the sheep’s bleat never ceased. Now the odd thing at a sheep station
used to be that you hardly ever saw a sheep, and still more seldom
heard one, except perhaps in the early morning, when they were coming
down from their high camping-grounds. And sheep always “travel” head to
wind, but the sheep that afternoon kept moving in exactly the contrary
direction. Still I was not in the least uneasy about the weather,
except as it might affect the comfort of F.’s seventy-five mile ride to
town, and I knew he would be under comfortable shelter at a friend’s
half-way house that night. So we gaily and lavishly partook of our
supper-dinner, had an absurd game of whist, and went to bed as usual.
It was no surprise to see snow falling steadily next morning, but it
was disagreeable to find there was very little mutton in the house, and
that it was quite likely the shepherd would wait for the weather to
clear before starting across the hills and swamps between us and the
little homestead where the woolshed stood, and from whence the business
of the station was carried on.
The three gentlemen lounged about all day and smoked a good deal.
They told me afterwards how bitterly they regretted not having made
some preparation in the way of at least bringing in fuel, or putting
extra food for the fowls, &c. But each said to the other every five
minutes, “Oh, you know snow in New Zealand _never_ lasts,” though their
experience was only a very few years old. It was short commons that
second day, and I thought sadly that the dray would have only reached
Christchurch that evening! We all felt depressed, and, as no one had
any use for depression up that valley, the sensation was quite new to
us.
It was not until we met on the third morning, however, that we at all
acknowledged our fears. By this time the snow was at least four feet
deep in the shallowest places, and still continued to fall steadily. It
was impossible to see even where the fowl-house and pig-sties stood, on
the weather side of the house. All the great logs of wood lying about
waiting to be cut up were hidden, so was the little shed full of coal.
A smooth high slope, like a hillock, stretched from the outer kitchen
door, which could not be opened that morning, out into the floating
whiteness. All our windows were nearly blocked up and became quite so
by the evening, and no door except one, which opened inwards, could be
used. And we had literally no food in the house. The tea at breakfast
was merely coloured hot water, and we each had a couple of picnic
biscuits. For dinner there was a little rice and salt. Imagine six
people to be fed every day, and an empty larder and store-room!
The day after that my maids declined to get up, declaring they
preferred to “die warm”; so I took them in a sardine each, a few
ratafia biscuits, and a spoonful of apricot jam. Those were our own
rations for that day. We had by that time broken up every box for fuel,
and only lighted a fire in the kitchen, where also a solitary candle
burned.
“Be very careful of the dips,” said one of my guests, “for I’ve read of
people eating them.”
“I hear the cat mewing under the house,” said another; “we’ll try to
get hold of her.”
“I wonder if those are the cows?” asked a third, pointing to three
formless heaps high above the stockyard rails, but within them.
By Friday morning the maids, still in bed, were asking tearfully, “And
oh! when do you think we’ll be found, mum?” Whereas my anxiety was to
find something to feed them with! We shook out a heap of discarded
flour-bags and got, to our joy, quite a plateful of flour, and a
careful smoothing out of the lead lining of old tea-chests yielded a
few leaves, so we had girdle-cakes and tea that day. I was very unhappy
about the dogs: the horses were out on the run as usual, so it was no
use thinking of them.
On Saturday there was literally nothing at all in the house (which
was quite dark, remember), and my three starving men roped themselves
together and struggled out, tunnelling through the snow, in the
direction where they thought the fowl-house must lie. After a couple
of hours’ hard work they hit upon its roof, tore off some of the
wooden shingles, and captured a few bundles of feathers, which were
what my poor dear hens were reduced to. However, there was a joyful
struggle back, and after some hasty preparation the fowls were put
into a saucepan with a lump of snow, for there was no water to be got
anywhere, and a sort of stew resulted, of which we thankfully partook.
This heartened up the gentlemen to make another sally to the stockyard
in search of the cows. The clever creatures had kept moving round
and round as the snow fell, so as to make a sort of wider tomb for
themselves, and they were alive, though mere bundles of skin and bone.
They were dragged by ropes to the stable and there fed with oaten hay.
It was no question of milking the poor things, for they were quite dry.
