It is all over - drop the curtain.
I beg to state my dray did not upset this time, though the centre of
gravity fell far without the base: what Newton says on that subject is
erroneous; so are those illustrations of natural philosophy, in which a
loaded dray is represented as necessarily about to fall, because a
dotted line from the centre of gravity falls outside the wheels. It
takes a great deal more to upset a well-loaded dray than one would have
imagined, although sometimes the most unforeseen trifle will effect it.
Possibly the value of the contents may have something to do with it; but
my ideas are not yet fully formed upon the subject.
We made about seventeen miles and crossed the river ten times, so that
the bullocks, which had never before been accustomed to river-work,
became quite used to it, and manageable, and have continued so ever
since.
We halted for the night at a shepherd's hut: awakening out of slumber I
heard the fitful gusts of violent wind come puff, puff, buffet, and die
away again; nor'-wester all over. I went out and saw the unmistakable
north-west clouds tearing away in front of the moon. I remembered Mrs.
W-'s corns, and anathematised them in my heart.
It may be imagined that I turned out of a comfortable bed, slipped on my
boots, and then went out; no such thing: we were all lying in our
clothes with one blanket between us and the bare floor - our heads
pillowed on our saddle-bags.
The next day we made only three miles to Mr. P-'s station. There we
unloaded the dray, greased it, and restored half the load, intending to
make another journey for the remainder, as the road was very bad.
One dray had been over the ground before us. That took four days to do
the first ten miles, and then was delayed several weeks on the bank of
the Rangitata by a series of very heavy freshes, so we determined on
trying a different route: we got farther on our first day than our
predecessor had done in two, and then Possum, one of the bullocks, lay
down (I am afraid he had had an awful hammering in a swampy creek where
he had stuck for two hours), and would not stir an inch; so we turned
them all adrift with their yokes on (had we taken them off we could not
have yoked them up again), whereat Possum began feeding in a manner
which plainly showed that there had not been much amiss with him. But
during the interval that elapsed between our getting into the swampy
creek and getting out of it a great change had come over the weather.
While poor Possum was being chastised I had been reclining on the bank
hard by, and occasionally interceding for the unhappy animal, the men
were all at him (but what is one to do if one's dray is buried nearly to
the axle in a bog, and Possum won't pull?); so I was taking it easy,
without coat or waistcoat, and even then feeling as if no place could be
too cool to please me, for the nor'-wester was still blowing strong and
intensely hot, when suddenly I felt a chill, and looking at the lake
below saw that the white-headed waves had changed their direction, and
that the wind had chopped round to sou'-west.
