Bullock Journey In Canterbury.

I Completed the loading of my dray on a Thursday afternoon in the early part of October, 1860, and determined on making Main's accommodation house that night. Of the contents of the dray I need hardly speak, though perhaps a full enumeration of them might afford no bad index to the requirements of a station; they are more numerous than might at first be supposed—rigidly useful, and rarely if ever ornamental. Flour, tea, sugar, tools, household utensils few and rough, a plough and harrows, doors, windows, farm and garden seeds—these, with a few private effects, formed the main bulk of the contents, amounting to about a ton and a half in weight.

I had only six bullocks, but these were good ones, and worth many a team of eight; a team of eight will draw from two to three tons along a pretty good road. Bullocks are very scarce here; none are to be got under £20, while £30 is no unusual price for a good harness bullock. They can do much more in harness than in bows and yokes, but the expense of harness, and the constant disorder into which it gets, renders it cheaper to use more bullocks in the simpler tackle. Each bullock has its name, and knows it as well as a dog does his. There is generally a tinge of the comic in the names given to them. Many stations have a small mob of cattle from whence to draw their working bullocks, so that a few more or a few less makes little or no difference.

They are not fed with corn at accommodation houses, as horses are; when their work is done they are turned out; to feed till dark, or till eight or nine o'clock. A bullock fills himself, if on pretty good feed, in about three or three hours page 156and a half. He then lies down till very early morning, at which time the chances are ten to one that, awakening refreshed and strengthened, he begins to stray back along the way he came, or in some other direction. Accordingly it is a common custom to yard one's team about eight or nine o'clock, and turn them out with the first daylight for another three or four hours' feed. Yarding bullocks is, however, a bad plan. They do their day's work of from fifteen to twenty miles, or sometimes more, at one spell, and travel at the rate of from two and a half to three miles an hour.

The road from Christchurch to Main's is metalled for about four and a half miles. There are fences and fields on both sides, either laid down in English grass or sown with grain. The fences are chiefly low ditches and banks planted with gorse, rarely with quick,^* the scarcity of which detracts from the resemblance to English scenery which would otherwise prevail. The copy, however, is slatternly compared with the original: the scarcity of timber, the high price of labour, and the pressing urgency of more important claims upon the time of the small agriculturist, prevent him, for the most part from attaining the spic-and-span neatness of an English homestead. Many makeshifts are necessary: a broken rail or gate is mended with a piece of flax; so, occasionally, are the roads. I have seen the Government roads themselves being repaired with no other material than stiff tussocks of grass, flax, and rushes. This is bad, but to a certain extent necessary, where there is so much to be done and so few hands and so little money with which to do it.

We crossed the old river-bed of the Waimakariri, and crawled slowly on to Main's through the descending twilight. One sees Main's about six miles off, and it appears to be about six hours before one reaches it. A little hump for the house, and a longer hump for the stables. The tutu not having yet begun to spring, I yarded my bullocks at Main's.

This demands some explanation. Tutu is a plant which dies away in the winter, and shoots tip anew from the old roots in spring, growing from 6in. to 2ft. or 3ft. in height, sometimes even to 5ft. or 6ft.^* It is of a rich green colour, and presents, at a little distance, something the appearance of myrtle. On first coming above the ground it resembles asparagus. I have seen three varieties of it, though I am not sure whether two of them may not be the same, varied somewhat by soil and position. The third grows only in high situations, and is unknown upon the plains; it has leaves very minutely subdivided, and looks like a fern, but the blossom and seed are nearly identical with the other varieties. The peculiar property of the plant is that, though highly nutritious both for sheep and cattle when eaten upon a tolerably full stomach, it is very fatal upon an empty one. Sheep and cattle eat it to any extent, and with perfect safety, when running loose on their pasture, because they are then always pretty full. But take the same sheep and yard them for some hours, or drive them so that they cannot feed, and then turn them into tutu, and the result is that they are immediately attacked with apoplectic symptoms, and die unless promptly bled. Nor does bleeding by any means always save them. Some say that the tutu acts like clover, and blows out the stomach, so that death ensues.

The next day we made thirteen miles over the plains to the Waikitty (written Waikirikiri) or Selwyn. Still the same monotonous plains, the same interminable tussock, dotted with the same cabbage-trees^*.

On the morrow ten more monotonous miles to the banks of the Rakaia. This river is one of the largest in the province—second only to the Waitangi. It contains about as much water as the Rhone above Martigny, perhaps even more; but it rather resembles an Italian than a Swiss river. With due care it is fordable in many places, though very rarely so when occupying a single channel: It is, however, seldom found in one stream, but flows, like the rest of these rivers, with alternate periods of rapid and comparatively smooth water every few yards.

The place to look for a ford is just above a spit where the river forks into two or more branches. Here there is generally a bar of shingle with shallow water, while immediately below, in each stream, there is a dangerous rapid. A very little practice and knowledge of each river will enable a man to detect a ford at a glance. These fords shift every fresh. In the Waimakariri or Rangitata they occur every quarter of a mile or less, but in the Rakaia you may go three or four miles for a good one. During a fresh the Rakaia is not fordable—at any rate, no one ought to ford it; but the two first-named rivers may be crossed, with great care, in pretty heavy freshes without the water coming higher than the knees of the rider.

