Many were the horses and riders swept away to hopeless death as they stumbled over the hidden stony beds of turbid mountain crossings in the pioneering days before bridges were.

Many a foot-man--gold-seeker or labourer wandering in search of work--disappeared thus, unseen and unrecorded.

Heavy were the losses in sheep and cattle, costly and infuriating the delays, caused by flooded rivers.

Few are the old colonists who have not known what it is to wait through wet and weary hours, it might be days, gloomily smoking, grumbling and watching for some flood to abate and some ford to become passable.

Even yet, despite millions spent on public works, such troubles are not unknown.
It is difficult, perhaps, for those living in the cool and abundantly watered British Islands to sympathise with dwellers in hotter climates, or to understand what a blessing and beauty these continual and never-failing watercourses of New Zealand seem to visitors from sultrier and drier lands.