I JOIN A SURVEY PARTY--TRAVEL TO THE ASHBURTON.
The survey party consisted of a Government Surveyor Mr. D----, his
assistant H----, and myself, with a few labourers, and our destination
was Lake Ellesmere, some 15 to 20 miles down the coast, where a dispute
between the squatters and the Provincial Government boundaries was to be
decided.
We started in a rough kind of two-wheeled cart, into which Mr. D----,
H----, and I, with our provisions for ten days and the survey
instruments, were all packed together with our respective swags of
blankets and the cooking utensils. This vehicle was pulled by one horse,
and as we had no tents we would have to camp out most of the time.
We reached our destination the same evening, when, tethering the horse,
we proceeded to make ourselves comfortable for the night round a camp
fire, whereon we boiled our tea and fried chops, and after placing the
usual damper under the hot ashes so as to be ready for the morning, we
rolled our blankets around us and with feet to the fire, slept soundly.
My duties consisted in dragging the chain or humping a theodolite knee
deep in water or swamp, but I learned much even in this short experience
which proved of subsequent value.
On our return, Mr. D---- had to diverge to a small farm, if it could be
called such, owned by two brothers named Drew, having some work to look
into for them. These Drews were the sons of a clergymen in England, and
they had lately come to New Zealand with a little money and no
experience, taken a small tract of land in this swampy wilderness, and
settled down to farm it. The buildings consisted of a wretched mud hut,
some twelve feet square, a small yard, and a few pigsties. What a
habitation it was, and what filth and absence of management was apparent
all over it! Failure was stamped on these men, and on their
surroundings; it was clear they could not succeed, and yet they were not
drunkards or scamps or reckless; on the contrary, they were quiet and
good-natured, and appeared to be hard-working, although it was
difficult to see what work they really did.
For two days we stayed here, all five of us sleeping at night on the
floor of the hut. There were no bunks. I was very glad when that duty
was over.
These Drews soon after gave up the farm; one died, the other I saw two
years afterwards, the part-proprietor of a glass and delph shop in
Christchurch, but only for a time. That inevitable tendency to failure
engraved on the Drews followed him to the glass shop, and the latter
became, in due course, the sole property of Drew's partner.
If these men had gone upon a farm or sheep-run for two or three years'
apprenticeship, investing their money safely meanwhile, they might have
become in a few more years, prosperous colonists. It was their absolute
ignorance, added to a want of sufficient means to carry out what they
undertook to do, that brought depression and failure upon them. And a
percentage of the emigrants who go to the Colonies act under similar
circumstances as they did, and from being on arrival strong, hopeful and
brave, they, from lack of something in themselves or from want of the
needful advice and sense to adopt it, gradually deteriorate past all
recovery. I recollect the billiard-marker at one of the Christchurch
hotels was the younger son of a baronet. He worked as billiard-marker
for his food, and as much alcohol as he could get. I believe he was
never unfit to mark, and never quite sober. He died at his post, but not
before he had learned that he had succeeded to the baronetcy, and seen
relatives who had come from home to search for and bring him back. It is
a strange error of judgment which sends such men as this to the
Colonies, but perhaps those who are responsible consider they are
justified by the removal of the scapegrace and finally getting rid of
him by any means.
On our return to Christchurch I met my old friend and fellow voyager T.
Smith, who had just been appointed overseer of a sheep and cattle
station down south. He pressed me to accompany him to the locality,
pending arrival of letters from home, and as I had nothing just then on
hand, I accepted his invitation. It seemed very apparent that I was fast
becoming a rolling stone, but though I stuck to nothing long, it was not
altogether my fault, and I was always at work, increasing my stock of
experience, such as it was. This departure to Smith's station on the
Ashburton led me away on an entirely new line for some time.
The station to which Smith had been appointed overseer was about 100
miles from Christchurch. The owner did not live there, so the entire
management was in Smith's hands. The route lay across the Canterbury
plains by a defined cart track, with accommodation houses at certain
distances along its course, so no camping out was needed.
The Canterbury Plains are supposed to be the finest in the world,
extending as they do, about 150 miles in length by 40 to 60 in width,
and over this immense space there was not a forest tree or scarcely a
shrub of any size to be met with, except a description of palm, called
cabbage trees, which grow in parts along the river beds, and
occasionally dot the adjacent plain. The plains are almost perfectly
flat, with no undulations more than a few feet in height. They are
intersected every ten to twenty miles by wide shallow river beds, which
during the summer months, when the warm nor'-westers melt the snow and
ice on the Alps, are often terrific torrents, impassable for days
together, while at other times they are shingle interspersed with clear
rapid streams, more or less shallow, and generally fordable with
ordinary care. Some of the principal rivers such as the Rakaia,
Rangatata and Waitaki, are at all times formidable.
