Choice of a Run--Boundaries--Maoris--Wages--Servants--Drunkenness--
Cooking--Wethers--Choice of Homestead--Watchfulness required--Burning
the Country--Yards for Sheep--Ewes and Lambs--Lambing Season--Wool
Sheds--Sheep Washing--Putting up a Hut--Gardens--Farewell.
In looking for a run, some distance must be traversed; the country near
Christ Church is already stocked. The waste lands are, indeed, said to
be wholly taken up throughout the colony, wherever they are capable of
supporting sheep. It may, however, be a matter of some satisfaction to
a new settler to examine this point for himself, and to consider what he
requires in the probable event of having to purchase the goodwill of a
run, with the improvements upon it, which can hardly be obtained under
150 pounds per 1000 acres.
A river boundary is most desirable; the point above or below the
confluence of two rivers is still better, as there are then only two
sides to guard. Stony ground must not be considered as an impediment;
grass grows between the stones, and a dray can travel upon it. England
must have been a most impracticable country to traverse before metalled
roads were made. Here the surface is almost everywhere a compact mass
of shingle; it is for the most part only near the sea that the shingle
is covered with soil. Forest and swamp are much greater impediments to
a journey than a far greater distance of hard ground would prove. A
river such as the Cam or Ouse would be far more difficult to cross
without bridges than the Rakaia or Rangitata, notwithstanding their
volume and rapidity; the former are deep in mud, and rarely have
convenient places at which to get in or out; while the latter abound in
them, and have a stony bed on which the wheels of your dray make no
impression. The stony ground will carry a sheep to each acre and a half
or two acres. Such diseases as foot-rot are unknown, owing probably to
the generally dry surface of the land.
There are few Maoris here; they inhabit the north island, and are only
in small numbers, and degenerate in this, so may be passed over
unnoticed. The only effectual policy in dealing with them is to show a
bold front, and, at the same time, do them a good turn whenever you can
be quite certain that your kindness will not be misunderstood as a
symptom of fear. There are no wild animals that will molest your sheep.
In Australia they have to watch the flocks night and day because of the
wild dogs. The yards, of course, are not proof against dogs, and the
Australian shepherd's hut is built close against the yard; here this is
unnecessary.
Having settled that you will take up your country or purchase the lease
of it, you must consider next how to get a dray on to it. Horses are
not to be thought of except for riding; you must buy a dray and
bullocks. The rivers here are not navigable.
Wages are high. People do not leave England and go to live at the
antipodes to work for the same wages which they had at home. They want
to better themselves as well as you do, and, the supply being limited,
they will ask and get from 1 pound to 30s. a week besides their board
and billet.
You must remember you will have a rough life at first; there will be a
good deal of cold and exposure; a good deal of tent work; possibly a
fever or two; to say nothing of the seeds of rheumatism which will give
you something to meditate upon hereafter.
You and your men will have to be on rather a different footing from that
on which you stood in England. There, if your servant were in any
respect what you did not wish, you were certain of getting plenty of
others to take his place. Here, if a man does not find you quite what
he wishes, he is certain of getting plenty of others to employ him. In
fact, he is at a premium, and soon finds this out. On really good men
this produces no other effect than a demand for high wages. They will
be respectful and civil, though there will be a slight but quite
unobjectionable difference in their manner toward you. Bad men assume
an air of defiance which renders their immediate dismissal a matter of
necessity. When you have good men, however, you must recognise the
different position in which you stand toward them as compared with that
which subsisted at home. The fact is, they are more your equals and
more independent of you, and, this being the case, you must treat them
accordingly. I do not advise you for one moment to submit to
disrespect; this would be a fatal error. A man whose conduct does not
satisfy you must be sent about his business as certainly as in England;
but when you have men who DO suit you, you must, besides paying them
handsomely, expect them to treat you rather as an English yeoman would
speak to the squire of his parish than as an English labourer would
speak to him. The labour markets will not be so bad but that good men
can be had, and as long as you put up with bad men it serves you right
to be the loser by your weakness.
