Suddenly, He Saw The River Coming
Down Upon Him In The Manner I Have Described, And Not More Than Two Or
Three Hundred Yards Off.
By a forcible application of the spur, he was
enabled to reach terra firma, just in time to see the water sweeping
with an awful roar over the spot that he had been traversing not a
second previously.
This is not frequent: a fresh generally takes four
or five hours to come down, and from two days to a week, ten days, or a
fortnight, to subside again.
If I were to speak of the rise of the Rakaia, or rather of the numerous
branches which form it; of their vast and wasteful beds; the glaciers
that they spring from, one of which comes down half-way across the
river-bed (thus tending to prove that the glaciers are descending, for
the river-bed is both ABOVE and BELOW the glacier); of the wonderful
gorge with its terraces rising shelf upon shelf, like fortifications,
many hundred feet above the river; the crystals found there, and the
wild pigs - I should weary the reader too much, and fill half a volume:
the bullocks must again claim our attention, and I unwillingly revert to
my subject.
On the night of our arrival at the Rakaia I did not yard the bullocks,
as they seemed inclined to stay quietly with some others that were about
the place; next morning they were gone. Were they up the river, or down
the river, across the river, or gone back?
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