Next day the dogs were dug out, but only one young and strong one
survived. Two more were alive, but died soon after.
On Sunday it had ceased snowing and the wind showed signs of changing.
I struggled a yard or two out of the house, as it was such a blessing
to get into daylight again. My view was of course much circumscribed,
as I could only see up and down the “flat,” as the valley was called.
But it all looked quite different; not a fence or familiar landmark
to be seen on any side. If I could have been wafted to the top of the
mountain from which we saw the sun rise the summer before, what a white
world should I have beheld! And if I could have soared still higher and
looked over the whole of the vast Canterbury Plains, I should have been
gazing at the smooth winding-sheet of half a million of sheep, for that
was found, later, to be the loss in that Province alone.
Yet, as we afterwards came to know, it was not really the fall of
snow, tremendous as it had been, which cost the Province nearly all
its stock. As I have said, the wind changed to the north-west—the warm
quarter—on Sunday night, and it rained heavily as well as blowing
half a gale. On Monday morning the snow was off the roof and it was
possible to clear some of the windows. An early excursion was also made
to the styes and a very thin pig was killed, and, as a bag of Indian
meal for fattening poultry had also been found in the stable loft, a
sort of cake could be made. So we were no longer starving, and the
maids got up!
Twenty-four hours of this warm rain and wind was what did all the
mischief to the poor sheep. By Monday night every creek within sight
had overflowed its banks, and was running—a dirty yellow stream—over
the fast-melting snowfields. The rapid thaw and the flooded creeks
made locomotion more difficult than ever, but the three gentlemen set
to work at once to try to release the imprisoned sheep. There was but
one dog to work with, and he was so weak he could hardly move, but the
poor sheep were still weaker. Contrary to their custom they had mostly
sought refuge beneath the projecting banks of the creeks, and would
have been safe enough there had not the sudden thaw let the water in on
them before they could struggle up, so they were nearly all drowned. It
was most pathetic to discover how in some places the mothers had tried
to save the lambs by standing over them in a leaning attitude so as
to make a shelter. The lambing season had just begun, and on our own
run, which was but a small one, we lost three thousand lambs. Several
were brought in to me to try to save, but I had no cow’s milk to give
them, and warm meal and water did not prove enough to keep the poor
little starving creatures alive. It was heart-breaking work, and when
F. returned it was to find the fences tapestried with the skins of a
thousand sheep.
As soon as we could move about on horseback we rode all over the run
and found that the sheep had evidently fared better when they had kept
on higher ground. It was curious to see the tops of the little Ti-ti
palms, some ten or twelve feet high, entirely nibbled off where the
sheep had clustered round them, and, as the snow fell, mounted higher
and higher until they could reach the green leaves. In those days
all the flocks were pure or half-bred merino; active, hardy little
black-faced sheep, tasting like Welsh mutton, and delicious eating.
On these excursions we often came upon dead wild-pigs, boars cased
in hides an inch thick, which had perished through sheer stress of
weather. It was wonderful to think that thin-skinned animals, with only
a few months’ growth of fine merino wool on their backs, could have
survived.
During the long bright summer which followed, we used often to ask
each other if it could be true that hills had apparently been levelled
and valleys filled up by the heaviest snowstorm ever known. But when
we looked at the Ti-ti palms with their topmost leaves gnawed to the
stump, we realised that the sheep must have been standing on eight or
nine feet of snow to reach them. When the survivors came to be shorn,
it was plainly to be seen by the sort of “nick” in the fleece, where
their three weeks’ imprisonment had evidently checked the growth of the
wool. Many of the hardiest wethers must have been without food for that
time, as the pasturage was either under snow or flooded.
In looking back on that tragic time, its only bright memory is
connected with tobogganing on a rough but giant scale, and I greatly
wonder any of us survived that form of amusement. By the time every
possible thing had been done for the surviving sheep, the snow had
disappeared from all but the steep weather-side of the encircling
hills, so our slides had to be arranged on very dangerous slopes.