Some good hands are very improvident, and will for the most part spend
their money in drinking, a very short time after they have earned it.
They will come back possibly with a DEAD HORSE TO WORK OFF--that is, a
debt at the accommodation house--and will work hard for another year to
have another drinking bout at the end of it. This is a thing fatally
common here. Such men are often first-rate hands and thoroughly good
fellows when away from drink; but, on the whole, saving men are perhaps
the best. Commend yourself to a good screw for a shepherd; if he knows
the value of money he knows the value of lambs, and if he has contracted
the habit of being careful with his own money he will be apt to be so
with yours also. But in justice to the improvident, it must be owned
they are often admirable men save in the one point of sobriety.
Their political knowledge is absolutely nil, and, were the colony to
give them political power, it might as well give gunpowder to children.
How many hands shall you want?
We will say a couple of good bush hands, who will put up your hut and
yards and wool-shed. If you are in a hurry and have plenty of money you
can have more. Besides these you will want a bullock driver and
shepherd, unless you are shepherd yourself. You must manage the cooking
among you as best you can, and must be content to wash up yourself,
taking your full part in the culinary processes, or you will soon find
disaffection in the camp; but if you can afford to have a cook, have one
by all means. It is a great nuisance to come in from a long round after
sheep and find the fire out and no hot water to make tea, and to have to
set to work immediately to get your men's supper; for they cannot earn
their supper and cook it at the same time. The difficulty is that good
boys are hard to get, and a man that is worth anything at all will
hardly take to cooking as a profession. Hence it comes to pass that the
cooks are generally indolent and dirty fellows, who don't like hard
work. Your college education, if you have had one, will doubtless have
made you familiar with the art of making bread; you will now proceed to
discover the mysteries of boiling potatoes. The uses of dripping will
begin to dawn upon you, and you will soon become expert in the
manufacture of tallow candles. You will wash your own clothes, and will
learn that you must not boil flannel shirts, and experience will teach
you that you must eschew the promiscuous use of washing soda, tempting
though indeed it be if you are in a hurry. If you use collars, I can
inform you that Glenfield starch is the only starch used in the
laundries of our most gracious Sovereign; I tell you this in confidence,
as it is not generally advertised.
To return to the culinary department. Your natural poetry of palate
will teach you the proper treatment of the onion, and you will ere long
be able to handle that inestimable vegetable with the breadth yet
delicacy which it requires. Many other things you will learn, which for
your sake as well as my own I will not enumerate here. Let the above
suffice for examples.
At first your wethers will run with your ewes, and you will only want
one shepherd; but as soon as the mob gets up to two or three thousand
the wethers should be kept separate; you will then want another
shepherd. As soon as you have secured your run you must buy sheep;
otherwise you lose time, as the run is only valuable for the sheep it
carries. Bring sheep, shepherd, men, stores, all at one and the same
time. Some wethers must be included in your purchase, otherwise you
will run short of meat, as none of your own breeding will be ready for
the knife for a year and a half, to say the least of it. No wether
should be killed till it is two years old, and then it is murder to kill
an animal which brings you in such good interest by its wool, and would
even be better if suffered to live three years longer, when you will
have had its value in its successive fleeces. It will, however, pay you
better to invest nearly all your money in ewes, and to kill your own
young stock, than to sink more capital than is absolutely necessary in
wethers.
Start your dray, then, from town and join it with your sheep on the way
up. Your sheep will not travel more than ten miles a day if you are to
do them justice; so your dray must keep pace with them. You will
generally find plenty of firewood on the track. You can camp under the
dray at night. In about a week you will get on to your run, and very
glad you will feel when you are safely come to the end of your journey.
See the horses properly looked to at once; then set up the tent, make a
good fire, put the kettle on, out with the frying-pan and get your
supper, smoke the calumet of peace, and go to bed.
