Lady Barker's memoir is a vivid, affectionate portrait of settler life in New Zealand, where hardship, humor, and beauty are inseparable. From her Canterbury homestead, she evokes treeless hills, distant snow ranges, and the longing for bush, then follows the practical demands of station life: hauling timber from the mountains, enduring fierce nor'-west winds and refreshing sou'-westers, and preparing picnics with tea, mutton chops, and improvised comfort. Her travels across creeks, steep tracks, swamps, and landslips reveal both the peril and exhilaration of frontier riding, with horses, dogs, and companions each playing a vital role. Deep in the forest, bushmen labor among towering trees and hidden creeks, while the narrator pauses over camp meals, birdsong, and the strange, lush beauty of the native bush. She also widens her view to the broader colony, where the Rakaia, fertile downs, churches, schools, and successful settlers testify to the promise of honest labor. Yet the memoir does not romanticize everything: it offers a sharp, compassionate warning about young English gentlemen ill-equipped for colonial life, showing how class and expectation can collapse in a world ruled by adaptability, work, and survival. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.