Such knowledge could not be acted upon, however, for no human being could hope to plunge through the drifts around us. Old shepherds who had lived on the run for fifteen years, confessed that they did not know their way fifty yards from the homestead. The vallies were filled up, so that one gully looked precisely like its fellow; rocks, scrub, Ti-ti palms, all our local land-marks had disappeared; not a fence or gate could be seen in all the country side. Here and there a long wave-like line in the smooth mass would lead us to suppose that a wire fence lay buried beneath its curves, but we had no means of knowing for certain. Near the house every shrub and out-building, every hay-stack or wood-heap, had all been covered up, and no man might even guess where they lay.

This had been the terrible state of things, and although the blessed warm wind had removed our immediate and pressing fear of starvation, we could not hope to employ ourselves in searching for our missing sheep for many days to come. None of us had been able to take any exercise for more than a fortnight, and having done all that could possibly be done near at hand, F—— set to work to manufacture some sledges out of old packing-cases. Quite close to the house, a hill sloped smoothly for about 300 yards, at an angle of 40 degrees; along its side lay a perfectly level and deep drift, which did not show any signs of thawing for more than a month, and we resolved to use this as a natural Montagne Russe. The construction of a suitable sledge was the first difficulty to be surmounted, and many were the dismal failures and break-neck catastrophes which preceded what we considered a safe and successful vehicle. Not only was it immensely difficult to make, without either proper materials or tools, a sledge which could hold two people (for F—— declared it was no fun sleighing alone), but his "patent brakes" proved the most broken of reeds to lean upon when the sledge was dashing down the steep incline at the rate of a thousand miles an hour.

We nearly broke our necks more than once, and I look back now with amazement to our fool-hardiness. How well I remember one expedition, when F——, who had been hammering away in a shed all the morning, came to find me sitting in the sun in the verandah, and to inform me that at last he had perfected a conveyance which would combine speed with safety. Undaunted by previous mishaps, I sallied forth, and in company with Mr. U—— and F——, climbed painfully up the high hill I have mentioned, by some steps which they had cut in the frozen snow. Without some such help we could not have kept our footing for a moment, and as long as I live I shall never forget the sensation of leaving my friendly Alpenstock planted in the snow, and of seating myself on that frail sledge. Perhaps I ought to describe it here. A board, about six feet long by one foot broad, with sheet-iron nailed beneath it, and curved upwards in front; on its upper surface a couple of battens were fixed, one quite at the foremost end, and one half-way. That was F——'s new patent sledge, warranted to go faster down an incline than any other conveyance on the surface of the earth. I was the wretched "passenger," as he called me, on more than one occasion, and I will briefly describe my experiences. "Why did you go?" is a very natural question to arise in my reader's mind; and sitting here at my writing-table, I feel as if I must have been a lunatic to venture. But in those delicious wild days, no enterprise seemed too rash or dangerous to engage in, from mounting a horse which had never seen or felt the fluttering of a habit, to embarking on the conveyance I have described above, and starting down a mountain-side at the risk of a broken neck.

Well, to return to that terrible moment. I see the whole scene now. The frail, rude sledge, with its breaks made out of a couple of standards from a wire fence, connected by a strong iron chain; F——seated at the back of the precious contrivance, firmly grasping a standard in each hand; Mr. U—— clinging desperately to his Alpen-stock with one hand, whilst with the other he helps me on to the board; and Nettle, my dear little terrier, standing shivering on three legs, sniffing distrustfully at the sledge. It is extremely difficult even to take one's place on a board a dozen inches wide. My petticoats have to be firmly wrapped around me, and care taken that no fold projects beyond the sledge, or I should be soon dragged out of my frail seat. I fix my feet firmly against the batten, and F—— cries, "Are you ready?" "Oh, not yet!" I gasp, clinging to Mr. U——'s hand as if I never meant to let it go. "Hold tight!" he shouts. Now what a mockery this injunction was. I had nothing to hold on to except my own knees, and I clasped them convulsively. Mr. U—— says, "You're all right now," and before I can realize that he has let go my hand, before my courage is half-way up to the necessary height, we are off. The breaks are slightly depressed for the first few yards, in order to regulate our pace, and because there is a tremendously steep pitch just at first. Once we have safely passed that he tilts up the standards, and our sledge shoots like a meteor down the perfectly smooth incline. I cannot draw my breath, we are going at such a pace through the keen air; I give myself up for lost. We come to another steep pitch near the bottom of the hill; F—— is laughing to such a degree at me that he does not put down his breaks soon enough, and loses control of the sledge. We appear to leap down the dip, and then the sledge turns first one way and then the other, its zinc prow being sometimes up-hill and some-times down. It seems wonderful that we keep on the sledge, for we have no means of holding on except by pressing our feet against the battens; yet in the grand and final upset at the bottom of the hill, the sledge is there too, and we find we have never parted company from it.

Will any one believe that after such a perilous journey, I could actually be persuaded to try again? But so it was. At first the fright (for I was really terrified) used to make me very cross, and I declared that I was severely hurt, if not "kilt entirely;" but after I had shaken the snow out of my linsey skirt, and discovered that beyond the damage to my nerves I was uninjured, F—— was quite sure to try to persuade me to make another attempt, and I was equally sure to yield to the temptation. As well as my memory serves me, we only made one really successful journey, and that was on an occasion when we kept the breaks down the whole way. But I never could insure similar precautions being taken again, and we consequently experienced every variety of mishaps possible to sledge travellers. I persevered however for some days until the north-westerly wind, which was blowing softly all the time, began to lay bare the sharpest points of the rocks, and then I gave in at once, and would not be a "passenger" any more. It was rather too much to strike one's head against a jagged fragment of rock, or to dislocate one's thumb against a concealed stump of a palm tree. Then the sharp points of the Spaniards began to stick up through the softening snow, and nothing would induce me to run the risk of touching their green bayonets. Besides which, the fast-thawing snow made it very difficult to climb up to the top of our hill, for the carefully-cut steps had disappeared long ago. So I gave up sledge journeys on my own account, and used only to look at F—— and Mr. U—— taking them.

These two persevered so long as an inch of snow remained on the hill-side. Some of their adventures were very alarming, and certainly rather dangerous. One afternoon I had been watching them for more than an hour, and had seen them go through every variety of disaster, and capsize with no further effect than increasing their desire for "one more" trial. On the blind-side of the hill,—that is to say the side which gets scarcely any sun in winter,—a deep drift of snow still lingered, filling up a furrow made in former years by a shingle-slip. Thither the two adventurous climbers dragged their sledge, and down the steep incline they performed their perilous descent many a time. I became tired of watching the board shoot swiftly over the white streak; and I strolled round the shoulder of the hill, to see if there was any appearance of the snow-fall lessening in the back country.

I must have been away about half an hour, and had made the circuit of the little knoll which projected from the mountain side, returning to where I expected to find sleigh and sleighers starting perhaps on just "one more" journey. But no one was there, and a dozen yards or so from the usual starting-point, the snow was a good deal ploughed up and stained in large patches by blood. Here was an alarming spectacle, though the only wonder was that a bad accident had not occurred before. I saw the sledge, deserted and broken, near the end of the drift: of the passengers there was neither sign nor token. I must say I was terribly frightened, but it is useless in New Zealand to scream or faint; the only thing to do in an emergency is to coo-e; and so, although my heart was thumping loudly in my ears, and at first I could not produce a sound, I managed at last, after many attempts, to muster up a loud clear coo-e. There was the usual pause, whilst the last sharp note rang back from the hill-sides, and vibrated through the clear silent air; and then, oh, welcome sound! I heard a vigorous answer from our own flat where the homestead stood. I set off down-hill as fast as I could, and had the joy, when I turned the slope which had hidden our little house from my view, to see F—— and Mr. U—— walking about; but even from that distance I could see that poor Mr. U——'s head was bandaged up, and as soon as I got near enough to hear, F——shouted "I have broken my neck!" adding, "I am very hungry: let us go in to supper."

Under the circumstances these words were consolatory; and when I came to hear the story, this was the way the accident happened. As I mentioned before, even this drift had thawed till it was soft at the surface and worn away almost to the rocks. During a rapid descent the nose of the sledge dipped through the snow, and stopped dead against a rock. Mr. U—— was instantly buried in the snow, falling into a young but prickly Spaniard, which assaulted him grievously; but F—— shot over his head some ten yards, turned a somersault, and alit on his feet. This sounds a harmless performance enough, but it requires practice; and F—— declared that for weeks afterwards his neck felt twisted. The accident must have looked very ridiculous: the sledge one moment gliding smoothly along at the rate of forty miles an hour,—the next a dead stop, and F——flying through the air over his passenger's head, finishing feet first plump down in the soft snow.