The first question is, Where shall you place your homestead? You must
put it in such a situation as will be most convenient for working the
sheep. These are the real masters of the place--the run is theirs, not
yours: you cannot bear this in mind too diligently. All considerations
of pleasantness of site must succumb to this. You must fix on such a
situation as not to cut up the run, by splitting off a little corner too
small to give the sheep free scope and room. They will fight rather shy
of your homestead, you may be certain; so the homestead must be out of
their way. You MUST, however, have water and firewood at hand, which is
a great convenience, to say nothing of the saving of labour and expense.
Therefore, if you can find a bush near a stream, make your homestead on
the lee side of it. A stream is a boundary, and your hut, if built in
such a position, will interfere with your sheep as little as possible.
The sheep will make for rising ground and hill-side to camp at night,
and generally feed with their heads up the wind, if it is not too
violent. As your mob increases, you can put an out-station on the other
side the run.
In order to prevent the sheep straying beyond your boundaries, keep ever
hovering at a distance round them, so far off that they shall not be
disturbed by your presence, and even be ignorant that you are looking at
them. Sheep cannot be too closely watched, or too much left to
themselves. You must remember they are your masters, and not you
theirs; you exist for them, not they for you. If you bear this well in
mind, you will be able to turn the tables on them effectually at
shearing-time. But if you once begin to make the sheep suit their
feeding-hours to your convenience, you may as well give up sheep-farming
at once. You will soon find the mob begin to look poor, your percentage
of lambs will fall off, and in fact you will have to pay very heavily
for saving your own trouble, as indeed would be the case in every
occupation or profession you might adopt.
Of course you will have to turn your sheep back when they approach the
boundary of your neighbour. Be ready, then, at the boundary. You have
been watching them creeping up in a large semicircle toward the
forbidden ground. As long as they are on their own run let them alone,
give them not a moment's anxiety of mind; but directly they reach the
boundary, show yourself with your dog in your most terrific aspect.
Startle them, frighten them, disturb their peace; do so again and again,
at the same spot, from the very first day. Let them always have peace
on their own run, and none anywhere off it. In a month or two you will
find the sheep begin to understand your meaning, and it will then be
very easy work to keep them within bounds. If, however, you suffer them
to have half an hour now and then on the forbidden territory, they will
be constantly making for it. The chances are that the feed is good on
or about the boundary, and they will be seduced by this to cross, and go
on and on till they are quite beyond your control.
You will have burnt a large patch of feed on the outset. Burn it in
early spring, on a day when rain appears to be at hand. It is dangerous
to burn too much at once: a large fire may run farther than you wish,
and, being no respecter of imaginary boundaries, will cross on to your
neighbour's run without compunction and without regard to his sheep, and
then heavy damages will be brought against you. Burn, however, you
must; so do it carefully. Light one strip first, and keep putting it
out by beating it with leafy branches, This will form a fireproof
boundary between you and your neighbour.
Burnt feed means contented and well-conditioned sheep. The delicately
green and juicy grass which springs up after burning is far better for
sheep than the rank and dry growth of summer after it has been withered
by the winter's frosts. Your sheep will not ramble, for if they have
plenty of burnt pasture they are contented where they are. They feed in
the morning, bunch themselves together in clusters during the heat of
the day, and feed again at night.
Moreover, on burnt pasture, no fire can come down upon you from your
neighbour so as to hurt your sheep.
The day will come when you will have no more occasion for burning, when
your run will be fully stocked, and the sheep will keep your feed so
closely cropped that it will do without it. It is certainly a
mortification to see volumes of smoke rising into the air, and to know
that all that smoke might have been wool, and might have been sold by
you for 2s. a pound in England. You will think it great waste, and
regret that you have not more sheep to eat it. However, that will come
to pass in time; and meanwhile, if you have not mouths enough upon your
run to make wool of it, you must burn it off and make smoke of it
instead. There is sure to be a good deal of rough scrub and brushwood
on the run, which is better destroyed, and which sheep would not touch;
therefore, for the ultimate value of your run, it is as well or better
that it should be fired than fed off.
