the colossal dykes which the early toilers for gold have formerly heaped up. Millions upon millions of tons of earth must have been sluiced from these hillsides.
We pass now a gang of men busily restoring the traffic which has been interrupted by a terrific landslip caused by the recent heavy rains. The rocks here are rotten and treacherous. The formation is chiefly mica schist, both hard and soft, with beds and layers of slate and phyllite.
A short distance beyond, we reach the deserted Kawarau Gorge township. There was formerly a dense and busy population here; but there are only some three houses and a school now standing.
The valley now widens out, and away across the river, Jack points out the cliffs of Bannockburn, where active sluicing is even now being carried on, and where some very heavy finds of gold have made the place famous. Like mostly all the fields around this district, however, Bannockburn is now getting worked out, and will soon be deserted.
Now we rattle on to a broad, flat, sandy plain, a church steeple showing its tip at the far verge; above which towers a snowy range, and nestling in the shadow thereof is the neat little town of Cromwell.
Cromwell, in common with mostly every town of any importance in New Zealand, can boast of one thing which Sydney with all her magnificence yet lacks.
"And what is that?" you may ask.
