Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/155

Rh ode. Such were my meditations until I became entranced by the captivations of Morpheus. On Friday morning, our Captain acquainted us with something respecting the moon’s quarters. He meant that we should no longer have quarters there. He said one thing appeared clear, if not the hills. We were all in a fog. During the night, I may mention, we heard the notes of the kaka, the kiwi, and kakapo. At early dawn we heard Mr Frew imitating every imaginable live bird and animal belonging to the farm-yard. We presented him with a tin of preserved milk, as an accompaniment to his only beverage and sole article of food—burgoo. After breakfast we christened the embryo town by the name of Silverton, giving three cheers for the prospectors. The pleasure of the homeward journey was only marred by the inclemency of the weather. In about five hours we reached the foot of the hill, where we met Bill, one of Allen’s men, who had kindly waited for us, according to promise, with four horses. At six o’clock we reached Allen’s, where our comforts were again attended to. Later in the evening Bill suggested, in honour of St Patrick’s night, that the occasion should be suitably celebrated. Allen happened to have two new-chum servants by name Phil and Peggy. Phil could cause dulcet strains to emanate from a family fiddle which had been an heirloom for three generations, while Peggy was “all there” in what she termed in other words than the terpsichorean fantasias. After our travels over the “rocky roads,” nothing would do but that we should open the ball. Peter Adamson and Peggy were our vis-á-vis. Full dress was not imperative, so we left our coats and boots to dry, while Phil

Suffice it to say, for three hours Good Templarism was not the chief topic of conversation. Irish jigs, Scotch reels, and songs of all nations were only stayed in their rapid course when interspersed by stirrup-cups. Next morning Waitaha to Ross, and thence to Hokitika.

At a later period in the same year, Mr John Bevan was more fortunate in regard to weather, in an excursion made by himself and others to the silver country, and in a narrative of the journey, he thus described the scenery from the summit of Mount Rangitoto:—“Every sense is alive to the beauty of the scene. Looking inland from the sea along the chain of mountains, one first beholds ‘Mount Cook,’ the ever hoary-headed giant of the south, rearing aloft its snow-clad heights, 13,000 feet above the level of the sea, the monarch of all, the greatest land mark in New Zealand, and alongside of which all others seem insignificant, but none the less grand in the glorious picture presented.

“To the south and immediately at the base of the point of observation, one sees the valley of the Waitaha, Duffer’s lake in its solitude lying still and motionless, enclosed by high mountains. The rivers ‘Wanganui’ and ‘Wataroa,’ ‘Bald Head’ and ‘Wanganui Bluff,’ the scene of many of Ocean’s mighty furies and the terror of the