The very first work to be done after your arrival will be to make a yard
for your sheep. Make this large enough to hold five or six times as
many sheep as you possess at first. It may be square in shape. Place
two good large gates at the middle of either of the two opposite sides.
This will be sufficient at first, but, as your flocks increase, a
somewhat more complicated arrangement will be desirable.
The sheep, we will suppose, are to be thoroughly overhauled. You wish,
for some reason, to inspect their case fully yourself, or you must tail
your lambs, in which case every lamb has to be caught, and you will cut
its tail off, and ear-mark it with your own earmark; or, again, you will
see fit to draft out all the lambs that are ready for weaning; or you
may wish to cull the mob, and sell off the worst-woolled sheep; or your
neighbour's sheep may have joined with yours; or for many other reasons
it is necessary that your flock should be closely examined. Without
good yards it is impossible to do this well--they are an essential of
the highest importance.
Select, then, a site as dry and stony as possible (for your sheep will
have to be put into the yard over night), and at daylight in the morning
set to work.
+-------------------------------------------+
| | D _________| |
| | _____/ | |
| |/ | | |
GATE F GATE C GATE B GATE A GATE
| |\_____| | |
| | \_________| |
| | E | |
+-------------------------------------------+
Fill the yard B with sheep from the big yard A. The yard B we will
suppose to hold about 600. Fill C from B: C shall hold about 100.
When the sheep are in that small yard C (which is called the drafting-
yard), you can overhaul them, and your men can catch the lambs and hold
them up to you over the rail of the yard to ear-mark and tail. There
being but 100 sheep in the yard, you can easily run your eye over them.
Should you be drafting out sheep or taking your rams out, let the sheep
which you are taking out be let into the yards D and E. Or, it may be,
you are drafting two different sorts of sheep at once; then there will
be two yards in which to put them. When you have done with the small
mob, let it out into the yard F, taking the tally of the sheep as they
pass through the gate. This gate, therefore, must be a small one, so as
not to admit more than one or two at a time. It would be tedious work
filling the small yard C from the big one A; for in that large space the
sheep will run about, and it will take you some few minutes every time.
From the smaller yard B, however, C will easily be filled. Among the
other great advantages of good yards, there is none greater than the
time saved. This is of the highest importance, for the ewes will be
hungry, and their lambs will have sucked them dry; and then, as soon as
they are turned out of the yards, the mothers will race off after feed,
and the lambs, being weak, will lag behind; and the Merino ewe being a
bad mother, the two may never meet again, and the lamb will die.
Therefore it is essential to begin work of this sort early in the
morning, and to have yards so constructed as to cause as little loss of
time as possible. I will not say that the plan given above is the very
best that could be devised, but it is common out here, and answers all
practical purposes. The weakest point is in the approach to B from A.
As soon as you have done with the mob, let them out. They will race off
helter-skelter to feed, and soon be spread out in an ever-widening fan-
like shape. Therefore have someone stationed a good way off to check
their first burst, and stay them from going too far and leaving their
lambs; after a while, as you sit, telescope in hand, you will see the
ewes come bleating back to the yards for their lambs. They have
satisfied the first cravings of their hunger, and their motherly
feelings are beginning to return. Now, if the sheep have not been kept
a little together, the lambs may have gone off after the ewes, and some
few will then be pretty certain never to find their mothers again. It
is rather a pretty sight to sit on a bank and watch the ewes coming
back. There is sure to be a mob of a good many lambs sticking near the
yards, and ewe after ewe will come back and rush up affectionately to
one lamb after another. A good few will try to palm themselves off upon
her. If she is young and foolish, she will be for a short time in
doubt; if she is older and wiser, she will butt away the little
impostors with her head; but they are very importunate, and will stick
to her for a long while. At last, however, she finds her true child,
and is comforted. She kisses its nose and tail with the most
affectionate fondness, and soon the lost lamb is seen helping himself
lustily, and frolicking with his tail in the height of his contentment.
