Greenland or of Iceland, for
their sole substitute for candles consisted of a pannikin half filled
with melted tallow, in which a piece of cork and an apology for a wick
floated. But by my time all this had long been past and over, and even
a back-country shepherd had a nice tin mould in which he could make a
dozen candles of the purest tallow at a time.

Ned was just running a slender piece of wood through the loops of his
twisted cotton wicks, so as to keep them above the rim of the mould, and
the strong odour of melted mutton fat was tainting the lovely fresh air.
But New Zealand run-holders have often to put up with queer smells as
well as sights and sounds, therefore we only complimented Ned on being
provident enough to make a good stock of candles before-hand, for home
consumption, during the coming dark days. After we had dismounted and
hobbled our horses with the stirrup leathers, so that they could move
about and nibble the sweet blue grass growing under each sheltering
tussock, I sat down on a large stone near, and began to tell Ned how
often I had watched the negroes in Jamaica making candles after a
similar fashion, only they use the wax from the wild bee nests instead
of tallow, which was a rare and scarce thing in that part of the world.
I described to him the thick orange-coloured wax candles which used to
be the delight of my childhood, giving out a peculiar perfuming odour
after they had been burning for an hour or two,--an odour made up of
honey and the scent of heavy tropic flowers.

Ned listened to my little story with much politeness, and then, feeling
it incumbent on him to contribute to the conversation, remarked, "I
never makes candles ma'am without I thinks of frost-bites."

"How is that, Palmer?" I asked, laughingly. "What in the world have they
to do with each other?"

"Well, ma'am, you see it was just in this way. It was afore I come
here, which is quite a lively, sociable place compared to Dodson's back
country out-station, at the foot o' those there ranges beyond. I give
you my word, ma'am, it used always to make me feel as if I was dead,
and living in a lonely eternity. Them clear, bright-blue _glassers_
(glaciers, he meant, I presume) was awful lonesome, and as for a human
being they never come a-nigh the place. Well as I was saying, ma'am, one
day I finds I had run out o' candles, and as the long dark evenings (for
it was the height o' winter) was bad enough, even with a dip burning,