As Soon As I Saw The Mountains, I Longed To Get On The Other Side Of
Them, And Now My Wish Has Been Gratified.
I left Christ Church in company with a sheep farmer, who owns a run in
the back country, behind
The Malvern Hills, and who kindly offered to
take me with him on a short expedition he was going to make into the
remoter valleys of the island, in hopes of finding some considerable
piece of country which had not yet been applied for.
We started February 28th, and had rather an unpleasant ride of twenty-
five miles, against a very high N.W. wind. This wind is very hot, very
parching, and very violent; it blew the dust into our eyes so that we
could hardly keep them open. Towards evening, however, it somewhat
moderated, as it generally does. There was nothing of interest on the
track, save a dry river-bed, through which the Waimakiriri once flowed,
but which it has long quitted. The rest of our journey was entirely
over the plains, which do not become less monotonous upon a longer
acquaintance; the mountains, however, drew slowly nearer, and by evening
were really rather beautiful. Next day we entered the valley of the
River Selwyn, or Waikitty, as it is generally called, and soon found
ourselves surrounded by the low volcanic mountains, which bear the name
of the Malvern Hills. They are very like the Banks Peninsula. We dined
at a station belonging to a son of the bishop's, and after dinner made
further progress into the interior. I have very little to record, save
that I was disappointed at not finding the wild plants more numerous and
more beautiful; they are few, and decidedly ugly. There is one beast of
a plant they call spear-grass, or spaniard, which I will tell you more
about at another time. You would have laughed to have seen me on that
day; it was the first on which I had the slightest occasion for any
horsemanship. You know how bad a horseman I am, and can imagine that I
let my companion go first in all the little swampy places and small
creeks which we came across. These were numerous, and as Doctor always
jumped them, with what appeared to me a jump about three times greater
than was necessary, I assure you I heartily wished them somewhere else.
However, I did my best to conceal my deficiency, and before night had
become comparatively expert without having betrayed myself to my
companion. I dare say he knew what was going on, well enough, but was
too good and kind to notice it.
At night, and by a lovely clear, cold moonlight, we arrived at our
destination, heartily glad to hear the dogs barking and to know that we
were at our journey's end. Here we were bona fide beyond the pale of
civilisation; no boarded floors, no chairs, nor any similar luxuries;
everything was of the very simplest description. Four men inhabited the
hut, and their life appears a kind of mixture of that of a dog and that
of an emperor, with a considerable predominance of the latter. They
have no cook, and take it turn and turn to cook and wash up, two one
week, and two the next. They have a good garden, and gave us a capital
feed of potatoes and peas, both fried together, an excellent
combination. Their culinary apparatus and plates, cups, knives, and
forks, are very limited in number. The men are all gentlemen and sons
of gentlemen, and one of them is a Cambridge man, who took a high
second-class a year or two before my time. Every now and then he leaves
his up-country avocations, and becomes a great gun at the college in
Christ Church, examining the boys; he then returns to his shepherding,
cooking, bullock-driving, etc. etc., as the case may be. I am informed
that the having faithfully learned the ingenuous arts, has so far
mollified his morals that he is an exceedingly humane and judicious
bullock-driver. He regarded me as a somewhat despicable new-comer (at
least so I imagined), and when next morning I asked where I should wash,
he gave rather a French shrug of the shoulders, and said, "The lake." I
felt the rebuke to be well merited, and that with the lake in front of
the house, I should have been at no loss for the means of performing my
ablutions. So I retired abashed and cleansed myself therein. Under his
bed I found Tennyson's Idylls of the King. So you will see that even in
these out-of-the-world places people do care a little for something
besides sheep. I was told an amusing story of an Oxford man shepherding
down in Otago. Someone came into his hut, and, taking up a book, found
it in a strange tongue, and enquired what it was. The Oxonian (who was
baking at the time) answered that it was Machiavellian discourses upon
the first decade of Livy. The wonder-stricken visitor laid down the
book and took up another, which was, at any rate, written in English.
This he found to be Bishop Butler's Analogy. Putting it down speedily
as something not in his line, he laid hands upon a third. This proved
to be Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, on which he saddled his horse and went
right away, leaving the Oxonian to his baking. This man must certainly
be considered a rare exception. New Zealand seems far better adapted to
develop and maintain in health the physical than the intellectual
nature. The fact is, people here are busy making money; that is the
inducement which led them to come in the first instance, and they show
their sense by devoting their energies to the work. Yet, after all, it
may be questioned whether the intellect is not as well schooled here as
at home, though in a very different manner.
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