The Rakaia sometimes comes down with a run: a wall of water two feet high, rolling over and over, rushes down with irresistible force. I know a gentleman who had been looking at some sheep upon an island in the Rakaia, and who, after finishing his survey, was riding leisurely to the bank on which his house was situated. Suddenly he saw the river coming down upon him in the manner I have described, and not more than two or three hundred yards off. By a forcible application of the spur he was enabled to reach terra firma just in time to see the water sweeping with an awful roar over the spot that he had been traversing not a second previously. This is not frequent: a fresh generally takes four or five hours to reach its height, and from two days to a week, ten days, or a fortnight to subside again.

If I were to speak of the rise of the Rakaia, or rather of the numerous branches which form it—of their vast and wasteful beds and the glaciers that they spring from; of the wonderful gorge, with its terraces rising shelf upon shelf, like fortifications, many hundred feet above the river; of the crystals found there, and the wild pigs—I should weary the reader too much, and fill half a volume. The bullocks must again claim our attention, and I unwillingly revert to my subject.

On the night of our arrival at the Rakaia I did not yard the bullocks, as they seemed inclined to stay quietly with some others that were about the place. Next morning they were gone! Were they up the river or down the river, across the river, or gone back?

You are at Cambridge, and have lost your bullocks. They were bred in Yorkshire, but have been used a good deal in Dorchester, and consequently may have made in either direction; they may, however, have worked down the Cam, and be in full speed for Lynn; or, again, they may be snugly stowed away in a gully half-way between the Fitzwilliam Museum and Trumpington. You saw a mob of cattle feeding quietly about Madingley on the previous evening, and they may have joined in with these; or were they attracted by-the fine feed in the neighbourhood of Cherryhinton? Where shall you go to look for them?

Matters in reality, however, are not so bad as this. A bullock cannot walk without leaving a track, if the ground he travels on is capable of receiving one. Again, if he does not know the country in advance of him the chances are strong that he has gone back the way he came: he will travel in a track if he happens to light on one; he finds it easier going. Animals are cautious in proceeding onwards when they do not know the ground. They have ever a lion in their path until they know it, and have found it free from beasts of prey. If, however, they have been seen heading decidedly in any direction overnight, in that direction they will most likely be found sooner or later. Bullocks cannot go long without water. They will travel to a river, then they will eat, drink, and be merry; and during that period of fatal security they will be caught.

Ours had gone back ten miles to the Waikitty. We soon obtained clues as to their whereabouts, and had them back in time to proceed on our journey. The river being very low, we did not unload the dray and put the contents across in the boat, but drove the bullocks straight through. Eighteen weary, monotonous miles over the same plains, covered with the same tussock grass, and dotted with the same cabbage-trees. The mountains, however, grew gradually nearer, and Banks Peninsula dwindled perceptibly. That night we made Mr. M—'s station, and were thankful.

Again we did not yard the bullocks, and again we lost them. They were only five miles off; but we did not find them till afternoon, and lost a day. As they had travelled in all nearly forty miles, I had had mercy upon them, intending that they should fill themselves well during the night, and be ready for a long pull next day. Even the merciful man himself, however, would except a working bullock from the beasts who have any claim upon his good feeling. Let him go straining his eyes examining every dark spot in a circumference many miles in extent; let him gallop a couple of miles first in one direction and then in another, and discover that he has only been lessening the distance between himself and a group of cabbage-trees; let him feel the word "bullock" eating itself in indelible characters into his heart, and he will refrain from mercy to working bullocks as long as he lives.

But as there are few positive pleasures equal in intensity to the negative one of release from pain, so it is when at last a group of six oblong objects, five dark and one white, appear in remote distance distinct and unmistakable. Yes, they are our bullocks. A sigh of relief follows; and we drive them sharply home, gloating over their distended tongues and slobbering mouths. If there is one thing a bullock hates worse than another it is being driven too fast. His heavy lumbering carcase is mated with a no less lumbering soul. He is a good, steady, patient slave if you let him take his own time about it; but do not hurry him. He has played a very important part in the advancement of civilisation and the development of the resources of the world—a part which the more fiery horse could not have played. Let us then bear with his heavy trailing gait and uncouth movements; only next time we will keep him tight, even though he starve for it. If bullocks be invariably driven sharply back to the dray whenever they have strayed from it they will soon learn not to go far off, and will be cured even of the most inveterate vagrancy.

