The kitchen and dining hut being unable to accommodate more than twelve or fifteen at once, a multitude had to remain outside while each gang went in, in turn, to be fed.

Inside the scene was curious.  An enormous fire of logs blazed on the hearth, which occupied one entire end of the hut, over which were suspended two huge pots filled with joints of mutton, beef, and doughboys, boiling indiscriminately together.  They were frequently being removed to the table and others substituted in their place.  The pots were flanked by large kettles of water, into which, when on the boil, a handful or two of tea would be thrown.  After a few minutes the decoction would be poured into an iron bucket, some milk and sugar added, and placed upon the table, where each man helped himself by dipping his pannikin therein.

Fortunately the hungry seekers after gold were not particular about their meat being a shade over or under cooked; they were glad to accept what they got, and indeed right wholesome food it was.  The doughboys were simply large lumps of dough, made of flour and water, used as a substitute for bread, of which a sufficient quantity could not be prepared for the immense demand.

We obtained our turn in due time, and after a hearty meal retired to the quarters we had pitched upon for the night—­viz., a straw shed where we rolled our blanket around us and slept soundly.

The following evening, after a severe day’s journey, we arrived wet and fagged at the next station, Miller and Gooche’s.  Here a similar scene was being enacted, and here, in common with many other diggers, we were obliged to remain for several days owing to severe weather setting in.

Miller and Gooche’s station was situated at the junction of a tributary stream with the Waitaki, at the entrance of a rugged and mountainous gorge.  From this point our real difficulties were to begin, as we would diverge from the main valley we had hitherto followed, and work our way over a rough tract of hilly country, up ravines and spurs to the great pass, then pretty certain to be covered with snow.

For the four days during which we were detained at this station it rained, sleeted, and snowed alternately and unceasingly.  There were upwards of one hundred and fifty men there, and the station running short of flour, a supply had to be procured from Davis’s, where luckily a large store had been collected.

Most diggers possessed nothing beyond the clothes they wore, with a blanket and a kettle, and many had no money wherewith to pay for food, so the squatters were obliged to make a virtue of necessity and give free where there was no chance of payment, and this they did right willingly.  As for the diggers, I must say so much for them that, rough fellows as they were, they paid freely and gratefully all they could, and I did not hear of a single instance of robbery or outrage save one, and we were the victims of that.  It was merely the abstraction, emptying, and replacing on our dray of a case of “Old Tom,” all the spirits we possessed, and we did not discover the loss until too late for any chance of detecting the delinquents.