of the cliff to give warning, in case of any sudden and extensive slip of earth which might overwhelm the men working below. "Glad to see you,—Ah! look out! stand back!" and down came a huge mass, all hands retreating just in time. They turned the hose off, and sat down to talk. "We don't wash up till Saturday, but if you look here you can see some gold in the boxes. Yes, we are getting a choir together for the services, and a harmonium; and we'll have a concert for funds to fence St. Andrew's Church,—plenty of instruments available, and singers; and we can show you a newly cut track through the forest to Hokitika, so that you needn't return by boat."
Entering the track, I found myself so shut in by a veritable jungle of lofty pines and thick underwood, that I lost sight of the sunshine,—about three miles of rather rough going, set with sharp stumps of saplings and shrubs. Presently, on ahead, a man emerged from a side-track, who turned to see me, and began to talk, though we could not walk abreast in the narrow path. "I'm working with some mates up there on a terrace, and it's my turn this week to go to Hokitika to sell our gold. I came from California, and have been here six months, and we're doing well! "I told him that this was my first experience of a goldfield, and asked if I was right in thinking that this place was unlike the fields in California and elsewhere in the orderly nature of the population. "You're right," he replied, "I've got a matter of twenty-five ounces of gold on me, and if I was in California I'd have a couple of revolvers also; you won't see a weapon here on any man, and I've never yet heard of any case of 'sticking up' or robbery, except those Australian bushrangers, who didn't belong to the
