In the first place, there was really no accommodation for them; in the next, it would have entailed more luggage than the little cart could hold; and, finally, we should have been obliged to leave them behind at the last moment: for only the evening before we started, a couple of friends arrived, in true New Zealand fashion, from Christchurch, to pay us a month's visit.

It was too late to alter our plans then, so we told them to, make themselves thoroughly at home, and took our departure next day in the way I have alluded to.
We had plenty of escort as far as the first swamp.

When that treacherous and well-known spot had been reached, everybody suddenly remembered that they had forgotten something or the other which obliged them to return directly, so our farewells had to be exchanged from the centre of a flax bush.

The cart meanwhile was nearly out of sight, so wide a _detour_ had its driver been forced to make in order to find a place sound enough to bear its weight.

But we caught it up again after we had happily crossed the quagmire which used always to be my bug-bear, and in due time we made our appearance, in the gloaming, at the tiny house belonging to the home station.