Looking back on that time, I can remember how curiously soon the external traces of the great snow-storm disappeared. For some weeks after the friendly nor-wester, the air of the whole neighbourhood was tainted by dead and decaying sheep and lambs; and the wire fences, stock-yard rails, and every "coign of vantage," had to be made useful but ghastly by a tapestry of sheep-skins. The only wonder was that a single sheep had survived a storm severe enough to kill wild pigs. Great boars, cased in hides an inch thick, had perished through sheer stress of weather; while thin-skinned animals, with only a few months growth of fine merino wool on their backs, had endured it all. It was well known that the actual destruction of sheep was mainly owing to the two days of heavy rain which succeeded the snow. Out of a flock of 13,000 of all ages, we lost, on the lowest calculation, 1,000 grown sheep and nearly 3,000 lambs; and yet our loss was small by comparison with that of our neighbours, whose runs were further back among the hill, and less sheltered than our own.

Long before midsummer our cloud-shadowed hills were green once more; and I think I see again their beautiful outlines, their steep sides planted with semi-tropical palms and grasses, whilst the more distant peaks are veiled in a sultry haze. During that peculiarly bright and lovely summer we often ask each other, Could it have been true that no one knew one mountain from the other, and that hills had been apparently levelled and vallies filled up by the heaviest snow-fall ever known. But whilst the words were on our lips, we could see a group of palm-trees, ten feet high, with their topmost leaves gnawed to the stump by starving sheep, that must have been standing on at least seven feet of snow to reach them; and there was scarcely a creek on the run whose banks were not strewn, for many a long day, by bare and bleaching bones.



Chapter VI: Buying a run.

Like many other people in the world, I have occasionally built castles in the air, and equally of course they have invariably tumbled down in due time with a crash This particular castle however, not only attained to a great elevation in the visionary builder's eyes, but it covered so vast an area of land, that the story of its rise and fall deserves to be placed on record, as a warning to aerial architects and also as a beacon-light to young colonists.

This was exactly the way it all happened. The new year of 186-found us living very quietly and happily on a small compact sheep-farm, at the foot of the Malvern Hills, in the province of Canterbury, New Zealand. As runs went, its dimensions were small indeed; for we only measured it at 12,000 acres, all told. The great tidal wave of prosperity, which sets once in a while towards the shores of all colonies, had that year swelled and risen to its full force; but this we did not know. Borne aloft upon its unsubstantial crest we could not, from that giddy height, discern any water-valleys of adversity or clouds of change and storm along the shining horizon of the new world around us. All our calculations were based on the assumption that the existing prices for sheep, wool, cattle, and all farm-produce, would rule for many a long day; and the delightful part of this royal road to wealth was, that its travellers need not exert themselves in any way: they had only to sit still with folded hands whilst their sheep increased, and it was well known that a flock doubled itself in three short years. The obvious deduction from this agreeable numerical fact was, that in an equally short period your agent's payments to your bank account would also be doubled. In the meantime the drays were busy carting the wool to the seaports as fast as they could be loaded, whilst speculative drovers rode all about the country buying up the fat cattle and wethers from every run. These were wanted to supply the West Coast Diggings which had just "broken out" (as the curious phrase goes there), and so was every description of grain and dairy produce.

We squatters were not the only inhabitants of this fool's paradise. The local Government began planning extensive works: railways were laid out in every direction, bridges planned across rivers, which proved the despair of engineers; whilst a tunnel, the wonder of the Southern Hemisphere, was commenced through a range of hills lying between Port Lyttleton and Christchurch. All this work was undertaken on a scale of pay which made the poor immigrants who thronged to the place by every ship, rub their eyes and believe they must be dreaming, and that they would presently wake up and find themselves back again in the old country, at the old starvation rate of wages. Small capitalists, with perhaps only one or two hundred pounds in the world, bid against each other as purchasers of quarter-acre sections in the fast-springing townships, or of fifty-acre lots of arable land in the projected suburbs. Subscriptions were raised for building a Cathedral in Christchurch; but so dear was both labour and material, that 7,000 pounds barely sufficed to lay its foundations.

The paramount anxiety in men's minds seemed to be to secure land. Sheep-runs in sheltered accessible parts of the country commanded enormous prices, and were bought in the most complicated way. The first comers had taken up vast tracts of land in all directions from the Government, at an almost nominal rental. This had happened quite in the dark and remote ages of the history of the colony, at least ten or twelve years before the date of which I write. As speculators with plenty of hard cash came down from Australia, these original tenants sold, as it were, the good-will and stock of their run at enormous prices; but what always seemed to me so hard was, that after you had paid any number of thousand pounds for your run, you might have to buy it all, or at any rate, some portion of it, over again. Land could only be purchased freehold from the Government, for 2 pounds an acre; and if a "cockatoo" (i.e., a small farmer), or a speculator in mines, fancied any part of your property, he had only to go to the land office, and challenge your pre-emptive rights. The officials gave you notice of the challenge, and six weeks' grace in which to raise the money, and buy it freehold yourself; but few sheep-farmers could afford to pay a good many hundred pounds unexpectedly to secure even their best "flats" or vallies. Hence it often happened that large runs in the most favourable situations were cut up by small investors, "free selectors" as they are called in Australia, and it used to be rather absurd the way one grew to distrust any stranger who was descried riding about the run. The poor man might be looking for a stray horse, or have lost his way, but we always fancied he must be "prospecting" for either gold or coals, or else be a "cockatoo" disguised as a traveller.

Such was the state of things when my story opens. Shearing was just over, and we knew to a lamb how rapidly our flocks and herds were increasing. A succession of mild winters and early genial springs had got the flock into capital order. The wool had all been sent off to Christchurch by drays, the sheep were turned out on the beautiful green hills for ten months of perfect rest and peace; whilst the dogs, who had barked themselves quite hoarse, were enabled to desist from their labours in mustering and watching the yet unshorn mobs on the vallies. Although our run was as well grassed and watered as any in the province, still it could not possibly carry more than a certain number of sheep, and to that total our returns showed that we were rapidly approaching. The most careful calculations warned us that by next shearing we should hardly know what to do with our sheep. It is always better to be under than overstocked, for the merino gets out of condition immediately, and even the staple of the wool deteriorates if its wearer be at all crowded on his feeding-grounds.

"You must take up more country directly," was the invariable formula of the advice we, comparatively "new chums," received on all sides. This was easier to say than to do. Turn which ever way we would, far back beyond our own lovely vallies and green hills, back up to the bleak region of glaciers, where miles of bush and hundreds of acres of steep hill-side, formed the back-est of "back country," every inch of land was taken up. No fear had those distant Squatters of "cockatoos," or even of miners; for no one came their way who could possibly help it. Still we should have been comparatively glad to buy such a run fifty or sixty miles further back,—at the foot, in fact of the great Southern Alps,—just as a summer feeding-ground for the least valuable portion of our flock. But no one was inclined to part with a single acre, and we were forced to turn our eyes in a totally different direction.

If my readers will refer to the accompanying map of New Zealand, and look at the Middle or South Island, they will notice a long seaboard on the eastern side of the island, stretching SS.W. for many hundred leagues. It extends beyond the Province of Canterbury to that of Otago, and embraces some of the most magnificent pastoral land in the settlement. Not only is the soil rich and productive, but the climate is rather less windy than with us in the northern portion of the island; and the capital of Otago (Dunedin) had risen into comparative position and importance before Christchurch,—was in short an elder sister of that pretty little town. Most of the settlers in Otago were Scotchmen, and as there are no better colonists anywhere, its prosperity had attained to a very flourishing height. Gold-digging had also broken out at the foot of the Dunstan range, so that Otago held her head quite as high, if not higher, than her neighbour Canterbury. Of course all the first-class pasture-land "down south," as it was called, had been taken up long before; but we heard rumours of splendid sheep country, yet unappropriated, far back towards the west coast of Otago, just where its boundary joined Canterbury.

With our minds in this state of desire for what poor Mazzini used to denounce as "territorial aggrandisement," we paid our usual post-shearing visit to Christchurch. F—— had his agent's accounts to examine, a nice little surplus of wool-money to receive, and many other squatting interests to attend to; whilst I had to lay in chests of tea, barrels of sugar and rice, hundreds of yards of candle-wick, flower-seeds, reels of cotton, and many other miscellaneous articles. But through all our pleasant, happy little bustle ran the constant thought: "What shall we do for more country?" A day or two before the expiration of the week's leave of absence which we always gave ourselves, F—— came into my sitting-room at the hotel, flung down his hat on the table with an air of triumph, and cried, "I've heard of such a splendid run! One hundred thousand acres of beautiful sheep-country, and going for a mere song!" Now I had lived long enough in the world to discover that one sometimes danced on the wrong foot to the tune of these "mere songs," so I cautiously inquired, "Where is it?" F—— seemed a little dashed that the only question which he could not answer favourably should be the first I asked, and he replied vaguely, "Well, it is rather a long way off, but I am sure we can manage it." A little more sifting elicited the fact that this "desirable investment" stretched along the shores of Lake Wanaka, famous for its beautiful scenery, and was to be had for what certainly seemed a ridiculously small sum;—only a few hundred pounds. "Of course it has no sheep on it," added F——; "but that is all the better. I'll burn it this year, and then turn some cattle on it, and after next shearing we'll have a good mob of sheep to draft out and stock it." He further added, that he had invited his man of business and the individual who owned this magnificent property to dine with us that evening, and that then I should hear all about it And I may truly say that I did hear about it, for my brain reeled with figures and calculations. By bedtime I was wondering if we could possibly spend the enormous fortune which would be quite certain to accrue to us in a few years if only we could make up our minds to invest the modest balance at our bankers in this tempting bargain. I remember well that I found myself wishing we were not going to be quite so rich; half our promised income would have been ample, I thought. My anxieties on that score turned out to have been, to say the least, premature.