I have known, however, many cunning lambs make a practice of thieving
from the more inexperienced ewes, though they have mothers of their own;
and I remember one very beautiful and favourite lamb of mine, who, to my
great sorrow, lost its mother, but kept itself alive in this manner, and
throve and grew up to be a splendid sheep by mere roguery. Such a case
is an exception, not a rule.
You may perhaps wonder how you are to know that your sheep are all
right, and that none get away. You cannot be QUITE CERTAIN of this.
You may be pretty sure, however, for you will soon have a large number
of sheep with whom you are personally acquainted, and who have, from
time to time, forced themselves upon your attention either by peculiar
beauty or peculiar ugliness, or by having certain marks upon them. You
will have a black sheep or two, and probably a long-tailed one or two,
and a sheep with only one eye, and another with a wart on its nose, and
so forth. These will be your marked sheep, and if you find all of them
you may be satisfied that the rest are safe also. Your eye will soon
become very accurate in telling you the number of a mob of sheep.
When the sheep are lambing they should not be disturbed. You cannot
meddle with a mob of lambing ewes without doing them mischief. Some one
or two lambs, or perhaps many more, will be lost every time you disturb
the flock. The young sheep, until they have had their lambs a few days,
and learnt their value, will leave them upon the slightest provocation.
Then there is a serious moral injury inflicted upon the ewe: she
becomes familiar with the crime of infanticide, and will be apt to leave
her next lamb as carelessly as her first. If, however, she has once
reared a lamb, she will be fond of the next, and, when old, will face
anything, even a dog, for the sake of her child.
When, therefore, the sheep are lambing, you must ride or walk farther
round, and notice any tracks you may see: anything rather than disturb
the sheep. They must always lamb on burnt or green feed, and against
the best boundary you have, and then there will be the less occasion to
touch them.
Besides the yards above described, you will want one or two smaller ones
for getting the sheep into the wool-shed at shearing-time, and you will
also want a small yard for branding. The wool-shed is a roomy covered
building, with a large central space, and an aisle-like partition on
each side. These last will be for holding the sheep during the night.
The shearers will want to begin with daylight, and the dew will not yet
be off the wool if the sheep are exposed. If wool is packed damp it
will heat and spoil; therefore a sufficient number of sheep must be left
under cover through the night to last the shearers till the dew is off.
In a wool-shed the aisles would be called skilions (whence the name is
derived I know not, nor whether it has two l's in it or one). All the
sheep go into the skilions. The shearers shear in the centre, which is
large enough to leave room for the wool to be stowed away at one end.
The shearers pull the sheep out of the skilions as they want them. Each
picks the worst sheep, i.e. that with the least wool upon it, that
happens to be at hand at the time, trying to put the best-woolled sheep,
which are consequently the hardest to shear, upon someone else; and so
the heaviest-woolled and largest sheep get shorn the last.
A good man will shear 100 sheep in a day, some even more; but 100 is
reckoned good work. I have known 195 sheep to be shorn by one man in a
day; but I fancy these must have been from an old and bare mob, and that
this number of well-woolled sheep would be quite beyond one man's power.
Sheep are not shorn so neatly as at home. But supposing a man has a mob
of 20,000, he must get the wool off their backs as best he can without
carping at an occasional snip from a sheep's carcass. If the wool is
taken close off, and only now and then a sheep snipped, there will be no
cause to complain.
Then follows the draying of the wool to port, and the bullocks come in
for their full share of work. It is a pleasant sight to see the first
load of wool start down, but a far pleasanter to see the dray returning
from its last trip.
Shearing well over will be a weight off your mind. This is your most
especially busy and anxious time of year, and when the wool is safely
down you will be glad indeed.
It may have been a matter of question with you, Shall I wash my sheep
before shearing or not? If you wash them at all, you should do it
thoroughly, and take considerable pains to have them clean; otherwise
you had better shear in the grease, i.e. not wash. Wool in the grease
weighs about one-third heavier, and consequently fetches a lower price
in the market. When wool falls, moreover, the fall tells first upon
greasy wool. Still many shear in the grease, and some consider it pays
them better to do so. It is a mooted point, but the general opinion is
in favour of washing.
