That Night It Snowed, And The Next Morning
We Started Amid A Heavy Rain, Being Anxious, If Possible, To Make My Own
Place That Night.
Soon after we started the rain ceased, and the clouds slowly uplifted
themselves from the mountain sides.
We were riding through the valley
that leads from the Ashburton to the upper valley of the Rangitata, and
kept on the right-hand side of it. It is a long, open valley, the
bottom of which consists of a large swamp, from which rise terrace after
terrace up the mountains on either side; the country is, as it were,
crumpled up in an extraordinary manner, so that it is full of small
ponds or lagoons - sometimes dry, sometimes merely swampy, now as full of
water as they could be. The number of these is great; they do not,
however, attract the eye, being hidden by the hillocks with which each
is more or less surrounded; they vary in extent from a few square feet
or yards to perhaps an acre or two, while one or two attain the
dimensions of a considerable lake. There is no timber in this valley,
and accordingly the scenery, though on a large scale, is neither
impressive nor pleasing; the mountains are large swelling hummocks,
grassed up to the summit, and though steeply declivitous, entirely
destitute of precipice. Truly it is rather a dismal place on a dark
day, and somewhat like the world's end which the young prince travelled
to in the story of "Cherry, or the Frog Bride." The grass is coarse and
cold-looking - great tufts of what is called snow-grass, and spaniard.
The first of these grows in a clump sometimes five or six feet in
diameter and four or five feet high; sheep and cattle pick at it when
they are hungry, but seldom touch it while they can get anything else.
Its seed is like that of oats.
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