Not to make my story too long, I may briefly say that after making due allowance for the natural exaggeration of the owner, the run on Lake Wanaka's shores seemed certainly to offer many attractions. Besides thousands of acres of beautiful sheltered sheep country, it was said to possess a magnificent bush, in which sawyers were already hard at work. Of course all this timber would become our own, and we were to make so much a year by selling it. "How about the carriage?" inquired F—— cautiously, having visions of costly bullock-drays, and teams and drivers at fabulous wages. "Oh, the lake is your highway," replied the would-be seller, airily; "you have nothing to do but lash your felled trees together, as they do in the mahogany-growing countries, and set them afloat on the lake, they will thus form a natural raft, and cost you little or nothing to get down to a good market. You know the Dunstan diggings are just at the foot of the lake, and they haven't a stick there; timber is very badly wanted in those parts, not only for fuel and building, but also for slabbing the shafts which the miners sink."

By the time the coffee was served F—— had made up his mind to buy the Lake Wanaka run; his business agent urging him strongly not to hesitate for a moment in securing such a chance. The negotiations reached thus far without the least hitch, but at this point F——said, "Well, I'll tell you what I'll do: we will start in a day or two and go straight up to this run and look round it, and if I find it anything like so good as you both make it out, I'll buy it on the spot."

Never did that sociable little word "we" sound so delightful to my ears! "Then I am to come too," I thought to myself, but I prudently concealed from the company that I had ever had any misgivings on that point. However, the company did not concern themselves with my doubts and fears, for our two guests seemed much taken aback at this very matter-of-fact proposal of F——'s. "That won't do at all, my dear fellow," said the owner of the run; "I am going to England by the next mail steamer, which you know sails next week, and the reason I am literally giving away my property is that I don't want any suspense or bother. Take it or leave it, just as you like. There's Wilkinson and Fairwright and a lot of others all clamouring for the refusal of it, and I've only waited to see if you really wanted it before closing with Fairwright. He is walking about with a cheque all ready filled up in his pocket, and only begging and praying me to let him have the run on my own terms. Why you might be weather-bound or kept there for a month, and what shall I do then? No, its all just as I've told you, and you can call it your own to-morrow, but I can't possibly wait for you to go and look at it." No words of mine can give any idea of the tone of scorn in which our guest pronounced these last three words; as if looking at an intended purchase was at once the meanest and most absurd thing in-the world. F—— seemed half ashamed of himself for his proposal, but still he urged that he never liked to take a leap in the dark, backing up his opinion by several world-revered adages. "That's all very fine," chimed in our precious business adviser," but this transaction can hardly be said to be in the dark; here are the plans and the Government lease and the transfer deeds, all regular and ready." With this he produced the plans, and then it was all up with us. Who does not know the peculiar smell of tracing-paper, with its suggestions of ownership? When these fresh and crackling drawings were opened before us they resembled nothing so much as a veritable paradise. There shone the lake—a brilliant patch of cobalt blue, bordered by outlines of vivid green pasture and belts of timber. Here and there, on the outskirts, we read the words, "proposed township," "building lots," "probable gold fields," "saw mills." F—— laid his hand down over a large wash of light green paint and asked," Now what sort of country is this; really and truly, you know?" "First class sheep country, I give you my word," replied the owner eagerly, "only wants to be stocked for a year or two."

Why need I go on? It was the old, old story of misplaced confidence. Neither F—— nor I could believe that our friends would wilfully over-reach us, so it was settled that the first thing next morning the money should be handed over and the Government lease transferred to us. We decided that as we were so far on the way to our new property, we would go and look at it before returning to the Malvern Hills, and the next few days were very busy ones, as we had to arrange our small domestic affairs, send up the dray, etc., etc. I felt rather anxious at the postponement of our return home, for I had left several "clutches" of eggs on the point of being hatched, and I had grave misgivings as to the care my expected ducklings and chickens would receive at the lands of my scatter-brained maid servants, to say nothing of the dangers besetting them from hawks and rats. However, small interests must give way to great ones, and F—— and I were already tasting the cares of proprietorship. Our friend, the former owner of our new property, sailed for England in the mail steamer, in high spirits, saying cordially as he shook F——'s hand at parting, "Well you have got your fortune cut out for you, and no mistake; I feel half sorry already to think that I've parted with that run." About two days after his departure, F—— who had registered his name at the land office as the present tenant of 100,000 acres in the Lake Wanaka district, received a polite request from official quarters to pay up the annual rent, just due, amounting to 100 pounds or so. We had effected our brilliant negotiations about a week too soon it seemed, but that was our own fault, so we had nothing to do but pay the money with as good a grace as possible. I am "free to confess" that this second cheque ran our banker's account very fine indeed, but still in those palmy days of the past this was no subject of uneasiness to a squatter. His credit was almost unlimited, and he could always raise as much money as he liked on an hypothecation of next year's wool. But we had not come to that yet. The weather was delightful; the customary week of heavy rain just after our midsummer Christmas, had cooled the air and laid the dust, besides bringing out a fresh spring-like green tint over the willows and poplars, and causing even the leaves of the gums to lose their leather-like look for a few days.

After much consultation we decided to go by coach as far as Timaru, and then trust to circumstances to decide our future means of transport. Not only were we obliged to pay a large sum for our places but our luggage was charged for by the pound, so we found it necessary to reduce our kit to the most modest dimensions, and only to take what was absolutely necessary. The journey was a long and weary one, the only variety being caused by a strong spice of danger at each river. At some streams we were transferred bodily to a large raft-like ferry boat, and so taken across. At others the passengers and luggage only were put into the boat, the lumbering coach with its leathern springs left behind, whilst the horses swam in our wake across the wide and rushing river, to be re-harnessed to another coach on the opposite shore. The Rakaia, Ashburton, and Rangitata had been crossed in this way, and we had reached the Otaio, a smaller river, when we found a new mode of transport awaiting us. A large dray with a couple of powerful horses was in readiness, and into this springless vehicle we were unceremoniously bundled. The empty coach and horses was driven over at another part of the stream. I shall never forget the jolting: the river must have been at least a quarter of a mile wide at that reach, and over its bed of boulders and rocks we bumped In the middle stretched a long strip of shingle, which seemed as smooth as turf by contrast with the first half of the river-bed. When we charged into the water again our driver removed his pipe from his mouth, looked over his shoulder and remarked, "River's come down since mornin'; best tuck up your feet, marms all." I can answer for this "marm" tucking up her feet with great agility, and not a moment too soon either, for as a light wind was blowing, a playful wave came rippling over and through the planked floor of the dray, floating all the smaller parcels about. But no one could speak, we were so jolted: it literally seemed as if our spines must come through the crown of our heads, and I expected all my teeth to tumble out.

In the midst of my fright and suffering, a laugh was jolted out of me by the absurd behaviour of one of our fellow-passengers. He was what is called a bush carpenter: i.e., a wandering carpenter, who travels from station to station, doing any little odd rough jobs wanted. This man had been working for us some time before, and had often amused me with his quaint ways. On this occasion he was on his oppressively good behaviour, and sat quite silent and solemn on the opposite ledge of the dray. But when for the second time the water came swirling through our rude conveyance with a force which threatened to upset it altogether, Dale fumbled in his pocket, as if he were seeking for a life-belt, produced an enormous pair of green goggle spectacles, which might have made part of Moses Primrose's purchases at the fair, and adjusting them on his nose as steadily as he could, said gravely, "This must be looked to!" He continued to stare at the wash of water during the remainder of our perilous and rough transit without vouchsafing any explanation of his meaning, but after we had safely landed he replaced his spectacles, first in their huge shagreen case, and next in his pocket, with an air which seemed to say, "The danger is now over: thanks to my precautions."

