dunedin and Invercargill by rail.
Disconsolately enough, therefore, we contemplated the eight or nine hours that must elapse before we could excusably go to bed. An attempt to write in the small and solitary “parlour” was frustrated by the incessant chattering of sundry other occupants; the sun was beating down on to the shadeless verandah,—it was impossible to sit there; and our rooms were so tiny, and the noise of the bar and from other parts of the house were so distinct, that they were no refuge at all. At last we took our sunshades and went for an aimless walk, but by four o’clock the ugliness of the place had driven us back, and Mrs Greendays’s nerves were so palpably on the brink of mishap that I felt almost hysterical myself with apprehension.
And then surely—even at a distance I could not be mistaken in the tall, broad-shouldered figure standing on the doorstep? He saw us, came towards us, and in accents of delight Captain Greendays voiced my feelings as he exclaimed,
“Deane, by all that’s lucky! My dear chap, what on earth has brought you to this hole?”
“What but yourselves?” answered Colonel Deane with his infectious little chuckle. “I have always wanted to pay another visit to Milford...”
A joyous shriek from Mrs Greendays interrupted him. “You are coming with us, Colonel Deane? Oh, how lovely! We have been bored to tears with