The sledges on which these perilous journeys were made consisted of
a couple of short planks nailed together, with a batten across for
one’s feet to rest on, and half a shears for a brake. If the gentlemen
would only have made these rapid descents alone! But they insisted
on my being a constant passenger. No one who has not gone through it
can imagine the sensation of being launched on a bit of board down
a mountain side! And yet there must have been a fearful joy in it,
because after turning round and round many times as one flew over
the hard snow surface, and arriving in a heap, head foremost, in a
snowdrift, one was quite ready to try again. Luckily another north-west
gale set in, and when it had blown itself out there were too many
sharp-pointed rocks sticking up out of the remaining snow to make our
mad descents practicable.
III
OLD NEW ZEALAND—_Continued_
I wonder if “swaggers” have been improved off the face of the country
districts of New Zealand? Tramps one would perhaps have called them in
England, and yet they were hardly tramps so much as men of a roving
disposition, who wandered about asking for work, and they really could
and did work if wanted. They nearly always appeared, with their “swag”
(a roll of red blankets) on their backs, about sunset, and it was
etiquette for them to offer to chop wood before shelter was suggested.
A good meal of tea, mutton, and bread followed as a matter of course,
and a shakedown in some shed. In the early morning, if there was no
employment forthcoming, the “swagger” would fetch water, chop more
wood, or do anything he was asked, before he got some more food and
left. They always seemed very quiet, decent men, and perfectly honest.
Indeed, a missing pair of boots (afterwards found to have only been
mislaid) raised a great commotion in the whole country-side until they
were found, and I suspect the owner had to apologise abjectly to all
the “swaggers”!
The invariable custom of the “swagger” only appearing at sunset made
it all the more wonderful when I found one crouched in a corner of the
verandah at dawn one bitter winter’s morning. Now I was not at all in
the habit of getting up at daylight in winter, but it was a glorious
morning after nearly a week of wretched wet and cold weather. Some
demon of restlessness must have induced me to jump up, huddle on a
warm dressing-gown and start on a window-opening expedition, which led
me shortly to the little hall-door. This I also opened to let in the
fast-coming sunshine, and I nearly tumbled over the most forlorn object
it is possible to imagine. At first I thought that a heap of wet and
dirty clothes lay at my feet, but a shaggy head uprose and a feeble
voice muttered, “I’m fair clemmed.” Such wistful eyes, like a lost,
starving dog, glanced at me, and then the head dropped back. I thought
the man was dead or dying, and I flew to wake up F. and to fetch my
medicine bottle of brandy. But I could not get any down his throat
until F. arrived on the scene and turned the poor creature over on his
back. By this time I had roused up the “cadet,” and also got my maids
hurriedly out of bed. My tale was so pitiful that the warm-hearted
Irish cook—in the scantiest toilet—was lighting the kitchen fire by
the time F. and Mr. U. brought the poor man in. Water was literally
streaming from him, and the first thing to be done was to get him
out of his sodden clothes. Contributions from the two gentlemen were
soon forthcoming, and after a brief retirement into my store-room, the
wretched “swagger” emerged, dry indeed, but the image of exhaustion and
starvation. Warm bread and milk every two hours was all we dared give
him that day, and he slept and slept as if he never meant to wake again.
I forget how many days passed before he had at all recovered, and by
that time my maids had cleaned and mended his clothes in a surprising
manner, and he had, himself, cobbled up his boots. A hat had to be
provided and a pipe, but we could not spare any blankets for the
“swag.” However, though he hardly spoke to any one, he told Mr. U. he
felt quite able to start next day, and F. elicited from him with some
difficulty—for it was against “swagger” etiquette ever to complain
of the treatment of one station-holder to another—that at the very
beginning of that bad weather he had found himself at sundown at a
station about a dozen miles further back in the hills, and had been
refused shelter. The man pointed out that he did not know the track
over a difficult saddle, that very bad weather was evidently coming on,
and that he had no food, but he was ruthlessly turned off and seemed
soon to have lost his way. He wandered some days—he did not know how
many—without food or shelter, pelted by the merciless and continuous
storm; his pipe and blankets soon got lost in one of the numerous
bog-holes, and he really did not know how he found his way to our
verandah, or how long before dawn he had been lying there. I must say
it was the only instance I heard of brutality to a “swagger” whilst I
was in New Zealand.