Timaru was reached very late, and the best accommodation at the inn placed at our disposal. Still, in those distant days there was no such thing as a private sitting room, and we had all to eat our supper in the same rough-boarded little apartment. But in all my varied wanderings in different parts of the world, when the accidents of travel have thrown me for a time among the class whom we foolishly speak of as the lower orders, I have never yet had to complain of the slightest inconvenience or disagreeableness from my fellow-travellers. On the contrary, I have always received the most chivalrous politeness at their hands, and have noticed how ready they were to forego their usual tastes and habits lest they should cause me any annoyance. I wonder whether fine gentlemen in their splendid clubs would be quite so willing to spoil the pleasure of their evening if any accident were to throw an unwelcome lady amongst them? At all events, they could not be more self-sacrificing than my friends in fustian jackets have always proved themselves, and on this particular evening the landlord of the inn was so amazed at the orders for tea and coffee instead of the usual "nips" of spirits, that he was constrained to inquire the reason. A stalwart drover who was sitting opposite to me at the rude table, murmured from the depths of his great beard, in an oracular whisper, "The smell of speerits might'nt be agreeble like to the lady." In vain I protested that I did not mind it in the least; tea and coffee was the order of the evening, and solemn silence and good behaviour. No smoking, no songs, no conviviality of any sort. I would fain have shown my appreciation of their courtesy by talking to them; but alas, I was one vast ache all over! Although the road had been a dead level, sixteen hours of jolting and bumping had reduced me to a limp, black-and-blue creature, with out a word or a smile. Of course I retired to what was literally a pallet, and a very hard pallet too, as early as possible, but even after I had vanished behind the thin wooden partition which formed my bedroom, the greatest silence and decorum continued to reign among my fellow-travellers.



Chapter VII: "Buying a run."—continued.

Early the next morning we all breakfasted together, and then separated with most polite adieux. We sallied forth to look for a couple of riding horses. There were none to be hired, so we had to buy two good-looking nags for 45 pounds a-piece. Now-a-days the same horses would not fetch more than 10 pounds and I have been told that in Australia you can buy a horse for a shilling, but ours in New Zealand have never sunk lower than a couple of pounds, if they had any legs at all. It seemed to the horse-dealer quite a superfluous question when I timidly inquired if my horse had ever carried a lady. "No: I can't just say as he has, mum, as you see there aint no ladies in these parts for him to carry. But," he added magnanimously, "I'll try him with a blanket fust, if you're at all oneasy about him." We did not start until the next day, as we had to hunt up side-saddles, and I had to sew a few yards of grey linsey into a riding-skirt; but by the following day we were all ready, and our "swags" packed and strapped to the saddles by nine o'clock. F——'s horse looked a very nice one in every respect; mine was evidently uneasy in his mind at the strange shape of his saddle, and I was recommended to mount outside the little enclosure, on a patch of open ground, where my steed would not be able to brush me off. The moment I mounted, the "Hermit" as he was called, made for a dry ditch and tried to lie down, but a sharp cut from a stock-whip brought him out of it, and then he laid his ears well back and started for a good gallop, to endeavour to get rid of his strange rider. However, his head was turned in the right direction; there were no obstacles in the way, and before he got tired of his pace we had left Timaru a good many miles behind us. F—— looked complacently at the "Hermit," and observed, "He'll carry you very nicely, I think." I could only breathe a sincere hope that he might.

It was a beautiful day, warm but not oppressive, and delightfully calm. Our road lay at first along the sea-shore. Ever since we had left Christchurch the ground had been almost level, and the road consisted merely of a track cleared from tussocks. On our left extended the vast strip known as the Ninety-miles Beach, whilst far on our right, between us and the west coast, the Southern Alps, rose in all their might and beauty, sometimes lightly veiled by a summer haze, at others cutting our Italian-blue sky sharp and clear with their grand outlines. Our horses were a trifle too fat for good condition, and we feared to hurry them the first day, so we made an early halt at Mahiki, only a twenty miles stage; but the next day they took us on to Waitaki Ferry, past a splendid bush, and so into the heart of the hill country.

Between the ranges, beautiful fertile valleys extended; when I say fertile, I mean that the soil was excellent, and the land well-grassed. But there was no cultivation. Not a sod had ever been turned there since the creation of the world, and the whole country wore the peculiar yellow tinge caught from the tall waving tussocks, which is the prevailing feature of New Zealand scenery au naturel. Every acre had been "taken up," but as yet the runs were rather understocked. Our fourth day's ride was the longest,—fifty-five miles in all, though we halted for a couple of hours at a miserable accommodation house. Our bivouac that night was close to Lake Wanaka, at the Molyneux Ferry-house, and there I was kept awake all night by the attentions of a cat. I never saw such a ridiculous animal. Prince, for that was his name, took the greatest fancy to me, or rather to my woollen skirt I suppose, and found a linsey lap much more comfortable than the corduroy knees on which he took his usual evening nap. At all events he followed me into my room, which only boasted of a mattress, stuffed with tussock-grass by the way, on the floor. Here I should have slept very well after my long journey, if Prince would have permitted it. In vain I put him out of the window, not always very gently; he returned in five minutes, bringing a palpitating, just-caught bird or mouse, which he softly dropped on my face, and purred loudly with delight at his own gallantry. Twenty times did I strike a match that night and try to restore the victims to life; only one recovered sufficiently to be released, and Prince brought it in again, quite dead, five minutes later. I shut the little casement window, but the room became so hot and stuffy, and suspicious fumes of stale beer and tobacco began to assert their presence, so that I found myself obliged to open it again. Sometimes the victim's bones were crunched close to my ear, and I found more than one feather in my hair in the morning. Never was any one so persecuted by a cat as I was by Prince that weary night.

The next day we got to a station known as "Johnson's." It was just at the head of the lake, and as we arrived tolerably early in the forenoon we embarked, after the usual station dinner of mutton, tea, and damper, on Lake Wanaka. Alas for those treacherous blue waters! We had only a little pair-oared boat, in which I took my place as coxwain, and after pulling for a mile or two under a blazing sun, over short chopping waves, with a head-wind, we all became so deadly sea-sick that we had to turn back! As soon as we had rested and recovered, a council of war was held as to our movements, and we decided, in spite of our recent experiences, to turn our horses, who had done quite enough for the present, out on the run, and so make our way down the lake by boat. Already F—— was beginning to look anxious, for he perceived that, even after the head of the lake had been reached, the wool would cost an enormous sum to cart down to either Oamaru or Timaru, from whence alone it could be shipped.

The mile or two of the run which lay along the shore of the lake showed us frightfully rough country. A dense jungle of tussocks and thorny bushes choked up the feed, and made it impossible to drive any animals through it, even supposing that good pasturage lay beyond. Still we hoped that we might be looking at the worst portion of our purchase, and deter mined to persevere in the attempt to penetrate to the furthest end of our new property. Accordingly we hired a safe old tub of a boat which, though too heavy to pull, was warranted to sail steadily, and with a couple of men, some cold mutton, bread, tea, and sugar, started valiantly on our cruise. But the "blue, unclouded weather," in which we had hitherto basked, was at an end for the present. We had already enjoyed a longer succession of calm days than usually falls to the lot of the travellers in that windy middle island, and it was now quite time for the imprisoned "nor'-wester" to have his turn over the surface of the domain.

Accordingly the first day's sail was against a light, ominously warm head-wind, and we only made any way at all by keeping up a complicated system of tacking. The start had not been an early one, so darkness found us but little advanced on our voyage, and we passed the night in a rough shanty, on beds of fern-leaves, wrapped in our red blankets. Tired as we were, none of us could sleep much. The air was dry and parched; every now and then a sough of the rising hot gale swept through our crazy shelter without cooling us, and warned us to prepare for what was coming. Our only chance of getting on was to make an early start, for fortunately a true "nor'-wester" is somewhat of a sluggard. The skies wore their peculiar chrysoprase green tint, except towards the weather quarter, where heavy banks of lurid cloud showed that the enemy was collecting in force. Even the hour of dawn, usually so crisp and cool, brought no sense of refreshment to our languid limbs, and we embarked with the direst forebodings. A few miles further up the lake we reached an out-station hut, built by our host Mr. Johnson when he first "took up" his country and intended to push his boundary as far as this. He soon drew in his lines however on account of the rough nature of the ground. The hut was in a most picturesque spot, and although deserted, remained still in good repair. The little scrap of garden ground was a tangle of gooseberry and currant bushes among which potatoes flourished at their own sweet will.

