Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/81

Rh troublesome, and that a great deal depends upon the choice of one’s camping place. Taken as a whole, the West Coast did not present them, at any one time, in such aggravating numbers as we found them afterwards on our visit to the Bluff, and practised bushmen are, no doubt, able to avoid their presence and their inconvenient admiration of the society of men. Fortunately there was not the additional nuisance of rats performing nocturnal steeplechases over our noses—a common enough experience on the West Coast, as elsewhere. In fact, the untouched flour left by the digging party indicated that they are enemies to domestic comfort which have not yet found their way thus far south. Natural decay was, exclusive of our appetites, more an enemy to our stock of provisions, and as the meat we had with us gave intimation of its length of absence from the slaughter-yard, the Secretary sat up later than the rest of us, to keep turning the string from which two big pieces of beef depended; and in the morning we found that, unlike King Alfred, he had been “a good and faithful servant,” and that his work was “well done.”

In the morning, the Secretary and Mr Wright pushed up the stream some miles further; but, it was found impossible, in consequence of the rapids, to take the heavy boat which it was necessary for us to have, any great distance up. Dr Hector had had a small boat adapted for the purpose, and his party tracked it up for some miles, conveying their “swags,” but the convenience, it is confessed, was in that case doubtful. Compared with the season of the year at which Dr Hector visited the locality, there must have been a greatly larger body of water in the river. In fact, in its present trackless state, and the frequent necessity for making the river the road, the summer season must be considerably the worst for getting over the ranges to the Wakatip. The Secretary and his companion went past a large moraine, and, I suppose, nearly to the border of the limited breadth of flat country which, above it, occupies what is apparently the bed of an old lake. The drift along the banks of the stream is described as not unlike that of the Shotover. Among the shingle were picked up numerous pieces of green-stone—not the green-stone of the Maoris; and round our camp we found a few pieces of porcelain jasper. The beaches of the lake, lower down, seem to consist of granite gneiss, and disintegrated schist. Though tall trees grew here, on what may be literally described as suction—for they stand on the bare rock, without even the semblance of soil—there seems to be, on some parts of the island, some cultivatable ground, and it might hold a homestead; but rich as is its vegetation, it is hard to say how far it is guaranteed against floods. In the event of a tract being cut from the Wakatip to the M‘Kerrow, this would naturally be a stopping place. Rather, it would be its western terminus; beyond it the lake provides preferable facilities for travel.

The boat which had been despatched to the steamer had not returned, and, having seen all that was apparently to be seen in this the least practicable part of the district, we started for the return trip by the lake. The diggers were all scattered, and beyond “hail,” except three, and two of these came with us to take a spell at the oars in pulling down against the stiff head wind which we had to face. It was arranged that, for the