The Rakaia bed, for example, is, or was, nearly half a mile wide, a vast
expanse of shingle, full of treacherous quicksands, in which the course
of the different streams is altered after every fresh. One might
approach the Rakaia to-day and find it consist of three or four streams
from twenty to one hundred yards wide, and not exceeding one to two feet
in depth; to-morrow it might be a roaring sea a quarter of a mile in
width, racing at a speed of five to ten miles an hour.
At the crossing of this river, accommodation houses were established at
each side, both establishments providing expert men and horses who were
constantly employed seeking for fords and conducting travellers across.
Nowadays, doubtless fine bridges, railways, and smart hotels have taken
the place of what I am endeavouring to describe as the condition of
things fifty years ago. The Rakaia is fifty miles from Christchurch, and
that was our first day's ride. The accommodation house on the north side
was a weird-looking habitation, a long, low, single-storeyed
desolate-looking building, partly constructed of mud and partly of green
timber slabs rough from the forest, but it was, even so, a welcome sight
after our long monotonous ride.
The house consisted of a small sitting-room or parlour for the better
class of guests, not uncomfortably furnished, and about twelve feet
square, two small bedrooms, a kitchen and a bar, the former serving for
cooking purposes as well as a sitting and a bed-room for those
travellers who could not afford the luxury or were not entitled to the
dignity of the parlour. Separated a little way from this tenement was a
long low shed used as a stable for such animals as their owners could
afford to pay for so much comfort and a feed, in preference to the usual
tussock and twenty yards of tether on the well-cropped ground around the
hostelry.
It was a rough place, and a rough lot of characters were not
unfrequently seen there. The Jack Tar just arrived from the bush or some
up-country station with a cheque for a year's wages, bent on a spree,
and standing drinks all round while his money lasted, the Scottish
shepherd plying liquor and grasping hands for "Auld Lang Syne," the
wretched debauched crawler, the villainous-looking "lag" from "t'other
side," the bullock puncher, whose every alternate word was a profane
oath, the stockrider, in his guernsey shirt and knee boots with
stockwhip thrown over his shoulder, engaging the attention of those who
would listen with some miraculous story of his exploits, mine host
smilingly dealing out the fiery poison, with now and again the presence
of the dripping forder from the river, come in for his glass of grog and
pipe before resuming his perilous occupation.
Smith and I put up in the parlour, and when we had dined and lit pipes
proceeded to look after our horses, after which we paid a visit to the
kitchen for a little hobnobbing with the motley assemblage collected
there, and, of course, we stood liquor round in the usual friendly way.
We soon retired, and ere long the kitchen floor, too, was covered with
sleepers rolled in their blue or red blankets without which no colonist
ever travelled.
Early the following morning we were piloted over the river, and in the
afternoon made the Ashburton, where was a very superior house of
entertainment, conducted by a Mr. Turton, a man above the general run of
bush hotel keepers, and who, I believe, subsequently became a rich
squatter, as he well deserved.
The third day's ride brought us to our destination. There was a
comfortable rough dwelling house and the usual adjuncts in the way of
station buildings.
The situation was pleasant, at the opening of a wide gorge at the foot
of the downs, and a fine stream ran along the front of the enclosure. A
considerable portion of the run was hilly, and was at that time one of
the best in the province.
It was on this journey that I first came across the most wonderful
optical illusions, called mirages, that I had seen, and there is
something in the atmosphere maybe of the New Zealand plains that lends
itself specially to the creation of these beautiful phenomena.
We were riding over the open plain on a clear morning, near the
Ashburton river bed, more than twenty miles from the nearest hills, when
suddenly within fifty yards of us, appeared a most beautiful calm lake,
apparently many miles in extent, and dotted with cabbage trees (like
palms), whose reflections were cast in the water. Neither of us had seen
the like before, and for a while really believed we were approaching a
lake, although how such could possibly exist where a few moments before
had been dry waving grass, was like magic. We rode on, and as we went
the lake seemed to move with us, or rather to recede as we advanced,
keeping always the same distance ahead. The phenomenon lasted for about
a quarter of an hour, and then cleared away as magically as it came.
In the same district I subsequently observed some extraordinary optical
illusions of a like nature--once, in the direction of the sea where no
hills or other obstacles intervened, I saw a beautiful inverted
landscape of mountains, woods, and other objects like castles. The
picture or reflection seemed suspended in the air, and extended a long
way on the horizon. It must have been a reflection of some scene far
from the place where the phenomenon presented itself.
I spent a month with Smith, but as it was the slack time of the year
there was little routine work on the station, and much of our time was
passed in amusement.
The best fun was pig hunting, in which we were frequently joined by
neighbouring squatters.