We had only time to beach the boat, that is to say F—— and the two men did so, whilst I ran backwards and forwards with the blankets and provisions, before the hurricane was upon us. Henceforth there was no stirring out of doors until the gale had blown itself out. We dragged in some driftwood, barricaded the door, and prepared to pass the time as well as we could. Oh, the fleas in the hut! The ground was literally alive with them, and their audacity and appetite was unparalleled. Our boatmen sat tranquilly by the tiny window and played cribbage incessantly with very dirty cards and a board made out of a small bar of soap. As for me, I turned an empty box up on its end, so as to get out of the way of the fleas, and perched myself on it, finding ample occupation in defending my position from the attacks of the active little wretches. Sometimes I felt as if I must rush out into the lake and drown myself and my tormentors together. It was very bad for everybody. The poor boatmen doubtless wished to smoke, but were too polite to do anything of the sort. F—— had nothing whatever to read, except a torn piece of an old Times, at least two years old, which we had brought to wrap up some of our provisions; whilst I was still more idle and wretched. Two weary interminable days dragged, or perhaps I should say, blew, themselves along in this miserable fashion, but at sundown on the evening of the third day the wind dropped suddenly, and we did not lose a moment in darting out of our prison and embarking once more. For the first time since we started we could perceive the grandeur of the surrounding country; but grand scenery is not necessary nor indeed desirable in a sheep run. Splendid mountains ran down in steep spurs to the very shore of the enormous lake. Behind them, piled in snowy steeps, rose the distant Alps of the Antipodes; great masses of native bush made dark purple shadows among the clefts of the hills, whilst the lake rippled in and out of many a graceful bay and quiet harbour. Not a fleck or film of cloud floated between us and the serene and darkening sky; a profound, delightful calm brooded over land and water. Although there was no moon, the stars served us as lights and compass until two o'clock in the morning, by which time we had reached the head of the lake (which is thirty-five miles in length), where we landed, extemporized a tent out of the boat sail, and turned in for a refreshing flea-less sleep.

The next day was beautifully still, with a light air from the opposite point, just sufficient to cool the parched atmosphere; and we made our way along the head of the lake to a place were a couple of sawyers were at work. One of them had brought his wife with him, and her welcome to me was the most touching thing in the world. She took me entirely under her care, and would hardly let me out of her sight. I must say it was very nice to be waited on so faithfully, and I gave myself up to the unaccustomed luxury. All she required of me in exchange for her incessant toil on my behalf was "news." It did not matter of what kind, every scrap of intelligence was welcome to her, and she refused to tell me to what date her "latest advices" extended. During the three days of our stay in that clearing among the great pines of the Wanaka Bush, I gave my hostess a complete abridgment of the history of England—political, social, and moral, beginning from my earliest recollections. Then we ran over contemporary foreign affairs, dwelt minutely on every scrap of colonial news, and finally wound up with a full, true, and particular account of myself and all my relations and friends. When I paused for breath she would cease her washing and cooking on my behalf, and say entreatingly, "Go on now, do!" until I felt quite desperate.

All this time whilst I was being "interviewed" nearly to death, F——employed himself in making excursions to different parts of the run. One of the sawyers lent him a miserable half-starved little pony; and he penetrated to another sawyer's hut, seven miles distant up the Matukituki river. But no matter whether he turned his steps to north or south, east or west, he met with the same disheartening report. There was the ground indeed, but it was perfectly useless. Not only was there was no pasturage, but if there had been, the nature of the country would have rendered it valueless, on account of the way it was overgrown. It would be tedious to explain more minutely why this was the case. Sufficient must it be to say that whilst F—— was only too anxious to keep his eyes shut as to the ground he had alighted on after his leap in the dark, and the sawyers were equally anxious to induce settlers to come there, and so bring a market for their labour close to their hand nothing could make our purchase appear anything except a dead loss. As for the plans, they were purely imaginary. The blue lake was about the only part true to nature; and even that should have had a foot-note to state that it was generally lashed into high, unnavigable waves, by a chronic nor'-wester.

No: there was nothing for it but to go home again to the little run which had seemed such a mere paddock in our eyes, whilst we indulged in castle-building over 100,000 acres of country. It was of no use lingering amid such disappointment and discomfort; besides which my listener, the sawyer's wife, had turned her husband and herself out of their hut, and were sleeping under a red blanket tent. Poor woman, she was most anxious to get away; and the lovely sylvan scene, with the tall trees standing like sentinels over their prostrate brethren, the wealth of beauteous greenery, springing through fronds of fern and ground creepers, the bright-winged flight of paroquets and other bush birds, even the vast expanse of the lake which stretched almost from their threshold for so many miles, all would have been gladly exchanged for a dusty high street in any country town-ship. Her last words were, "Can't you send me a paper or hany thing printed, mam?" I faithfully promised to do my best, and carried out my share of the bargain by despatching to her a large packet of miscellaneous periodicals and newspapers; but whether she ever received them is more than I can say.

We were afraid of lingering too long, lest another nor'-wester should become due; and we therefore started as soon as F—— had decided that it was of no use exploring our wretched purchase any further. We had a stiff breeze from the north-west all the way down the lake; but as it was right a-stern it helped us along to such good purpose, that one day's sailing before it brought us back to Mr. Johnson's homestead and comparative civilization. The little parlour and the tiny bed-room beyond, into which I could only get access by climbing through a window (for the architect had forgotten to put a door), appeared like apartments in a spacious palace, so great was the contrast between their snug comfort and the desolate misery of our hut life. Of course nothing else was talked of except our disappointment at our new run; and although Mr. Johnson had indulged in forebodings, which were only too literally fulfilled, he had the good taste never to remind us of his prophecies.

"Of all the forms of human woe, Defend me from that dread, 'I told you so.'"

After a day's halt and rest we mounted our much refreshed horses, and set our faces straight across country for Dunedin. This is very easy to write, but it was not quite so easy to do. We could only ride for the first fifty-two miles, which we accomplished in two days. These stages brought us to the foot of the Dunstan Range, and near the gold-diggings of that name. I would fain have turned aside to see them, but we had not time. However, we felt the auriferous influence of the locality; for a perfect stranger came up to us, whilst we were baiting at another place, called the Kaiwarara diggings, and offered to buy our horses from us for 30 pounds each, and also to purchase our saddles and bridles at a fair price. This was exactly what we wanted, as we had intended to sell them at Dunedin; and I was no ways disinclined to part with the Hermit; who retained the sulky, misanthropical temper which had earned him his name. He was now pronounced "fit to carry a lady," and purchased to be sold again at the diggings. Whether there were any ladies there or not I cannot tell. Of course, before parting with our nags we ascertained that the ubiquitous "Cobb's coach" started from our resting place for Dunedin next day, and we made the rest of our journey in one of that well-known line. Its leathern springs, whilst not so liable to break by sudden jolts, impart a swinging rocking motion to the body of the vehicle, which is most disagreeable; but rough and rude as they are, they deserve to be looked upon with respect as the pioneers of civilization. All over America, Australia, and now New Zealand, the moment half-a-dozen passengers are forthcoming, that moment the enterprising firm starts a coach, and the vehicle runs until it is ousted by a railway. All previous tracks which I had journeyed over seemed smooth turnpike roads, compared to that terrible tussocky track which led to Dunedin.

But that bright little town was reached at last, the hotel welcomed us, tired and bruised travellers that we were, and next evening we started in the Geelong for Port Lyttleton. This little coasting steamer seemed to touch at every hamlet along the coast, and after each pause I had to begin afresh my agonies of sea-sickness. There was no such thing as getting one's sea-legs; for we were seldom more than a few hours outside, and had no chance of getting used to the horrible motion. Timaru was reached next day, but we had suffered so frightfully during the night from a chopping sea and an open roadstead, that we went on shore, and entrusted ourselves once more to the old coach. It seemed better to endure the miseries we knew of, than to make experiments in wretchedness. So we went through the old jolting and jumbling until we were dropped at an accommodation house, fifteen miles from Christchurch, where we slept that night, and at daylight despatched a messenger to the next station for our own horses. He had only thirty-five miles to ride, and about mid-day we started to meet him on hired horses, which we were very glad to exchange for better nags a stage further on.

And so we rode quietly home in the gloaming, winding up the lovely, tranquil valley, at whose head stood our own snug little homestead. At first we were so glad to be safely at hone again that we scarcely gave a thought to our fruitless enterprise; but as our bruised bodies became rested and restored, our hearts began to ache when we thought of the money we had so rashly flung away in BUYING A RUN.



Chapter VIII: Looking for a congregation.

It is to be hoped and expected that such a good understanding has been established between my readers and myself by this time, that they will not find the general title of these papers unsuitable to the heading of this particular chapter. Indeed, I may truly say, that, looking back upon the many happy memories of my three years life in that lovely and beloved Middle Island, no pleasures stand out more vividly than my evening rides up winding gullies or across low hill-ranges in search of a shepherd's hut, or a cockatoo's nest. A peculiar brightness seems to rest on those sun-lit peaks of memory's landscape; and it is but fitting that it should be so, for other excursions or expeditions used to be undertaken merely for business or pleasure, but these delicious wanderings were in search of scattered dwellings whose lonely inhabitants—far removed from Church privileges for many a long year past—might be bidden, nay, entreated, to come to us on Sunday afternoons, and attend the Service we held at home weekly.

