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[pg 37] 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.[pg 38]
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.[pg 39]
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.[pg 40]
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.
