Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/33

Rh the rivers, except eels in backwaters, no bees, wasps, frogs or toads; though in the forests there are a variety of parrots, pigeons, and other native birds, and on the coast line wild duck, I noticed occasionally a sort of lark rising from the grass, like an English lark, but songless, and here and there a big hawk—a kite, I think,—hovering about, and I am told there is a small brown rat to be found on the plains in burrows. Otherwise the brooding silence is that of a land unoccupied by man or beast.

After thirty-five miles at a leisurely pace, I saw on the horizon some dots of dark colour which proved to be small buildings, on the bank of the river Selwyn. There I found what is known as an accommodation house, which provided me with bed and supper, whilst, after the manner of the country, I attended to my horse, tethering him in good grass. The Selwyn river is one of the smaller rivers of Canterbury, a sparkling stream with wide riverbed, wandering here and there between islands of sand, at times liable to heavy floods. I cannot help thinking it would have been better to have retained the old names given by the natives. There are but a few of them in the South Island. With poetical instinct, characteristic of their race, they have named rivers, headlands, lakes and hills. The Native name is Wai-ani-wa-aniwa, i.e. the water of the rainbow, and if, perhaps, a trifle long for our curt fashion of speech, it seems to make even the great name of Selwyn prosaic.

At supper I met an Australian who had been a little while in the country, intending to settle somewhere, and he promised to pilot me, on his way south across the river Rakaia. This river, twelve miles from the Selwyn, is one of the big glacier and snow-fed streams