As soon as you have put up one yard, you may set to work upon a hut for
yourself and men. This you will make of split wooden slabs set upright
in the ground, and nailed on to a wall-plate. You will first plant
large posts at each of the corners, and one at either side every door,
and four for the chimney. At the top of these you will set your wall-
plates; to the wall-plates you will nail your slabs; on the inside of
the slabs you will nail light rods of wood, and plaster them over with
mud, having first, however, put up the roof and thatched it. Three or
four men will have split the stuff and put up the hut in a fortnight.
We will suppose it to be about 18 feet by 12.
By and by, as you grow richer, you may burn bricks at your leisure, and
eventually build a brick house. At first, however, you must rough it.
You will set about a garden at once. You will bring up fowls at once.
Pigs may wait till you have time to put up a regular stye, and to have
grown potatoes enough to feed them. Two fat and well-tended pigs are
worth half a dozen half-starved wretches. Such neglected brutes make a
place look very untidy, and their existence will be a burden to
themselves, and an eyesore to you.
In a year or two you will find yourself very comfortable. You will get
a little fruit from your garden in summer, and will have a prospect of
much more. You will have cows, and plenty of butter and milk and eggs;
you will have pigs, and, if you choose it, bees, plenty of vegetables,
and, in fact, may live upon the fat of the land, with very little
trouble, and almost as little expense. If you grudge this, your fare
will be rather unvaried, and will consist solely of tea, mutton, bread,
and possibly potatoes. For the first year, these are all you must
expect; the second will improve matters; and the third should see you
surrounded with luxuries.
If you are your own shepherd, which at first is more than probable, you
will find that shepherding is one of the most prosaic professions you
could have adopted. Sheep will be the one idea in your mind; and as for
poetry, nothing will be farther from your thoughts. Your eye will ever
be straining after a distant sheep--your ears listening for a bleat--in
fact, your whole attention will be directed, the whole day long, to
nothing but your flock. Were you to shepherd too long your wits would
certainly go wool-gathering, even if you were not tempted to bleat. It
is, however, a gloriously healthy employment.
And now, gentle reader, I wish you luck with your run. If you have
tolerably good fortune, in a very short time you will be a rich man.
Hoping that this may be the case, there remains nothing for me but to
wish you heartily farewell.
Crossing the Rangitata
Suppose you were to ask your way from Mr. Phillips's station to mine, I
should direct you thus: "Work your way towards yonder mountain; pass
underneath it between it and the lake, having the mountain on your right
hand and the lake on your left; if you come upon any swamps, go round
them or, if you think you can, go through them; if you get stuck up by
any creeks--a creek is the colonial term for a stream--you'll very
likely see cattle marks, by following the creek up and down; but there
is nothing there that ought to stick you up if you keep out of the big
swamp at the bottom of the valley; after passing that mountain follow
the lake till it ends, keeping well on the hill-side above it, and make
the end of the valley, where you will come upon a high terrace above a
large gully, with a very strong creek at the bottom of it; get down the
terrace, where you'll see a patch of burnt ground, and follow the river-
bed till it opens on to a flat; turn to your left and keep down the
mountain sides that run along the Rangitata; keep well near them and so
avoid the swamps; cross the Rangitata opposite where you see a large
river-bed coming into it from the other side, and follow this river-bed
till you see my hut some eight miles up it." Perhaps I have thus been
better able to describe the nature of the travelling than by any other.
If one can get anything that can be manufactured into a feature and be
dignified with a name once in five or six miles, one is very lucky.