And here I feel constrained to say a word to those whose eyes may haply rest on my pages, and who may find themselves in the coming years in perhaps the same position as I did a short time ago. A new comer to a new country is sure to be discouraged if he or she (particularly she, I fancy) should attempt to revive or introduce any custom which has been neglected or overlooked. This is especially the case with religious observances. At every turn one is met by disheartening warnings. "Oh, the people here are very different to those in the old country; they would look upon it as impertinence if you suggested they should come to church." "You will find a few may come just at first, and then when the novelty wears off and they have seen all the pretty things in your drawing room, not a soul will ever come near the place."

"If even the men don't say something very free and easy to you when you invite them to your house on Sunday afternoons, you may depend upon it that after two or three weeks you will not know how to keep them in order."

Such, and many more, were the discouraging remarks made when I consulted my neighbours about my plan for collecting the shepherds from the surrounding runs, and holding a Church of England Service every Sunday afternoon at our own little homestead. To my mind, the distances seemed the greatest obstacle, as many of the men I wanted to reach lived twenty-five or even thirty miles away, with very rough country between. I had no fear of impertinence, for it is unknown to me, and seldom comes, I fancy, unprovoked; whilst with regard to the novelty wearing off and the men ceasing to attend, that must be left in God's hands. We could only endeavour to plant the good seed, and trust to Him to give the increase. It was a great comfort to me in those early days that F——, who had been many years in the colony, never joined in the disheartening prophecies I have alluded to. Although as naturally averse to reading aloud before strangers as a man who had lived a solitary life would be sure to be, he promised at once, with a good grace, to read the Evening Service and a sermon afterwards, and thus smoothed one difficulty over directly. His advice to me was precisely what I would fain repeat: "Try, by all means: if you fail you will at least feel you have made the attempt." May all who try succeed, as we did! I believe firmly they will, for it is an undertaking on which God's blessing is sure to rest, and there are no such fertilizing dews as those which fall from heaven. The mists arising from earth are only miasmic vapours after all!

But I fear to linger too long on the end, instead of telling you about the means.

It was May when we were fairly settled in our new home at the head of a hill-encircled valley. With us that month answers to your November, but fogs are unknown in that breezy Middle Island, and my first winter in Canterbury was a beautiful season, heralded in by an exquisite autumn. How crisp the mornings and evenings were, with ever so light a film of hoar frost, making a splendid sparkle on every blade of waving tussock-grass! Then in the middle of the day the delicious warmth of the sun tempted one to linger all day in the open air, and I never wearied of gazing at the strange purple shadows cast by a passing cloud; or up, beyond the floating vapourous wreath, to the heaven of brilliant blue which smiled upon us. And yet, when I come to think of it, I don't know that I had much time to spare for glancing at either hills or skies, for we were just settling ourselves in a new place, and no one knows what that means unless they have tried it, fifty miles away from the nearest shop. The yeast alone was a perpetual anxiety to me,—it would not keep beyond a certain time, and had a tendency to explode its confining bottles in the middle of the night, so it became necessary to make it in smaller quantities every ten days or so. If by any chance I forgot to remind my scatter-brained damsels to replenish the yeast bottles, they used up the last drop, and then would come smilingly to me with the remark, "There aint not a drop o' yeast, about, anywhere, mum." This entailed flap-jacks, or scones, or soda bread, or some indigestible compound for at least three days, as it was of no use attempting to make proper bread until the yeast had worked. Then the well needed to be deepened, a kitchen garden had to be made, shelter to be provided for the fowls and pigs; a shed to be put up for coals; a thousand things which entailed thought and trouble, had to be done.

It is true these rough jobs were not exactly in my line, but indoors I was just as busy trying to make big things fit into little spaces and vice versa. We could not afford to take things coolly and do a little every day, for at that time of year an hour's change in the wind might have brought a heavy fall of snow, or a sharp frost, or a; deluge of rain down upon the uncovered and defenceless heads of our live stock. The poor dear sheep, the source of our income, were after all the least well-cared for creatures on the Station. A well grassed and watered run, with sunny vallies for winter feeding, and green hills for summer pasturage, had been provided by antipodean Nature for them, and to these advantages we only added some twenty or twenty-five miles of wire fencing, and then they were left to themselves, with a couple of shepherds to look after fifteen thousand sheep all the year round.

But yet, busy as we were, we found time to look up a congregation. The very first Sunday afternoon, whilst we were still in the midst of a chaos of chips and big boxes and straw and empty china-barrels, our own shepherds came over, by invitation, and the only very near neighbours we had—a Scotch head-shepherd and his charming young wife,—and we held a Service in the half-furnished drawing room. After it was ended we had a long talk with the men, and they confessed that they had enjoyed it very much, and would like to come regularly. When questioned as to the feasibility of inducing others to join, they said that it might be suggested to more than one distant, lonely hill-shepherd, but his uncontrollable shyness would probably prevent his attendance.

"Jim Salter, and Joe Bennett, and a lot more on 'em, would be glad enow to come, if so be they could feel as how they was truly wellcombe," said our shepherd, Pepper, who prided himself on the elegance and correctness of his phraseology. He added, after a reflective pause, turning bashfully away, "If so be as the lady would just look round and give 'em a call, they'd be to be persuaded belike."

So the scheme was Pepper's after all, you see. But this "looking round," to which he alluded so airily, meant scrambling rides, varying from ten to twenty-eight miles in length, over break-neck country, and this on the slender chance of finding the men in-doors. Now a New Zealand shepherd almost lives out on the hills, so the prospect of finding any of our congregation at home was slight indeed. However, as I said before, F—— stood by me, and although we neither of us could well spare the time, we agreed to devote two afternoons every week, so long as the fine open autumn weather, lasted, to making excursions in search of back-country huts. There are no roads or finger posts or guides of any sort in those distant places. When we inquired what was the name of "Mills" shepherd (the masters are always plain Smith or Jones, and the shepherds Mr.——, in the colonies) the answer was generally very vague. "Wiry Bill, we mostly calls 'im; but I think I've heerd say his rightful name was Mr. Pellet, mum. He's a little chap, as strong as the 'ouse," explained Pepper, who was an incorrigible cockney, "and he lives over there," pointing with his thumb to a mountain range behind us. "He's in one of them blind gullies. You go along the gorge of the river till you come to a saddle all over fern, and you drop down that, and follow the best o' three or four tracts till you come to a swamp."

Here Pepper paused, in consideration of my face of horror; for if there was one thing I dreaded more than another in those early days, it was a swamp. Steep hill sides, wide creeks, honey-combed flats, all came in, the day's ride,—but a swamp! Ugh! the horrible treacherous thing, so green and innocent looking, with here and there a quicksand or a peaty morass, in which, without a moment's warning, your horse sank up to his withers! It was dreadful, and when we came to such a place Helen used to stop dead short, prick her pretty ears well forward, and, trembling with fear and excitement, put her nose close to the ground, smelling every inch, before she would place her fore foot down on it, jumping off it like a goat if it proved insecure. Generally she crossed a swamp, by a series of bounds in and out of flax bushes; and hopeless indeed would a morass be without those green cities of refuge!

Horrible as a large swamp is however to a timid horsewoman, it is dear to the heart of a cockatoo. He gladly buys a freehold of fifty acres in the midst of one, burns it, makes a sod fence, sown with gorse seed a-top, all round his section, drains it in a rough and ready fashion, and then the splendid fertile soil which has been waiting for so many thousand years, "brings forth fruit abundantly." Such enormous fields of wheat and oats and barley as you come upon sometimes,—with, alas, never a market near enough to enable the plenteous crop to return sevenfold into its master's bosom!

I shall not inflict upon you a description of all our rides in search of members for our congregation. Two, in widely differing directions, will serve as specimens of such excursions. In consideration of my new-chumishness, F—— selected a comparatively easy track for our first ride. And yet, "bad was the best," might surely be said of that breakneck path. What would an English horse, or an English lady say, to riding for miles over a slippery winding ledge on a rocky hill side, where a wall of solid mountain rose up perpendicularly on the right hand, and on the left a very respectable sized river hurried over its boulders far beneath the aerial path; yet this was comparatively a safe track, and presented but one serious obstacle, over which I was ruthlessly taken. It is perhaps needless to say we were riding in single file, and equally unnecessary to state that I was the last; for certainly we should never have made much progress otherwise. Helen, my bay mare, would follow her stable companion, on which F—— was mounted, so that was the way we got on at all.

