that chance slip but employ it so as to knock down their cheques and blue all the hard-earned pay they had in their pouches. Next morning at breakfast, which was partaken of by all the guests at a sort of table d’hote, there were many troopers present and I got into conversation with one of them. Up to the present I had been rather surprised to see the principal hotel of the New Zealand capital thronged with men serving in the ranks, but my eyes were quickly opened by my new acquaintance, who told me that the corps to which he himself and most of the men present belonged was the Wanganui Defence Force, and that as every able-bodied man in that district was forced to serve, most of them at table with us were well-to-do men, holding good positions in the country but, having been forced to abandon their farms and businesses, had been enrolled into a corps; that they had been serving on the east coast, and had been recalled to the west coast; that the day previous their transport had put into Wellington, where it was going to remain three days, so that they were taking advantage of the stoppage to enjoy a few days’ life of civilisation between the two campaigns. They seemed to be all very keen about the new campaign, as they considered the new general to be a far better man, for the work, than the one who had lately resigned, whose method of conducting the last five years’ operations they criticised in the most unmerciful manner, while their open comments on the inutility of the regulars, both officers and men, made me wince with astonished indignation, so that it was with the greatest difficulty I could restrain myself from starting a row. The man I was sitting next to evidently noticed my vexation, for he said: “If you have finished breakfast let’s go out on the back verandah and have a smoke, and, if you have nothing better to do, a chat for an hour or two.”