Well, by the next morning I had ceased to think about the “swagger,”
and when I looked out of my window to enjoy the delicious crisp air and
the sunshine, I saw my friend coming round the corner of the house,
evidently prepared to start. He looked round, but I had slipped behind
the window curtain, so he saw no one. To my deep surprise, the man
dropped on his knees upon the little gravel path, took off his hat, and
poured forth the most impassioned prayer for all the dwellers beneath
the roof which had given him shelter. Not a soul was stirring, so he
could not have been doing it for effect, and he certainly had not seen
me. I felt as if I had no right to listen, for it was as though he
were laying bare his soul. First, there was his deep thankfulness for
his own preservation most touchingly expressed, and then he prayed for
every blessing on each and all of us, and, finally, as he rose from
his knees, he signed the Cross over the little roof-tree which had
sheltered him in his hour of need. And we had all thought him a silent
and somewhat ungracious man!
I really _cannot_ believe that I often rode fifty miles to a ball,
or rather two balls, danced all night for two successive nights, and
rode back again the next day! The railway was even then creeping
up the plains and saved us the last twenty-five miles of the road.
These same balls were almost the only form of society in those days,
for dinner-parties were impossible for want of anything but the most
elementary service. Certainly there were bazaars sometimes, but I do
not remember riding fifty miles for any of them! Such amusing things
used to happen at these balls, which, no doubt, were very primitive,
but we all enjoyed them too much to be critical.
On one occasion the Governor had come to Christchurch for some
political reason, and of course there were balls to welcome him. He
had brought down some Maori chieftains with him; rumour said he was
afraid to leave them behind in the North Island, where the seat of
Government used to be and still is. Now I was very curious to see these
chieftains, and it was somewhat of a shock to behold tall, well-built,
dark-hued men faultlessly clad in correct evening-dress, but with
tattooed faces. Presently one of the stewards of the ball came to me
and said:—
“Te Henare wants very much to dance these Lancers; I should be so
grateful if you would dance with him.”
“Certainly,” I answered; “but can he dance?”
“Oh, he will soon pick it up, and you’d have an interpreter.”
Te Henare, who had been watching the result of the mission, now
approached, made me a beautiful bow, offered his arm most correctly,
and we took our places at the side, closely followed by the
interpreter. I discovered through this gentleman that my dusky partner
had never seen a ball or social gathering of any sort before, and that
he had learned his bow and how to claim his partner since he entered
the room. Of course, we danced in silence, and indeed I was fully
occupied in admiring the extraordinary rapidity with which Te Henare
mastered the intricacies of the dance. He never made a single mistake
in any part which he had seen the top couples do first, and when I had
to guide him he understood directly. It was a wonderful set of Lancers,
and when it was over I told the interpreter that I was quite astonished
to see how well Te Henare danced. This little compliment was duly
repeated, and I could not imagine why the interpreter laughed at the
answer. Te Henare seemed very anxious that it should be passed on to me
and was most serious about it, so I insisted on being told. It seems
the poor chieftain had said with a deep sigh, “Ah, if I might only
dance without my clothes! No one could really dance in these horrid
things!”
Te Henare apologised through the interpreter for his tattooed face.
His cheeks were decorated with spiral dark-blue curves, and his
forehead bore an excellent copy of a sea-shell. The poor man was deeply
ashamed of his tattoo, and said he would give anything to get rid
of the disfiguring marks, and so would the other chieftains, adding
pathetically, “Until we came here we were proud of them.”
I must confess I got rather tired of poor Te Henare, and indeed of all
the chieftains, for they insisted on coming to call on me next day for
the purpose of letting me hear some Maori music. I cannot truthfully
say I enjoyed it. Every song seemed to have at least fifty verses as
well as a refrain. Fortunately, they did not sing loudly, but there
was no tune beyond a bar or two, and the monotony was maddening. The
interpreter and I tried in vain to stop them, and at last I went away,
leaving them still singing, quite happily, what I was informed was “a
love-song.” It seemed more in the nature of a lullaby.
I fear it is an unusual confession for a staid elderly woman to make,
but I certainly enjoyed those unconventional—what might almost be
called rough—days more than the long years of official routine and
luxury which followed them. But then one looks back on those days
through the softening haze of time and distance, of youth and health;
and one realises that after all “the greatest of these is Love.”