A sudden sharp turn showed me what appeared to be a low stone wall running own the spur of the mountain, right across our track, and I had already begun to disquiet myself about the possibility of turning back on such a narrow ledge, when I saw F——'s powerful black horse, with his ears well forward, and his reins, lying loose on his neck, make a sort of rush at the obstacle, climb up it as a cat would, stand for an instant, exactly like a performing goat, with all four legs drawn closely together under him, and then with a spring disappear on the other side. "This wall", I thought, "must be but loosely built, for Leo has displaced some of the stones from its coping." Helen, pretty dear, hurried after her friend and leader; and before I had time to realize what she was going to do, she was balancing herself on the crumbling summit of this stone wall (which was only the freak of a landslip), and as it proved impossible to remain there, perched like a bird on a very insecure branch, nothing remained except to gather herself well together and jump off. But what a jump! the ground fell sheer away at the foot of the wall, and left a chasm many feet wide, which the horse could not see until it had climbed to the top of the wall, and as turning back was out of the question, the only alternative was to give a vigorous bound on to the narrow ledge beyond. Terrified as I felt, I luckily refrained from jerking Helen's head, or attempting to guide her in any way. The only chance of safety over New Zealand tracks, or New Zealand creeks, is to leave your horse entirely to itself. I have seen men who were reckoned good riders in England, get the most ignominious tumbles from a disregard of this advice. An up-country horse knows perfectly well the only sound spots in a swamp; or the only sound part of a creek's banks. If his rider persists in taking him over the latter, where he himself thinks it narrowest and safest, he is pretty sure to find the earth rotten and crumbling, and to pay for his obstinacy by a wetting; whilst in the case of a swamp the consequences are even more serious, and the horse often gets badly strained in floundering out of a quagmire.

But it was not all danger and difficulty, and the many varieties of scene in the course of a long ride constituted some of its chief charms. At first, perhaps, after we had left our own fair valley behind, the track would wind through the gorge of a river, with lofty mountains rising sheer up from the water side. All here was sad and grey, and very solemn in its eternal silence, only made more intense by the ceaseless monotonous roar of the ever-rushing water. Then we would emerge on acres and acres of softly rolling downs, higher than the hillocks we call by that name at home, but still marvellously beautiful in their swelling curves all folding so softly into each other, and dotted with mobs of sheep, making pastoral music to a flock-owner's ear. Over this sort of ground we could canter gaily along, with "Hector," F——'s pet colley, keeping close to the heels of his master's horse,—for it is the worst of bad manners in a colley to look at a neighbour's sheep. The etiquette in passing through a strange run is for the dog to go on the off side of his master's horse, so that the sheep shall not even see him; and this piece of courtly politeness Hector always practised of his own accord.

A wire fence always proved a very tiresome obstacle, for horses have a great dread of them, and will not be induced to jump them on any account. If we could find out where the gate was, well and good; but as it might be half a dozen miles off, on one side or the other, we seldom lost time or patience in seeking it. When there was no help for it, and such a fence had to be crossed, the proceedings were, always the same. F——dismounted, and unfastened one of his stirrup leathers; with this he strapped the wires as firmly as possible together, but if the fence had been lately fresh-strained, it was sometimes a difficult task. Still he generally made one spot lower than the rest, and over this he proceeded to adjust his coat very carefully; he then vaulted lightly over himself, and calling upon me to aid by sundry flicks on Leo's flank, the horse would be induced to jump over it. This was always a work of time and trouble, for Leo hated doing it, and would rather have leaped the widest winter creek, than jumped the lowest coat-covered wire fence. Helen had to jump with me on her back, and without any friendly whip to urge her, but except once, when she caught her hind leg in the sleeve of the coat which was hanging over the fence, and tore it completely out, she got over very well. Upon that occasion F—— had to carry his sleeve in his pocket until we reached the neat little out-station hut, where Jim Salter lived, and where we were pretty sure to find a housewife, for shepherds are as handy as sailors with a needle and thread.

I shall always believe that some bird of the air had "carried the matter" to Salter, because not only was he at home, and in his Sunday clothes, but he had made a cake the evening before, and that was a very suspicious circumstance. However we pretended not to imagine that we were expected, and Jim pretended with equal success to be much surprised at our visit, so both sides were satisfied. Nothing could be neater than the inside of the little hut; its cob walls papered with, old Illustrated London News,—not only pictures but letter-press,—its tiny window as clean as possible, a new sheep-skin rug laid down before the open fireplace, where a bright wood fire was sputtering and cracking cheerily, and the inevitable kettle suspended from a hook half-way up the low chimney. Outside, the dog-kennels had been newly thatched with tohi grass, the garden weeded and freshly dug, the chopping-block and camp-oven as clean as scrubbing could make them. It was too late in the year for fruit, but Salter's currant, raspberry, and gooseberry bushes gave us a good idea of how well he must have fared in the summer. The fowls were just devouring the last of the green-pea shoots, and the potatoes had been blackened by our first frosts.

It was all very nice and trim and comfortable, except the loneliness; that must have been simply awful. It is difficult to realise how completely cut off from the society of his kind a New Zealand up-country shepherd is, especially at an out-station like this. Once in every three months he goes down to the homestead, borrows the pack horse, and leads it up to his hut, with a quarter's rations of flour, tea, sugar and salt; of course he provides himself with mutton and firewood, and his simple wants are thus supplied. After shearing, about January, his wages are paid, varying from 75 pounds to 100 pounds a year, according to the locality, and then he gets a week's leave to go down to the nearest town. If he be a prudent steady man, as our friend Salter was, he puts his money in the bank, or lends it out on a freehold mortgage at ten per cent., only deducting a few pounds from his capital for a suit of clothes, a couple of pair of Cookham boots for hill walking, and above all, some new books.

Without any exception, the shepherds I came across in New Zealand were all passionately fond of reading; and they were also well-informed men, who often expressed themselves in excellent, through superfine, language. Their libraries chiefly consisted of yellow-covered novels, and out of my visits in search of a congregation grew a scheme for a book-club to supply something better in the way of literature, which was afterwards most successfully carried out. But of this I need not speak here, for we are still seated inside Salter's hut,—so small in its dimensions that it could hardly have held another guest. Womanlike, my eyes were everywhere, and I presently spied out an empty bottle, labelled "Worcestershire Sauce."

"Dear me, Salter," I cried, "I had no idea you were so grand as to have sauces up here: why we hardly ever use them." "Well, mum," replied Salter, bashfully, and stroking his long black beard to gain time to select the grandest words he could think of, "it is hardly to be regarded in the light of happetite, that there bottle, it is more in the nature of remedies." Then, seeing that I still looked mystified, he added, "You see, mum, although we gets our 'elth uncommon well in these salubrious mountings, still a drop of physic is often handy-like, and in a general way I always purchase myself a box of Holloway's Pills (of which you do get such a lot for your money), and also a bottle of pain-killer; but last shearing they was out o' pain-killer, they said, so they put me up a bottle o' Cain pepper, and likewise that 'ere condiment, which was werry efficacious, 'specially towards the end o' the bottle!" "And do you really mean to say you drank it, Salter?" I inquired with horror.

"Certainly I do, mum, whenever I felt out o' sorts. It always took my mind off the loneliness, and cheered me up wonderful, especial if I hadded a little red pepper to it," said Salter, getting up from his log of wood and making me a low bow. All this time F—— and I were seated amicably side by side on poor Salter's red blanket-covered "bunk," or wooden bedstead, made of empty flour-sacks nailed between rough poles, and other sacks filled with tussock grass for a mattress and pillow.

The word loneliness gave me a good opening to broach the subject of our Sunday gatherings, and my suspicions of Jim's having been told of our visit were confirmed by the alacrity with which he said, "I have much pleasure in accepting your kind invitation, mum, if so be as I am not intruding."

"No, indeed Salter," F—— said; "you'd be very welcome, and you could always turn Judy into the paddock whilst we were having service."

Now if there was one thing dearer to Salter's heart than another, it was his little roan mare Judy: her excellent condition, and jaunty little hog-mane and tail, testified to her master's loving care. So it was all happily settled, and after paying a most unfashionably long visit to the lonely man, we rode away with many a farewell nod and smile. I may say here that Salter was one of the most regular of our congregation for more than two years, besides being a member of the book club. In time, its more sensible volumes utterly displaced the yellow paper rubbish in his but library, and I never can forget the poor man's emotion when he came to bid me good-bye.

At my request he made the rough little pen and ink sketches which are here given, and as he held my offered hand (not knowing quite what else to do with it) when I took leave of him after our last home-service, when my face was set towards England, he could not say a word. The great burly creature's heart must have been nearly as big as his body, and he seemed hardly to know that large tears were rolling down his sunburnt face and losing themselves in his bushy beard. I tried to be cheerful myself, but he kept repeating, "It is only natural you should be glad to go, yet it is very rough upon us." In vain I assured him I was not at all glad to go,—very, very sorry, in fact: all he would say was, "To England, home and beauty, in course any one would be pleased to return." I can't tell you what he meant, and he had no voice to waste on explanations; I only give poor dear Jim's valedictory sentences as they fell from his white and trembling lips.

Very different was Ned Palmer, the most diminutive and wiry of hill shepherds, with a tongue which seemed never tired, and a good humoured smile for every one. Ned used to try my gravity sorely by stepping up to me half a dozen times during the service, to find his place for him in his Prayer-book, and always saying aloud, "Thank you kindly, m'm."



Chapter IX: Another shepherd's hut.

