Men Are As Shrewd And
Sensible, As Alive To The Humorous, And As Hard-Headed.
Moreover, there
is much nonsense in the old country from which people here are free.
There is little conventionalism, little formality, and much liberality
of sentiment; very little sectarianism, and, as a general rule, a
healthy, sensible tone in conversation, which I like much.
But it does
not do to speak about John Sebastian Bach's Fugues, or pre-Raphaelite
pictures.
To return, however, to the matter in hand. Of course everyone at
stations like the one we visited washes his own clothes, and of course
they do not use sheets. Sheets would require far too much washing. Red
blankets are usual; white show fly-blows. The blue-bottle flies blow
among blankets that are left lying untidily about, but if the same be
neatly folded up and present no crumpled creases, the flies will leave
them alone. It is strange, too, that, though flies will blow a dead
sheep almost immediately, they will not touch one that is living and
healthy. Coupling their good nature in this respect with the love of
neatness and hatred of untidiness which they exhibit, I incline to think
them decidedly in advance of our English bluebottles, which they
perfectly resemble in every other respect. The English house-fly soon
drives them away, and, after the first year or two, a station is seldom
much troubled with them: so at least I am told by many. Fly-blown
blankets are all very well, provided they have been quite dry ever since
they were blown: the eggs then come to nothing; but if the blankets be
damp, maggots make their appearance in a few hours, and the very
suspicion of them is attended with an unpleasant creepy crawly
sensation. The blankets in which I slept at the station which I have
been describing were perfectly innocuous.
On the morning after I arrived, for the first time in my life I saw a
sheep killed. It is rather unpleasant, but I suppose I shall get as
indifferent to it as other - people are by and by. To show you that the
knives of the establishment are numbered, I may mention that the same
knife killed the sheep and carved the mutton we had for dinner. After
an early dinner, my patron and myself started on our journey, and after
travelling for some few hours over rather a rough country, though one
which appeared to me to be beautiful indeed, we came upon a vast river-
bed, with a little river winding about it. This is the Harpur, a
tributary of the Rakaia, and the northern branch of that river. We were
now going to follow it to its source, in the hopes of being led by it to
some saddle over which we might cross, and come upon entirely new
ground. The river itself was very low, but the huge and wasteful river-
bed showed that there were times when its appearance must be entirely
different. We got on to the river-bed, and, following it up for a
little way, soon found ourselves in a close valley between two very
lofty ranges, which were plentifully wooded with black birch down to
their base. There were a few scrubby, stony flats covered with Irishman
and spear-grass (Irishman is the unpleasant thorny shrub which I saw
going over the hill from Lyttelton to Christ Church) on either side the
stream; they had been entirely left to nature, and showed me the
difference between country which had been burnt and that which is in its
natural condition. This difference is very great. The fire dries up
many swamps - at least many disappear after country has been once or
twice burnt; the water moves more freely, unimpeded by the tangled and
decaying vegetation which accumulates round it during the lapse of
centuries, and the sun gets freer access to the ground. Cattle do much
also: they form tracks through swamps, and trample down the earth,
making it harder and firmer. Sheep do much: they convey the seeds of
the best grass and tread them into the ground. The difference between
country that has been fed upon by any live stock, even for a single
year, and that which has never yet been stocked is very noticeable. If
country is being burnt for the second or third time, the fire can be
crossed without any difficulty; of course it must be quickly traversed,
though indeed, on thinly grassed land, you may take it almost as coolly
as you please. On one of these flats, just on the edge of the bush, and
at the very foot of the mountain, we lit a fire as soon as it was dusk,
and, tethering our horses, boiled our tea and supped. The night was
warm and quiet, the silence only interrupted by the occasional sharp cry
of a wood-hen, and the rushing of the river, whilst the ruddy glow of
the fire, the sombre forest, and the immediate foreground of our saddles
and blankets, formed a picture to me entirely new and rather impressive.
Probably after another year or two I shall regard camping out as the
nuisance which it really is, instead of writing about sombre forests and
so forth. Well, well, that night I thought it very fine, and so in good
truth it was.
Our saddles were our pillows and we strapped our blankets round us by
saddle-straps, and my companion (I believe) slept very soundly; for my
part the scene was altogether too novel to allow me to sleep. I kept
looking up and seeing the stars just as I was going off to sleep, and
that woke me again; I had also underestimated the amount of blankets
which I should require, and it was not long before the romance of the
situation wore off, and a rather chilly reality occupied its place;
moreover, the flat was stony, and I was not knowing enough to have
selected a spot which gave a hollow for the hip-bone.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 15 of 45
Words from 14227 to 15241
of 45285
