I was impatient as a child,--remember it was my first eel-fishing expedition,--and I thought nine o'clock would never come, for I had been told to go and dress at that hour; that is to say, I was to change my usual station-costume, a pretty print gown, for a short linsey skirt, strong boots and kangaroo-skin gaiters.

F----, and our cadet, Mr.U----, soon appeared, clad in shooting coats instead of their alpaca costumes, and their trousers stuffed into enormous boots, the upper leathers of which came beyond their knees.
"Are we going into the water ?" I timidly inquired.
"Oh, no,--not at all: it is on account of the Spaniards." No doubt this sounds very unintelligible to an English reader; but every colonist who may chance to see my pages will shiver at the recollection of those vegetable defenders of an unexplored region in New Zealand.
Imagine a gigantic artichoke with slender instead of broad leaves, set round in dense compact order.

They vary, of course, in size, but in our part of the world four or six feet in circumference and a couple of feet high was the usual growth to which they attained, though at the back of the run they were much larger.

Spaniards grow in clusters, or patches, among the tussocks on the plains, and constitute a most unpleasant feature of the vegetation of the country.

Their leaves are as firm as bayonets, and taper at the point to the fineness of a needle, but are not nearly so easily broken as a needle would be.