To get to Ned's hut—which was not nearly so trim or comfortable as Salter's, and stood out in the midst of a vast plain covered with waving yellow tussocks,—we had to cross a low range of hills, and pick our way through nearly a mile of swampy ground on the other side. The sure-footed horses zig-zagged their way up the steep hill-side with astonishing ease, availing themselves here and there of a sheep track, for sheep are the best engineers in the world, and always hit off the safest and easiest line of country. I did not feel nervous going up the hill, although we must have appeared, had there been any one to look at us, more like flies on a wall than a couple of people on horse back, but when we came to the ridge and looked down on the descent beneath us, my heart fairly gave way.

Not a blade of grass, or a leaf of a shrub, was to be seen on all the steep slope, or rather precipice, for there was very little slope about it; nothing but grey loose shingle, which the first hoof-fall of the leading horse invariably sent slipping and sliding, in a perfect avalanche of rubble, down into the soft bright green morass beneath. Of all the bad "tracks" I encountered in my primitive rides, I really believe I suffered more real terror and anguish on that particular hill-side than on any other. My companion's conduct too, used to be heartless in the extreme. He let the reins fall loosely on his horse's neck, merely holding their extreme ends, settled himself comfortably in his saddle, leaning well back, and turning round laughingly to me, observed, "Aren't you coming?" "Oh, not there," I cried in true melo-dramatic tones of horror; but it was all in vain, F—— merely remarked "You have nothing to do but fancy you are sitting in an arm-chair at home, you are quite as safe." "What nonsense," I gasped. "I only wish I was at home: never, never will I come out riding again." All this time the leading horse was slowly and carefully edging himself down hill a few steps to the right, then a few to the left, just as he thought best, displacing tons of loose stone and even small rocks at every movement. Helen, nothing daunted, was eager to follow, and although she quivered with excitement at the noise, echoed back from the opposite hills, lost no time in preparing to descend. Her first movement sent such showers of rubble down upon F—— and his horse, that I really thought the latter would have been knocked off his legs. "If you could keep a little more to the right, so as to send the stones clear of me, I should be very grateful," shouted F——, who was actually near the bottom of the hill already, so sharp had been the angles of his horse's descent. I felt afraid of attempting to guide Helen, lest the least check should send us both head over heels into the quagmire below, and yet it seemed dreadful to cause the death of one's husband by rolling down cart loads of stones upon him. It could not have been more than five minutes before Helen and I stood side by side with Leo, on the only bit of firm ground at the edge of the morass. I believe I was as white as my pocket handkerchief; and if fright could turn a person's hair grey, I had been sufficiently alarmed to make myself eligible for any quantity of walnut pomade.

Fortunately the summer had proved rather a dry one, and the swamp was not so wet as it would have been after a heavy rain-fall. The horses stepped carefully from flax bushes to "nigger heads" (as the very old blackened grass stumps are called), resting hardly a moment anywhere, and avoiding all the most seductive looking spots. I thought my companion must have gone suddenly mad, when, a hawk rising up almost from beneath our horses' feet, he flung himself off his saddle and cried out, "A late hawk's nest, I declare!" And so it proved, for a little searching in a sheltered and tolerably dry spot revealed a couple of eggs, precisely like hens' eggs, until broken, when their delicate pale green inner membrane betrayed their dangerous origin. It is chiefly owing to this practice of laying in swamps that the various kinds of hawk increase and thrive as they do, for if it were possible to get at them, the shepherds would soon exterminate the sworn foe of their chickens and pigeons. They are also the great drawback to the introduction of pheasants and partridges, for the young birds have not a chance in the open against even a sparrow-hawk.

Although it is a digression, I must tell you here how, one beautiful early winter's day, I was standing in the verandah at my own home, when one of our pigeons, chased by a hawk, flew right into my face and its pursuer was so close and so heated by the chase, that it flung itself also with great violence against my head, with a scream of rage and triumph, hurting me a good deal as it dug its cruel, armed heel into my cheek. The pigeon had fluttered, stunned and exhausted to the ground, and, quick as lightning I stooped to pick it up; so great had been the impetus of the hawk's final charge that he had never perceived his victim had escaped him. The cunning of these birds must be seen to be believed. I have often watched a wary old hawk perched most impudently on the stock-yard rails, waiting until a rash chicken or duckling should, in spite of its mother's warning clucks of terror, insist on coming out from under her sheltering wings. If I took an umbrella, or a croquet mallet, or a walking stick, and went out, the bird would remain quite unmoved, even if I held my weapon pointed gun-wise towards him. But let anyone take a real gun and hold it ever so well hidden behind their back, and emerge ever so cautiously from the shelter of the shrubs, my fine gentleman was off directly, mounting out of sight with a few strokes of his powerful wings, and uttering a shriek of derision as he departed. Nothing is so rare as a successful shot at a hawk.

We consoled ourselves however on this occasion, by reflecting that we had annihilated two young hawks before they had commenced their lives of rapine and robbery, and rode on our way rejoicing, to find Ned Palmer sitting outside his but door on a log of drift wood, making, candles. In the more primitive days of the settlement, the early settlers must have been as badly off for light, during the long dark winter evenings, as are even now the poorer inhabitants of 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, to show me old Spot's face for company, I set to work, hot haste, to make some more. It was bitter, biting cold, you bet, ma'am; and I was hard at work—just after I had had my bit o' breakfast, before I went out for to look round my boundary—melting and making my dips, so that they might be fine and hard for night. I ought praps to mention that Spot used to get so close to the fire-place, that as often as not, I dropped a mossel of the hot grease on the dog; and if it touched a thin place in his coat, he would jump up howling. Well, ma'am, I was pouring a pannikin full o' biling tallow into the mould, when poor old Spot he gives a sudden howl and yell, and runs to the door. I paid no attention to him at the time, for I was so busy; but he went on leaping up and howling as if he had gone mad. As soon as I could put down the pannikin out o' my hand, I went to the door meaning to open it and,—sorry am I to say it,—kick the poor beast out for making such a row about a drop o' hot grease. But the dog turned his face round on me, and gave me a look as much as to say, 'Make haste, do; there's a good chap: I ought to be outside there.' And what with the sense shinin' in his eyes, and a curious kind o' sound outside, I takes down the bar (for the door wouldn't stay shut otherwise), and looks out. Never until my dyin' day, and not even then, I expect, shall I forget what the dog and I saw lying on the ground, which was all white and hard with frost, the sun not having got over the East range yet. The dog he had more sense and a deal more pluck than I had, for he knows there aint a moment to be lost; and he runs up to the flat, tumbled-down heap o' clothes, gets on its back (for no face could I see), so as to be doing something, and not losing time, and begins licking. Not very far off there was a lean horse standing, but he didn't seem to like to come through the slip-rail o' the paddock fence.

"In coorse I couldn't stand gaping there all day, so I went and stooped down to the man, who was lying flat on his face, with his arms straight out. He wasn't sensibleless (Palmer's favourite word for senseless), for he opened his eyes, and said, "For God's sake, mate, take me in." "So I will, mate," I makes reply "and welcome you are. Can you get on your legs, think you?" With that he groans awful, and says, "My legs is friz." Well, I looks at his legs, and sees he was dressed in what had been good moleskins, and high jack riding-boots, coming up to his knees; but sure enough they was as hard as a board, and actially, if you'll believe me, ma'am, there was a rim o' solid hice round the tops of his boots. As for standing, he couldn't do it: his legs was no more use to him than they was to me, and he was a tall, high fellow besides. Cold as it was, I felt hot enough by the time I had lugged that poor man inside my place, and got him up on my bunk. He could speak, though his voice was weak as weak could be, and he helped me as well as he could by catching hold with his arms, but his legs was stone dead. I had to get the tommy (anglice-tomahawk), and chop his boots off, and that's the gospel truth, ma'am. I broke my knife, first try, and the axe was too big. He told me, poor fellow, that two days before, as he was returning from prospecting up towards the back ranges, his horse got away, and he couldn't catch him. No: he tried with all his might and main, for in his swag, which was strapped to the D's of his saddle, was not only his blanket, but his baccy, and tea, and damper, and a glass o' grog. The curious thing, too, was that the horse didn't bolt right away, as they generally do: he jest walked a-head, knowing his master was bound to follow wherever he led, for in coorse he had hopes to catch him every moment. That ere brute, he never laid down nor rested,—jest kep slowly moving on, as if he was a Lunnon street-boy, with a bobby at his heels. Through creeks and rivers and swamps he led that poor fellow. His boots got chuck full o' cold water, and when the sun went down it friz into solid hice; and that misfortnit man he felt his legs—which was his life, you see, ma'am—gradially dyin' under him. Yet he was a well-plucked one, if ever there was such a party on this airth. He told me he had took five mortial hours to come the last mile, the horse walkin' slowly afore him, and guiding him like. And how do you think he did it, with two pillars of hice for legs? Why he lifted up just one leg and then the other with both his hands, and put them afore him, and took his steps that way."