We found the Ashburton high,but lower than it had been;in one or two of the eleven crossing-places between our afternoon and evening resting-places we were wet up to the saddle-flaps--still we were able to proceed without any real difficulty.That night it snowed,and the next morning we started amid a heavy rain,being anxious,if possible,to make my own place that night.
Soon after we started the rain ceased,and the clouds slowly uplifted themselves from the mountain sides.We were riding through the valley that leads from the Ashburton to the upper valley of the Rangitata,and kept on the right-hand side of it.It is a long,open valley,the bottom of which consists of a large swamp,from which rise terrace after terrace up the mountains on either side;the country is,as it were,crumpled up in an extraordinary manner,so that it is full of small ponds or lagoons--sometimes dry,sometimes merely swampy,now as full of water as they could be.The number of these is great;they do not,however,attract the eye,being hidden by the hillocks with which each is more or less surrounded;they vary in extent from a few square feet or yards to perhaps an acre or two,while one or two attain the dimensions of a considerable lake.There is no timber in this valley,and accordingly the scenery,though on a large scale,is neither impressive nor pleasing;the mountains are large swelling hummocks,grassed up to the summit,and though steeply declivitous,entirely destitute of precipice.Truly it is rather a dismal place on a dark day,and somewhat like the world's end which the young prince travelled to in the story of "Cherry,or the Frog Bride."The grass is coarse and cold-looking--great tufts of what is called snow-grass,and spaniard.
The first of these grows in a clump sometimes five or six feet in diameter and four or five feet high;sheep and cattle pick at it when they are hungry,but seldom touch it while they can get anything else.
Its seed is like that of oats.It is an unhappy-looking grass,if grass it be.Spaniard,which I have mentioned before,is simply detestable;it has a strong smell,half turpentine half celery.It is sometimes called spear-grass,and grows to about the size of a mole-hill,all over the back country everywhere,as thick as mole-hills in a very mole-hilly field at home.Its blossoms,which are green,insignificant,and ugly,are attached to a high spike bristling with spears pointed every way and very acutely;each leaf terminates in a strong spear,and so firm is it,that if you come within its reach,no amount of clothing about the legs will prevent you from feeling its effects.I have had my legs marked all over by it.Horses hate the spaniard--and no wonder.In the back country,when travelling without a track,it is impossible to keep your horse from yawing about this way and that to dodge it,and if he encounters three or four of them growing together,he will jump over them or do anything rather than walk through.A kind of white wax,which burns with very great brilliancy,exudes from the leaf.There are two ways in which spaniard may be converted to some little use.The first is in kindling a fire to burn a run:a dead flower-stalk serves as a torch,and you can touch tussock after tussock literally [Greek text which cannot be reproduced]lighting them at right angles to the wind.The second is purely prospective;it will be very valuable for planting on the tops of walls to serve instead of broken bottles:not a cat would attempt a wall so defended.
Snow-grass,tussock grass,spaniard,rushes,swamps,lagoons,terraces,meaningless rises and indentations of the ground,and two great brown grassy mountains on either side,are the principal and uninteresting objects in the valley through which we were riding.I despair of giving you an impression of the real thing.It is so hard for an Englishman to divest himself,not only of hedges and ditches,and cuttings and bridges,but of all signs of human existence whatsoever,that unless you were to travel in similar country yourself you would never understand it.
After about ten miles we turned a corner and looked down upon the upper valley of the Rangitata--very grand,very gloomy,and very desolate.
The river-bed,about a mile and a half broad,was now conveying a very large amount of water to sea.
Some think that the source of the river lies many miles higher,and that it works its way yet far back into the mountains;but as we looked up the river-bed we saw two large and gloomy gorges,at the end of each of which were huge glaciers,distinctly visible to the naked eye,but through the telescope resolvable into tumbled masses of blue ice,exact counterparts of the Swiss and Italian glaciers.These are quite sufficient to account for the volume of water in the Rangitata,without going any farther.
The river had been high for many days;so high that a party of men,who were taking a dray over to a run which was then being just started on the other side (and which is now mine),had been detained camping out for ten days,and were delayed for ten days more before the dray could cross.We spent a few minutes with these men,among whom was a youth whom I had brought away from home with me,when I was starting down for Christ Church,in order that he might get some beef from P-'s and take it back again.The river had come down the evening on which we had crossed it,and so he had been unable to get the beef and himself home again.