Well, we had followed these directions for some way, as far in fact as
the terrace, when, the river coming into full view, I saw that the
Rangitata was very high. Worse than that, I saw Mr. Phillips and a
party of men who were taking a dray over to a run just on the other side
of the river, and who had been prevented from crossing for ten days by
the state of the water. Among them, to my horror, I recognised my
cadet, whom I had left behind me with beef which he was to have taken
over to my place a week and more back; whereon my mind misgave me that a
poor Irishman who had been left alone at my place might be in a sore
plight, having been left with no meat and no human being within reach
for a period of ten days. I don't think I should have attempted
crossing the river but for this. Under the circumstances, however, I
determined at once on making a push for it, and accordingly taking my
two cadets with me and the unfortunate beef that was already putrescent-
-it had lain on the ground in a sack all the time--we started along
under the hills and got opposite the place where I intended crossing by
about three o'clock. I had climbed the mountain side and surveyed the
river from thence before approaching the river itself. At last we were
by the water's edge. Of course, I led the way, being as it were
patronus of the expedition, and having been out some four months longer
than either of my companions; still, having never crossed any of the
rivers on horseback in a fresh, having never seen the Rangitata in a
fresh, and being utterly unable to guess how deep any stream would take
me, it may be imagined that I felt a certain amount of caution to be
necessary, and accordingly, folding my watch in my pocket-handkerchief
and tying it round my neck in case of having to swim for it
unexpectedly, I strictly forbade the other two to stir from the bank
until they saw me safely on the other side. Not that I intended to let
my horse swim, in fact I had made up my mind to let my old Irishman wait
a little longer rather than deliberately swim for it. My two companions
were worse mounted than I was, and the rushing water might only too
probably affect their heads. Mine had already become quite indifferent
to it, though it had not been so at first. These two men, however, had
been only a week in the settlement, and I should have deemed myself
highly culpable had I allowed them to swim a river on horseback, though
I am sure both would have been ready enough to do so if occasion
required.
As I said before, at last we were on the water's edge; a rushing stream
some sixty yards wide was the first instalment of our passage. It was
about the colour and consistency of cream and soot, and how deep? I had
not the remotest idea; the only thing for it was to go in and see. So
choosing a spot just above a spit and a rapid--at such spots there is
sure to be a ford, if there is a ford anywhere--I walked my mare quickly
into it, having perfect confidence in her, and, I believe, she having
more confidence in me than some who have known me in England might
suppose. In we went; in the middle of the stream the water was only a
little over her belly (she is sixteen hands high); a little farther, by
sitting back on my saddle and lifting my feet up I might have avoided
getting them wet, had I cared to do so, but I was more intent on having
the mare well in hand, and on studying the appearance of the remainder
of the stream than on thinking of my own feet just then; after that the
water grew shallower rapidly, and I soon had the felicity of landing my
mare on the shelving shingle of the opposite bank. So far so good; I
beckoned to my companions, who speedily followed, and we all then
proceeded down the spit in search of a good crossing place over the next
stream. We were soon beside it, and very ugly it looked. It must have
been at least a hundred yards broad--I think more, but water is so
deceptive that I dare not affix any certain width. I was soon in it,
advancing very slowly above a slightly darker line in the water, which
assured me of its being shallow for some little way; this failing, I
soon found myself descending into deeper water, first over my boots for
some yards, then over the top of my gaiters for some yards more. This
continued so long that I was in hopes of being able to get entirely
over, when suddenly the knee against which the stream came was entirely
wet, and the water was rushing so furiously past me that my poor mare
was leaning over tremendously. Already she had begun to snort, as
horses do when they are swimming, and I knew well that my companions
would have to swim for it even though I myself might have got through.
So I very gently turned her head round down stream and quietly made back
again for the bank which I had left. She had got nearly to the shore,
and I could again detect a darker line in the water, which was now not
over her knees, when all of a sudden down she went up to her belly in a
quicksand, in which she began floundering about in fine style. I was
off her back and into the water that she had left in less time than it
takes to write this. I should not have thought of leaving her back
unless sure of my ground, for it is a canon in river crossing to stick
to your horse. I pulled her gently out, and followed up the dark line
to the shore where my two friends were only too glad to receive me. By
the way, all this time I had had a companion in the shape of a cat in a
bag, which I was taking over to my place as an antidote to the rats,
which were most unpleasantly abundant there. I nursed her on the pommel
of my saddle all through this last stream, and save in the episode of
the quicksand she had not been in the least wet. Then, however, she did
drop in for a sousing, and mewed in a manner that went to my heart. I
am very fond of cats, and this one is a particularly favourable
specimen. It was with great pleasure that I heard her purring through
the bag, as soon as I was again mounted and had her in front of me as
before.