Now we follow up one branch of the Ashburton, and commence making straight for the mountains; still, however, we are on the same monotonous plains, and crawl our twenty miles with very few objects that can possibly serve as landmarks. It is wonderful how small an object gets a name in the great dearth of features. Cabbage-Tree Hill, half-way between Main's and the Waikitty, is an almost imperceptible rise, some ten yards across and two or three feet high: the cabbage-trees have disappeared. Between the Rakaia and Mr. M. —'s station is a place they call the Half-way Gully, but it is neither a gully nor half-way, being only a grip in the earth, causing no perceptible difference in the level of the track, and extending but a few yards on either side of it. So between Mr. M. —'s and the next halting-place I remember nothing but a rather curiously shaped kowhai tree and a dead bullock, that can form milestones, as it were, to mark progress. Each person, however, for himself makes innumerable ones, such as where one peak in the mountain range goes behind another, and so on.

In the small river Ashburton, or rather in one of its smallest branches, we had a little misunderstanding with page 162the bullocks: the leaders, for some reason best known to themselves, slewed sharply round, and tied themselves into an inextricable knot with the polers, while the body bullocks, by a manœuvre not infrequent, shifted, or as it is technically termed, slipped, the yoke under their necks and the hows over, the off bullock turning upon the near side and the near bullock upon the off. By what means they do this I cannot explain, but believe it would make a conjuror's fortune in England. How they got the chains between their legs, and how they kicked to liberate themselves; how we abused them, and finally, unchaining them, set them right, I need not here particularise. We finally triumphed; but this delay caused us not to reach our destination till after dark.

The next morning, however, we started anew, and, after abont three or four miles, entered the valley of the south and larger Ashburton, bidding adieu to the plains completely. And now that I approach the description of the gorge I feel utterly unequal to the task, not because the scene is awful or beautiful, for in this respect the gorge of the Ashburton is less remarkable than most, but because the subject of gorges is replete with difficulty; and I never heard a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena they exhibit. It is not, however, my province to attempt this. I must content myself with narrating what I see.

I have not seen a single river in Canterbury which is not more or less terraced even below the gorge. The angle of the terrace is always very steep: I seldom see one less than 45°. One always has to get off and lead one's horse down, except where an artificial cutting has been made, or advantage can he taken of some gully that descends into the flat below, Tributary streams are terraced in like manner on a small scale, while even the mountain creeks repeat the phenomena in miniature, the terraces being always highest where the river emerges from its gorge, and slowly dwindling down as it approaches the sea, till finally, instead of the river being many hundred feet below the level of the plains, as is the case at the foot of the mountains, the plains near the sea are considerably below the water in the river, as on the north side of the Rakaia, before described.

Our road lay up the Ashburton, which we had repeatedly to cross and re-cross. A dray going through a river is a pretty sight enough when you are utterly unconcerned in the contents thereof. The rushing water stemmed by the bullocks and the dray; the energetic appeals of the driver to Tommy or Nobbler to lift the dray over the large stones in the river; the creaking dray; the cracking whip—these form a tout ensemble rather agreeable than otherwise. But when the bullocks, having pulled the dray into the middle of the river, refuse entirely to pull it out again; when the leaders turn sharp round and look at you, or stick their heads under the bellies of the polers; when the gentle pats on the forehead with the stock of the whip prove unavailing, and you are obliged to have recourse to strong measures, it is less agreeable, especially if the animals turn just after having got your dray half-way up the bank, and, twisting it round upon a steeply inclined surface, throw the centre of gravity far beyond the base: over goes the dray into the water. Alas, my sugar! my tea! my flour! my crockery! It is all over —drop the curtain.

I beg leave to state that my dray did not upset this lime. …

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 left the dray and went on some two or three miles on foot, for the purpose of camping where there was firewood. There was a hut, too, in the place for which we were making. It was not yet roofed, and had neither door nor window; but, as it was near firewood and water, we made for it, had supper, and turned in.

In the middle of the night some one, poking his nose out of his blanket, informed us that it was snowing; and in the morning we found it continuing to do so, with a good sprinkling on the ground. We thought nothing of it; and, returning to the dray, found the bullocks, put them to, and started on our way. But when we came above the gully, at the bottom of which, the hut lay, we were obliged to give in. There was a very bad creek, which we tried in vain for an hour or so to cross. The snow was falling very thickly, and driving right into the bullocks' faces. We were all very cold and weary, and determined to go down to the hut again, expecting fine weather in the morning.

We carried down a kettle, a camp oven, some flour, tea, sugar, and salt bcef; also a novel or two, and the future towels of the establishment, which wanted hemming; also the two cats. Thus equipped, we went down the gully, and got back to the hut about three o'clock in the afternoon. The gully sheltered us, and there the snow was kind and warm, though bitterly cold on the terrace. We threw a few burnt Irishman sticks across the top of the walls and put a couple of counterpanes over them, thus obtaining a little shelter near the fire. The snow inside the hut was about six inches deep, and soon became sloppy, so that at night we preferred to make a hole in the snow and sleep outside.

The fall continued all that night, and in the morning we found ourselves thickly covered. It was still snowing hard, so there was no stirring. We read the novels, hemmed the towels, smoked, and took it philosophically. There was plenty of firewood to keep us warm. By night the snow was fully two feet thick everywhere, and in the drifts five and six feet.

—S. Butler