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ELECTION OF EDITORS.

There will be two vacancies on the Editorial Committee at the end of the present Term. All Candidates for the office are requested to send their names, with those of their respective proposers, to the Secretary, before the evening of Friday the 30th instant.

By the laws of management, two of the Members of the Committee must be Undergraduates, so that Questionists will not be eligible for Election, the retiring Members being the only Undergraduates at present on the Committee. St. John's College, November 24th, 1860.

OUR EMIGRANT.

Part II.

WE had had some difficulty in crossing the Rakaia, having been detained there two days before even the punt could cross; on the third day they commenced crossing in the punt, behind which we swam our horses; since then the clouds had hung unceasingly upon the mountain ranges, and though much of what had fallen would be in all probability snow, we could not doubt but that the Rangitata would afford us some trouble, nor were we even certain about the Ashburton, a river which, though partly glacier-fed, is generally easily crossed anywhere. We found the Ashburton high, but lower than it had been in one or two of the eleven crossing places between our afternoon and evening resting places; we were wet up to the saddle flaps-still we were able to proceed without any real difficultythat night it snowed-and the next morning we started amid a heavy rain, being anxious, if possible, to make my own place that night.

Soon after we started the rain ceased, and the clouds slowly lifting themselves from the mountain sides enabled my companion to perceive the landmarks, which, in the absence of any kind of track, serve to direct the traveller from Mr. Phillips's house to the spot where I hope my own may be before this meets the eye of any but myself.

We kept on the right-hand side of a long and open valley, the bottom of which consisted of a large swamp, from which rose terrace after terrace up the mountains on either side; the country is, as it were, crumpled up in an extraordinary manner, so that it is full of small ponds or lagoons-sometimes dry-sometimes merely swampynow as full of water as they could be. The number of these

M

is great; they do not however attract the eye, being hidden by the hillocks with which each is more or less surrounded; they vary in extent from a few square feet or yards to perhaps an acre or two, while one or two attain the dimensions of a considerable lake. There is no timber in this valley, and accordingly the scenery, though on a large scale, is neither impressive nor pleasing; the mountains are large swelling hummocks, grassed up to the summit, and though steeply declivitous, entirely destitute of precipice.

It must be understood that I am speaking of the valley in question through which we were travelling, and not of the general aspect of the country: on the other side the Rangitata the mountains rise much higher, and looking up the gorge many summits meet the eye, on which the snow rests all the year round, and on whose sides lie miles and miles of iced-plum-cake-looking glacier; these are a continuation of the range which culminates in Mount Cook, a glorious fellow, between thirteen and fourteen thousand feet high, and shaped most sublimely.

Before I describe the river, I may as well say a word on the nature of back country travelling in the Canterbury settlement. It is so hard for an Englishman to rid himself not only of hedges and ditches and cuttings and bridges, but of fields, of houses, of all signs of human care and attention, that I can hardly hope to give any adequate idea of the effect it produces upon a stranger. That effect is ceasing rapidly upon myself: indeed I feel as if I had never been accustomed to anything else-so soon does a person adapt himself to the situation in which he finds himself placed.

Suppose you were to ask your way from Mr. Phillips's station to mine, I should direct you thus:-" Work your way towards yonder mountain-pass underneath it between it and the lake, having the mountain on your right hand and the lake on your left-if you come upon any swamps go round them, or if you think you can, go through them; if you get stuck up by any creeks, (a creek is the colonial term for a stream) you'll very likely see cattle marks, by following the creek up and down; but there is nothing there that ought to stick you up if you keep out of the big swamp at the bottom of the valley; after passing that mountain, follow the lake till it ends, keeping well on the hill side above it, and make the end of the valley, where you will come upon a high terrace above a large gully, with a very strong creek at the bottom of it-get

down the terrace, where you'll see a patch of burnt ground, and follow down the river bed till it opens on to a flat; turn to your left and keep down the mountain sides that run along the Rangitata; keep well near them, and so avoid the swamps; cross the Rangitata opposite where you see a large river bed coming into it from the other side, and follow this river bed till you see my hut some eight miles up it." Perhaps I have thus been better able to describe the nature of the travelling than by any other-if one can get anything that can be manufactured into a feature and be dignified with a name once in five or six miles, one is very lucky.

Well-we had followed these directions for some way, as far in fact as the terrace, when the river coming into full view, I saw that the Rangitata was very high; worse than that I saw Mr. Phillips and a party of men who were taking a dray over to a run just on the other side the river, and who had been prevented from crossing for ten days by the state of the water. Among them, to my horror, I recognised my cadet whom I had left behind me with beef which he was to have taken over to my place a week and more back; whereon my mind misgave me that a poor Irishman who had been left alone at my place, might be in a sore plight, having been left with no meat and no human being within reach for a period of ten days. I don't think I should have attempted crossing the river, but for this; under the circumstances, however, I determined at once on making a push for it, and accordingly taking my two cadets with me, and the unfortunate beef that was already putrescent, (it had lain on the ground in a sack all the time) we started along under the hills and got opposite the place where I intended crossing by about three o'clock. I had climbed the mountain side and surveyed the river from thence before approaching the river itself. At last we were by the water's edge-of course I led the way, being as it were, patronus of the expedition, and having been out some four months longer than either of my companions-still, having never crossed any of the rivers on horseback in a fresh, having never seen the Rangitata in a fresh, and being utterly unable to guess how deep any stream would take me, it may be imagined that I felt a certain amount of caution to be necessary, and accordingly folding my watch in my pockethandkerchief and tying it round my neck in case of having to swim for it unexpectedly, I strictly forbade the other