第31章 CHAPTER VII(5)

Let him gallop a couple of miles in this direction and the other,and discover that he has only been lessening the distance between himself and a group of cabbage-trees;let him feel the word "bullock"eating itself in indelible characters into his heart,and he will refrain from mercy to working bullocks as long as he lives.But as there are few positive pleasures equal in intensity to the negative one of release from pain,so it is when at last a group of six oblong objects,five dark and one white,appears in remote distance,distinct and unmistakable.Yes,they are our bullocks;a sigh of relief follows,and we drive them sharply home,gloating over their distended tongues and slobbering mouths.If there is one thing a bullock hates worse than another it is being driven too fast.His heavy lumbering carcase is mated with a no less lumbering soul.He is a good,slow,steady,patient slave if you let him take his own time about it;but don't hurry him.He has played a very important part in the advancement of civilisation and the development of the resources of the world,a part which the more fiery horse could not have played;let us then bear with his heavy trailing gait and uncouth movements;only next time we will keep him tight,even though he starve for it.If bullocks be invariably driven sharply back to the dray,whenever they have strayed from it,they will soon learn not to go far off,and will be cured even of the most inveterate vagrant habits.

Now we follow up one branch of the Ashburton,and commence making straight for the mountains;still,however,we are on the same monotonous plains,and crawl our twenty miles with very few objects that can possibly serve as landmarks.It is wonderful how small an object gets a name in the great dearth of features.Cabbage-tree hill,half-way between Main's and the Waikitty,is an almost imperceptible rise some ten yards across and two or three feet high:the cabbage-trees have disappeared.Between the Rakaia and Mr.M-'s station is a place they call the half-way gully,but it is neither a gully nor half-way,being only a grip in the earth,causing no perceptible difference in the level of the track,and extending but a few yards on either side of it.

So between Mr.M-'s and the next halting-place (save two sheep-stations)I remember nothing but a rather curiously shaped gowai-tree,and a dead bullock,that can form milestones,as it were,to mark progress.Each person,however,for himself makes innumerable ones,such as where one peak in the mountain range goes behind another,and so on.

In the small River Ashburton,or rather in one of its most trivial branches,we had a little misunderstanding with the bullocks;the leaders,for some reason best known to themselves,slewed sharply round,and tied themselves into an inextricable knot with the polars,while the body bullocks,by a manoeuvre not unfrequent,shifted,or as it is technically termed slipped,the yoke under their necks,and the bows over;the off bullock turning upon the near side and the near bullock upon the off.By what means they do this I cannot explain,but believe it would make a conjuror's fortune in England.How they got the chains between their legs and how they kicked to liberate themselves,how we abused them,and,finally,unchaining them,set them right,I need not here particularise;we finally triumphed,but this delay caused us not to reach our destination till after dark.

Here the good woman of the house took us into her confidence in the matter of her corns,from the irritated condition of which she argued that bad weather was about to ensue.The next morning,however,we started anew,and,after about three or four miles,entered the valley of the south and larger Ashburton,bidding adieu to the plains completely.

And now that I approach the description of the gorge,I feel utterly unequal to the task,not because the scene is awful or beautiful,for in this respect the gorge of the Ashburton is less remarkable than most,but because the subject of gorges is replete with difficulty,and I have never heard a satisfactory explanation of the phenomena they exhibit.

It is not,however,my province to attempt this.I must content myself with narrating what I see.