an extensive saw-mill employing over two hundred hands.
At Masterton are three flour-mills, and the town is bustling and seems thriving. The school was undergoing enlargement. There was not a house to let in the place, and we noticed several new buildings in process of erection. There are numerous streams here in which trout-hatching has been successful. There is a capital institute and reading-room, and an efficient fire-service. Ladders are slung in prominent places along the main streets, for use in case of fires. They are supplied by the different insurance companies. This is a good idea surely.
We had a good lunch at Elkins's Club Hotel, and got back in the dark to Wellington about seven o'clock, and had our usual comfortable and hospitable reception at the Occidental.
Another celebrity that must be seen in Wellington is the far-famed Island Bay Hermit. Some mystery attaches to this ascetic individual. He lives in a miserable, cold, bare cave, lies on the bare stones, and, while accepting food or clothes from his visitors, rejects all money offerings. Herein he differs from his Oriental prototype, the Fakeer or Yogi. Possibly the dreary past holds its horrid secrets for him. He converses intelligently enough on current topics. At night occasionally he comes into one of the newspaper offices in town, where he is supplied with mental pabulum in the shape of a great bundle of mutilated exchanges. Over these he pores, and possibly he
