on the sharp edge of his axe, and was discovered lying there dead in solitude. [Illustration: WAIRUA FALLS] When the tree has been felled and cross-cut and the branches lopped off, the log may be lying many miles from the mill. Hills and ravines may have to be crossed or avoided. Orpheus with his lute would be invaluable to the New Zealand saw-miller. The local poet, though fond enough of addressing his stanzas to the forest trees, does not pretend to draw them to follow in his footsteps. Nor are our poets on the side of the saw-mills. So bushmen have to fall back upon mechanical devices and the aid of water-power. Long narrow tracks are cut, and floored with smooth skids. Along these logs are dragged--it may be by the wire rope of a traction machine, it may be by a team of bullocks. Over very short distances the logs are shifted by the men themselves, who “jack” them with a dexterity astonishing to the townsmen. Mainly, the journey to the mill is made either by tramway or water. Where a deep river is at hand, floating timber is a comparatively simple business. But more often the logs have to slide, be rolled or be hauled, into the beds of streams or creeks that may be half dry for months together. To obtain the needful depth of water, dams are often built, above which the logs accumulate in numbers and stay floating while their owners wait patiently for a fresh. Or the timber may remain stranded, in shallow creeks or in the reeds or stones of dwindled rivers. At length the rain-storm bursts, the sluices of the dams are hastily opened, and the logs in great companies start on their swim for the sea-coast. A heavy flood may mean loss to farmer and gardener, and be a nuisance to travellers; but to the saw-millers of a province it may be like the breaking-up of a long drought. They rub their hands and tell you that they have not had such a turn of luck for a twelvemonth,--“millions of feet were brought down yesterday!” As the rains descend and the floods come, their men hurry away to loosen barriers, start logs on their way, or steer them in their course. Wild is the rush of the timber as it is thus swept away, not in long orderly rafts such as one sees zigzagging along on the Elbe or St. Lawrence, but in a frantic mob of racing logs, spinning round, rolled over and over, colliding, plunging and reappearing in the swirling water. Rafts you may see in the ordinary way being towed down the Wairoa River to the Kaipara harbour by steam tugs. But in flood-time, when thousands of logs are taking an irresponsible course towards the ocean, the little steamers have a more exciting task. It is theirs to chase the logs, which, rolling and bobbing like schools of escaping whales, have to be caught and towed to some boom or harbourage near the saw-mill for which they are destined. Otherwise they may become imbedded in tidal mud, or may drift away to sea and be lost. Logs bearing the marks of Auckland saw-millers