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Introduction.

The following pages contain simply a brief and plain narrative of what occurred to a settler in the Province of Otago, New Zealand, during the years 1859-1867.

They are written chiefly to satisfy a whim, and also to inform friends of the real nature of colonial life in the early days of the settlement of that Province.

Many of the names are real, and all the facts are related almost in the order in which they occurred, a greater part of the book being simply an enlargement of a diary. My aim has been to write not so much an interesting as a true account; yet I trust that to many of my friends, at any rate, the book will have some little interest.