beams spiked on to their tops; over this I laid heavy round timber stretchers, about nine inches in diameter and four in number, upon which were spiked closed together a flooring of stout pine saplings from two and a half to four inches thick.  The floor between these was then covered with a thick layer of brushwood, topped with earth and gravel.  The road embankment was then carried on from each side till the swamp was cleared.  I am particular about describing this, as it was my first attempt at bridge building and draining, and of all the thousands of bridges I have since constructed, I do not think any one of them interested me more keenly than these in the Ashburton Valley when I was a lad of nineteen.  The bridges and roads over the marshes proved quite satisfactory, and it was a real delight to me when the first teams of wool drays passed over safely.  I was at the same time engaged on the cuttings, and got some of them completed before the severe winter set in.

I was so busy this season that much of my time was necessarily spent in supervising between the forest and the work, and I had a rough hut erected at the former, where I could live during my visits.

Once, on passing to the forest, I met with an amusing accident.  I was riding a huge sixteen-hand black mare and had heavy swags of blankets strapped before and behind the saddle, in addition to which I carried a new axe, some cooking utensils and a large leg and loin of mutton, which I had called for at the station, fearing that my men were out of meat.  Near the forest I had to cross a small stream with steep banks.  There had been heavy rain the previous night, and the little stream was a rushing torrent, and as I forded it, the water reached to the girths.  The opposite bank was steep and slippery, and the huge animal laboured so in negotiating it that the girths snapped, and the entire saddle, with myself, slipped over her tail into the rushing stream.  In this manner we were carried down; immersed to nearly my armpits, but securely attached, for some two hundred yards, before I was able to extricate myself and incumbrances by seizing a branch as we swept by a bend in the stream.

With some difficulty I succeeded in getting all out safely and fortunately on the right side.  The mare was quietly feeding where she had emerged.

Where the work went on in the valley I had a couple of tents for my gang of navvies, some of whom were sailors.  I always found these excellent workers, and specially handy and clever in many ways, where a mere landsman would be at fault.  I worked with them, and shared everything as one of themselves, even to a single nip of rum I allowed to each man once a day.  They treated me with every respect, and I had not, so far as I can recollect, a single instance of serious trouble with any of them.  They received good wages, and earned them, and if any man among them had been found guilty of reprehensible conduct, the others would have supported me at once