So I failed to cross this stream there, but, determined if possible to
get across the river and see whether the Irishman was alive or dead, we
turned higher up the stream and by and by found a place where it
divided. By carefully selecting a spot I was able to cross the first
stream without the waters getting higher than my saddle-flaps, and the
second scarcely over the horse's belly. After that there were two
streams somewhat similar to the first, and then the dangers of the
passage of the river might be considered as accomplished--the dangers,
but not the difficulties. These consisted in the sluggish creeks and
swampy ground thickly overgrown with Irishman, snow-grass, and spaniard,
which extend on either side the river for half a mile and more. But to
cut a long story short we got over these too, and then we were on the
shingly river-bed which leads up to the spot on which my hut is made and
my house making. This river was now a brawling torrent, hardly less
dangerous to cross than the Rangitata itself, though containing not a
tithe of the water, the boulders are so large and the water so powerful.
In its ordinary condition it is little more than a large brook; now,
though not absolutely fresh, it was as unpleasant a place to put a horse
into as one need wish. There was nothing for it, however, and we
crossed and recrossed it four times without misadventure, and finally
with great pleasure I perceived a twinkling light on the terrace where
the hut was, which assured me at once that the old Irishman was still in
the land of the living. Two or three vigorous "coo-eys" brought him
down to the side of the creek which bounds my run upon one side.
Footnotes:
{1} Project Gutenberg note: the edition of the book from which this
eText was transcribed contained a number of other, unrelated, pieces.
These have been transcribed and are available as separate eTexts. The
pieces on Darwin are in the eText "Pieces on Darwin" and the minor
pieces written whilst Butler was at Cambridge University, England, are
in the eText "Cambridge Pieces".--DP.
{2} See Preface.
{3} August, 1862.--Since writing the above, matters have somewhat
changed. Firstly, Ewes are fully worth 30s. a head, and are not to be
had under. Secondly, The diggings in Otago have caused the value of
wethers to rise, and as they are now selling at 33s. on the runs of the
Otago station (I quote the Lyttelton Times, which may be depended upon),
and those runs are only very partially stocked, the supply there must in
all probability fall short of the demand. The price of sheep in this
settlement is therefore raised also, and likely to continue high. All
depends upon what this next spring may bring forth upon the Otago gold-
fields. If they keep up the reputation which they sustained until the
winter caused the diggers to retreat, the price will be high for some
few years longer; if they turn out a failure, it MUST fall before very
long. Still, there is a large and increasing population in Canterbury,
and as its sheep-feeding area is as nothing compared with that of
Australia, we do not expect sheep here ever to fall as low as they did
there before the diggings. Indeed, they hardly can do so; for our sheep
are larger than the Australian, and clip a much heavier fleece, so that
their fleece, and skins, and tallow must be of greater value. Should
means be found of converting the meat into portable soup, the carcase of
the sheep ought, even at its lowest value, to be considerably higher
than 10s. Nothing is heard about this yet, for the country is not
nearly stocked, so that the thing is not needed; but one would, a
priori, be under the impression that there should ultimately be no
insuperable difficulty in rescuing the meat from waste. It is a matter
which might well attract the attention of scientific men in England. We
should all be exceedingly obliged to them if they would kindly cause
sheep to be as high as 15s. or 17s. seven years hence, and I can see no
reason why, if the meat could be made use of, they should fall lower.
In other respects, what I have written about sheep on terms is true to
the present day.
{4} The above is true to the present day (August, 1862), save that a
higher price must be given for the goodwill of a run, and that sheep are
fully 30s. a head. Say 8000 pounds instead of 6000 pounds, and the rest
will stand. 8000 pounds should do the thing handsomely.