Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/230

198 of the Waimakariri and the Bealey, where the riverbed is very wide and rough, often merely intersected with a network of streams of moderate depth, but on this occasion one sheet of rushing water. There is a small hotel there, where we spent the night, hoping that in the morning the river might have fallen enough to allow us to ford it. Against the advice of the old hands of the place, in the morning, the driver attempted it. I was on the box with him, and a groom, who confided to me that "he had come to lend a hand, as he was sure we should make bad weather of it." He was right; the coach stuck fast against a boulder midstream, the water rose nearly to the backs of the horses; one of them fell, and the whole team would have been drowned, had not the groom managed to get down on to the pole, unhook the traces, and set them loose. They drifted down stream, and landed safely. Meanwhile we were left, the water running through the open sides of the coach, drenching the few inside passengers, and rising nearly to our knees on the box. Rescue was at hand; the mounted constable, who is stationed at the Bealey, rode his powerful horse into the stream, and backing to the coach, shouted, "Jump on behind me, and hold fast," The water was rushing over the saddle; I took the first jump from the box, and, gripping him by the waist, was convoyed ashore, followed by the others, fortunately only two men, the coach being left like a wreck at sea. The river fell that afternoon, the coach was extricated, and, after an evening spent in drying baggage, we proceeded on our journey next day.

Approaching Hokitika, at Arahura, I saw in the distance a number of boys on either side of the road. "They are your boys, Archdeacon," said the driver,