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. It is an unhappy-looking grass, if grass
it be. Spaniard, which I have mentioned before, is simply detestable;
it has a strong smell, half turpentine half celery. It is sometimes
called spear-grass, and grows to about the size of a mole-hill, all over
the back country everywhere, as thick as mole-hills in a very mole-hilly
field at home. Its blossoms, which are green, insignificant, and ugly,
are attached to a high spike bristling with spears pointed every way and
very acutely; each leaf terminates in a strong spear, and so firm is it,
that if you come within its reach, no amount of clothing about the legs
will prevent you from feeling its effects. I have had my legs marked
all over by it. Horses hate the spaniard - and no wonder. In the back
country, when travelling without a track, it is impossible to keep your
horse from yawing about this way and that to dodge it, and if he
encounters three or four of them growing together, he will jump over
them or do anything rather than walk through. A kind of white wax,
which burns with very great brilliancy, exudes from the leaf. There are
two ways in which spaniard may be converted to some little use. The
first is in kindling a fire to burn a run: a dead flower-stalk serves
as a torch, and you can touch tussock after tussock literally [Greek
text which cannot be reproduced] lighting them at right angles to the
wind. The second is purely prospective; it will be very valuable for
planting on the tops of walls to serve instead of broken bottles: not a
cat would attempt a wall so defended.
Snow-grass, tussock grass, spaniard, rushes, swamps, lagoons, terraces,
meaningless rises and indentations of the ground, and two great brown
grassy mountains on either side, are the principal and uninteresting
objects in the valley through which we were riding. I despair of giving
you an impression of the real thing. It is so hard for an Englishman to
divest himself, not only of hedges and ditches, and cuttings and
bridges, but of all signs of human existence whatsoever, that unless you
were to travel in similar country yourself you would never understand
it.
After about ten miles we turned a corner and looked down upon the upper
valley of the Rangitata - very grand, very gloomy, and very desolate.
The river-bed, about a mile and a half broad, was now conveying a very
large amount of water to sea.
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