IV
A MODERN NEW ZEALAND
The passage of over a quarter of a century has of course made a great
change all over the world in the matter of education, but probably
nowhere would that change be more apparent than in New Zealand. Even in
less than ten years after I had left the Colony, two thousand schools
had been started under a new law, with a roll of two hundred thousand
scholars. What must they number now? There are Schools for natives and
Schools for the deaf and dumb and for the blind, Schools of Mines and
Schools of Science, Technical Schools, and a fine Agricultural College
in Canterbury.
But in my day very few of the working men I came across, as our
shepherds, shearers, and so forth, could read at all. One can hardly
realise it, but so it was, and one of the first things I did was to
start a sort of night school for these stalwart Empire-builders, in
which, alas! I was the only teacher. The population was so thin and so
scattered in those distant days that these men’s lives were necessarily
very lonely, and those who could read at all eagerly joined a little
lending library, or rather a Book and Magazine Club, which I set
going. At first I had only thought of providing literature for our
neighbours—any one within fifty miles was a neighbour—but the shepherds
begged to join, and of course I was delighted to enrol them.
Looking back on those days, I fear the comic side of that educational
attempt chiefly asserts itself. My pupils—only four or five at a
time—were so big and so desperately shy. One gigantic Yorkshireman
would only read, or rather attempt to read, with his broad back turned
to me. Others almost wept over their difficulties. It really involved
far more trouble on their part than on mine, for they had often some
distance to ride, and over such trackless hills and swamps. It was
found almost impracticable to have any set evening for the lessons, as
sometimes weather, and sometimes their duties interfered; so at last
it was settled that they should come any evening they could spare,
and I would be ready for them by eight o’clock (so primitive was
our dinner-hour!) in the little dining-room. Certainly the seeds of
knowledge are _very_ difficult to plant in later life, for intelligent
as these men evidently were, and most eager to learn to read and write,
they made but little progress under my tuition. Perhaps I was a bad
teacher, for I had only the experience of my own little boys’ very
first lessons to guide me.
Some of the incidental difficulties were very absurd. Two men lived in
a hut up a lonely and distant river-gorge, who were among my earliest
pupils, and they also came regularly on Sunday to the little afternoon
service. But they never came together, and their brand-new suit of
shepherd’s plaid had always a strange effect. First they tried my
gravity by invariably stepping up to me with their prayer-books to find
their places for them, and saying loudly each time, “Thank you kindly,
Mum.” I dared not say a word for fear of frightening them away. But
one day I ventured to ask why they could not come together, either to
the lessons or the service, and was informed that the clothes were the
difficulty.
“You see, it’s this way, Mum. We’ve only got one suit, and we got it a
between-size on purpose. Joe, he’s too tall, and I’m too short, so I
turns it up, and Joe he wears leggin’s and such like, and so we makes
it do till after shearin’.”
But I do not want to laugh when I think of the last time I met my
bearded pupils. My own face was set towards England then, and I had to
say good-bye to the happy valley and to my scholars. They were made
shyer than ever by my shaking hands with them, and only one said a
farewell word. “To England, home and beauty, of course, Mum, you’d be
glad to go, but it’s rough on us.” This cryptic utterance seemed quite
to express his and his “mate’s” meaning, though it still remains dark
to me.
The Canterbury Plains are now covered with fields of wheat and all
kinds of agricultural produce. The rare “English grass” of my day is
almost universal. Except in the very back-country stations, the little
hardy merino sheep has given way to the more substantial Southdown,
whose frozen carcase comes back to us in the shape of excellent
mutton. Comfortable homesteads are within hailing distance of each
other. Railways, telegraphs, telephones, and all the latest scientific
annihilators of time and space are thickly planted everywhere. I used
to look down the valley on to certain white cliffs which seemed to
bound my view in that direction, and, speaking of it the other day,
some one said, “Oh, the terminus of the nearest railway to your old
‘run’ stands there now.” I cannot realise that the whistle of an engine
has taken the place of the shrill scream of a huge hawk—more like an
eagle than a hawk—which haunted that lonely spot.
But perhaps the greatest difference of all would be found in the sport.