We rose before daybreak, and ere the sun had well appeared had eaten our primitive breakfast and were in the saddle for the march. On the evening of the third day we reached the Waitaki river, which separates Canterbury from Otago, and is the largest in the South Island. The Waitaki was never fordable at this point, and passengers were ferried across in a small boat behind which the horses were swum. This latter is a somewhat dangerous operation unless expertly carried out; a horse which may be a powerful swimmer being able to work a swift stream so much faster than a boat can be rowed, there is danger that he may strike and overturn the latter, and so he must not be allowed to get above or ahead of the boat, but be kept in his place immediately behind. The boat on being started from one bank or shingle spit must have fair room to work obliquely to a lower landing place on the opposite side, without running foul of shoals or sandspits, and as the current runs with great rapidity the voyage across is usually three or four times as long as the stream is wide. At this river we found an accommodation house. I forget the name of the occupier, but I well recollect the appearance of the wretched structure, and of its landlord and landlady. What a pair of outcasts they looked, and how they existed on that wild bed of shingle! Their tastes must have been simplicity itself, and little satisfied them here below. The landlord and his wife, with one other man, who assisted with the boat, were the only sojourners on this desert bed. Few travellers stayed at their wretched tenement, because being only ten miles from Dunedin they were generally able to push on, and partly because the locality did not possess pasturage for horses; and so with the exception of what they derived from selling an occasional nip of poisonous liquor to a passing traveller, their emoluments were derived from the ferry alone. We were not fortunate enough to arrive in time to cross that evening, and were perforce obliged to stay at the accommodation hut till morning, or else return half a mile to where pasture was obtainable. The landlord, however, produced some hay and oats, and cleaned out his shed, in which we were able to put two of the horses, while the others were tied out, and so to save time and trouble we decided to make the best of what fare we could obtain. The house comprised one room with a closet or bar off it. In the room, which was well enough when lit up by a good fire, we all supped together round a rough table with boxes from the bar for seats, our food the usual description, the junk of mutton boiled with lumps of dough called damper, and the landlady produced some plates, while we used our own clasp knives. Soon after, our weary bodies were strewn over the floor wherever we could individually select a fairly even spot, and the landlady, I believe, retired into the bar.