第17章 CHAPTER IV(5)

On the morning after I arrived,for the first time in my life I saw a sheep killed.It is rather unpleasant,but I suppose I shall get as indifferent to it as other--people are by and by.To show you that the knives of the establishment are numbered,I may mention that the same knife killed the sheep and carved the mutton we had for dinner.After an early dinner,my patron and myself started on our journey,and after travelling for some few hours over rather a rough country,though one which appeared to me to be beautiful indeed,we came upon a vast river-bed,with a little river winding about it.This is the Harpur,a tributary of the Rakaia,and the northern branch of that river.We were now going to follow it to its source,in the hopes of being led by it to some saddle over which we might cross,and come upon entirely new ground.The river itself was very low,but the huge and wasteful river-bed showed that there were times when its appearance must be entirely different.We got on to the river-bed,and,following it up for a little way,soon found ourselves in a close valley between two very lofty ranges,which were plentifully wooded with black birch down to their base.There were a few scrubby,stony flats covered with Irishman and spear-grass (Irishman is the unpleasant thorny shrub which I saw going over the hill from Lyttelton to Christ Church)on either side the stream;they had been entirely left to nature,and showed me the difference between country which had been burnt and that which is in its natural condition.This difference is very great.The fire dries up many swamps--at least many disappear after country has been once or twice burnt;the water moves more freely,unimpeded by the tangled and decaying vegetation which accumulates round it during the lapse of centuries,and the sun gets freer access to the ground.Cattle do much also:they form tracks through swamps,and trample down the earth,making it harder and firmer.Sheep do much:they convey the seeds of the best grass and tread them into the ground.The difference between country that has been fed upon by any live stock,even for a single year,and that which has never yet been stocked is very noticeable.If country is being burnt for the second or third time,the fire can be crossed without any difficulty;of course it must be quickly traversed,though indeed,on thinly grassed land,you may take it almost as coolly as you please.On one of these flats,just on the edge of the bush,and at the very foot of the mountain,we lit a fire as soon as it was dusk,and,tethering our horses,boiled our tea and supped.The night was warm and quiet,the silence only interrupted by the occasional sharp cry of a wood-hen,and the rushing of the river,whilst the ruddy glow of the fire,the sombre forest,and the immediate foreground of our saddles and blankets,formed a picture to me entirely new and rather impressive.

Probably after another year or two I shall regard camping out as the nuisance which it really is,instead of writing about sombre forests and so forth.Well,well,that night I thought it very fine,and so in good truth it was.

Our saddles were our pillows and we strapped our blankets round us by saddle-straps,and my companion (I believe)slept very soundly;for my part the scene was altogether too novel to allow me to sleep.I kept looking up and seeing the stars just as I was going off to sleep,and that woke me again;I had also underestimated the amount of blankets which I should require,and it was not long before the romance of the situation wore off,and a rather chilly reality occupied its place;moreover,the flat was stony,and I was not knowing enough to have selected a spot which gave a hollow for the hip-bone.My great object,however,was to conceal my condition from my companion,for never was a freshman at Cambridge more anxious to be mistaken for a third-year man than I was anxious to become an old chum,as the colonial dialect calls a settler--thereby proving my new chumship most satisfactorily.Early next morning the birds began to sing beautifully,and the day being thus heralded,I got up,lit the fire,and set the pannikins to boil:we then had breakfast,and broke camp.The scenery soon became most glorious,for,turning round a corner of the river,we saw a very fine mountain right in front of us.I could at once see that there was a neve near the top of it,and was all excitement.We were very anxious to know if this was the backbone range of the island,and were hopeful that if it was we might find some pass to the other side.The ranges on either hand were,as I said before,covered with bush,and these,with the rugged Alps in front of us,made a magnificent view.We went on,and soon there came out a much grander mountain--a glorious glaciered fellow--and then came more,and the mountains closed in,and the river dwindled and began leaping from stone to stone,and we were shortly in scenery of the true Alpine nature--very,very grand.It wanted,however,a chalet or two,or some sign of human handiwork in the fore-ground;as it was,the scene was too savage.