After leaving Rangiora,which is about 8miles from Kaiapoi,I followed the Harewood road till it became a mere track,then a footpath,and then dwindled away to nothing at all.I soon found myself in the middle of the plains,with nothing but brown tussocks of grass before me and behind me,and on either side.The day was rather dark,and the mountains were obliterated by a haze."Oh the pleasure of the plains,"I thought to myself;but,upon my word,I think old Handel would find but little pleasure in these.They are,in clear weather,monotonous and dazzling;in cloudy weather monotonous and sad;and they have little to recommend them but the facility they afford for travelling,and the grass which grows upon them.This,at least,was the impression Iderived from my first acquaintance with them,as I found myself steering for the extremity of some low downs about six miles distant.I thought these downs would never get nearer.At length I saw a tent-like object,dotting itself upon the plain,with eight black mice as it were in front of it.This turned out to be a dray,loaded with wool,coming down from the country.It was the first symptom of sheep that I had come upon,for,to my surprise,I saw no sheep upon the plains,neither did I see any in the whole of my little excursion.I am told that this disappoints most new-comers.They are told that sheep farming is the great business of Canterbury,but they see no sheep;the reason of this is,partly because the runs are not yet a quarter stocked,and partly because the sheep are in mobs,and,unless one comes across the whole mob,one sees none of them.The plains,too,are so vast,that at a very short distance from the track,sheep will not be seen.When I came up to the dray,I found myself on a track,reached the foot of the downs,and crossed the little River Cust.A little river,brook or stream,is always called a creek;nothing but the great rivers are called rivers.Now clumps of flax,and stunted groves of Ti palms and other trees,began to break the monotony of the scene.Then the track ascended the downs on the other side of the stream,and afforded me a fine view of the valley of the Cust,cleared and burnt by a recent fire,which extended for miles and miles,purpling the face of the country,up to the horizon.Rich flax and grass made the valley look promising,but on the hill the ground was stony and barren,and shabbily clothed with patches of dry and brown grass,surrounded by a square foot or so of hard ground;between the tussocks,however,there was a frequent though scanty undergrowth which might furnish support for sheep,though it looked burnt up.
I may as well here correct an error,which I had been under,and which you may,perhaps,have shared with me--native grass cannot be mown.
After proceeding some few miles further,I came to a station,where,though a perfect stranger,and at first (at some little distance)mistaken for a Maori,I was most kindly treated,and spent a very agreeable evening.The people here are very hospitable;and I have received kindness already upon several occasions,from persons upon whom I had no sort of claim.
Next day I went to Oxford,which lies at the foot of the first ranges,and is supposed to be a promising place.Here,for the first time,Isaw the bush;it was very beautiful;numerous creepers,and a luxuriant undergrowth among the trees,gave the forest a wholly un-European aspect,and realised,in some degree,one's idea of tropical vegetation.
It was full of birds that sang loudly and sweetly.The trees here are all evergreens,and are not considered very good for timber.I am told that they have mostly a twist in them,and are in other respects not first rate.
March 24.--At last I have been really in the extreme back country,and positively,right up to a glacier.
As soon as I saw the mountains,I longed to get on the other side of them,and now my wish has been gratified.
I left Christ Church in company with a sheep farmer,who owns a run in the back country,behind the Malvern Hills,and who kindly offered to take me with him on a short expedition he was going to make into the remoter valleys of the island,in hopes of finding some considerable piece of country which had not yet been applied for.
We started February 28th,and had rather an unpleasant ride of twenty-five miles,against a very high N.W.wind.This wind is very hot,very parching,and very violent;it blew the dust into our eyes so that we could hardly keep them open.Towards evening,however,it somewhat moderated,as it generally does.There was nothing of interest on the track,save a dry river-bed,through which the Waimakiriri once flowed,but which it has long quitted.The rest of our journey was entirely over the plains,which do not become less monotonous upon a longer acquaintance;the mountains,however,drew slowly nearer,and by evening were really rather beautiful.Next day we entered the valley of the River Selwyn,or Waikitty,as it is generally called,and soon found ourselves surrounded by the low volcanic mountains,which bear the name of the Malvern Hills.They are very like the Banks Peninsula.We dined at a station belonging to a son of the bishop's,and after dinner made further progress into the interior.I have very little to record,save that I was disappointed at not finding the wild plants more numerous and more beautiful;they are few,and decidedly ugly.There is one beast of a plant they call spear-grass,or spaniard,which I will tell you more about at another time.You would have laughed to have seen me on that day;it was the first on which I had the slightest occasion for any horsemanship.You know how bad a horseman I am,and can imagine that Ilet my companion go first in all the little swampy places and small creeks which we came across.These were numerous,and as Doctor always jumped them,with what appeared to me a jump about three times greater than was necessary,I assure you I heartily wished them somewhere else.
