The Horses That Went Mad.

There was a curious and painful adventure on our last day's ride. Our track just wide enough for single file travel, entered a thicket of the native ongaonga or stinging-nettle, the urtica ferox of the botanists. It grew ten or twelve feet high, and the fine hair-like prickles on the underside of the leaves brushed us as we rode through. Our hands smarted and tingled; the stinging spines even penetrated trouser legs and set up an intense pain and irritation. One of our party was in a high fever as a result of it, and we had to halt for half a day till he recovered. (Puhi chrisened him “Ongaonga Palmer” in memory of the day). But our poor horses suffered most. The prickles caught them wither-high, and their foreparts and legs presently swelled as if they had been attacked by a swarm of bees. We had to unsaddle some of them. The two packhorses absolutely went mad, and they performed some strange evolutions and even revolutions. One horse in its delirium of agony tried to climb a tree. The other dashed madly off and plunged into a creek; it went head under and drowned itself. If ever there was a suicide of an animal, this was one. Another horse bolted into the bush and disappeared; long afterwards we heard that it had been found dead, killed in its crazy scrambles.

(To be concluded.)