Five Years in New Zealand Part 5

CHAPTER IX.

CATTLE RANCHING AND STOCKRIDING.

While I stayed at Smith's Station, we made acquaintance with a young man, by name Hudson, a son of the famous Railway King. He had come to New Zealand a few years previously with slender means and was a pushing, energetic fellow. He settled on the Ashburton and set up business as a carter, investing his money in a couple of drays and bullock teams, with which he contracted to convey wool from the stations to Christchurch, returning with stores, etc., and sometimes carting timber from the forest and such like. My first day's experience of driving wild cattle was in his company.

A stockrider's life is perhaps of all occupations the most enjoyable, and there is just that element of risk connected with it that increases its fascination, but to make it intelligible to the reader, a sketch of the working and management of a cattle station will be necessary.

Although most sheep farmers feed a certain number of cattle to enable them to utilise the portions of their run which may be unsuitable for grazing, there are some squatters who confine themselves to cattle alone, and the produce derived from such stations includes beef, b.u.t.ter, cheese, hides, horns, and working stock--that is, bullocks destined for use in pulling drays; such entirely taking the places of draught horses up country.

A cattle rancher may have from one to two thousand head of cattle running wild. Of these, one portion is milch cows, which are daily driven in for milking and from which the extensive b.u.t.ter and cheese dairies are supplied; another the fat cattle fed for the market, and a third, young stock for breaking in as working bullocks. As with sheep, the cattle are periodically mustered in the stock yards for branding, selections for various purposes, and for sale.

Mustering a large head of wild cattle is exciting work. Half a dozen men mounted on well-trained horses, each carrying his stockwhip, start for the run. The stockwhip is composed of a lash of plaited raw hide, twelve to fifteen feet long, and about one and half inches thick at the belly, which is close to the handle. The latter is about nine inches long, made of some hard tough wood, usually weighted at the hand end. The experienced stockman can do powerful execution with these whips, one blow from which is sufficient to cut a slice out of the beast's hide, and I have seen an expert cut from top to bottom the side of a nail can with a single blow from his whip.

The cattle are spread over perhaps twenty or thirty thousand acres of unfenced country, and each man follows his portion of the herd, collecting and driving into a common centre. For a time all goes well, until some wary or ill-conditioned brute breaks away, followed possibly by a number of his comrades, who only need a lead to give the stockman trouble. Then commences a chase, and not infrequently it is a chase in vain, and the f.a.gged stockman and his jaded steed are obliged to give them up for that day, and proceed to hold what he has got in hand.

There is sometimes considerable danger in following up too closely these beasts when they begin to show signs of fatigue, as they then often turn to bay under the first sc.r.a.p of shelter, and if the horseman unwarily or ignorantly approaches too near in his endeavour to dislodge them, they will charge, and the death of the horse or rider may be the result.

Both, however, are generally too well aware of these little failings to endeavour to prevail over a jaded or "baked" beast, and prefer to let him rest.

Upon the cattle being yarded, the most exciting operation is the capturing and securing of the young beasts requiring to be broken in to the yoke. An experienced and expert stockman enters the enclosure carrying in his hand a pine sapling, 12 or 15 feet in length, at the end of which is a running noose of raw hide or strong hemp rope, attached to a strong rope which is pa.s.sed round a capstan outside the stockyard and near to a corner post. With considerable dexterity, not infrequently accompanied by personal danger, the man slips the noose over the horns of the beast he wishes to secure, when he immediately jumps over the rails, and with the a.s.sistance of the men outside, winds up the rope till the struggling and infuriated animal is fast held in a corner of the yard. Another noose is then slipped round the hind leg nearest the rails and firmly fastened.

The yard being cleared, a steady old working bullock is now driven alongside our young friend, and the two are yoked together neck and neck, the trained bullock selected being always the more powerful of the two. The ropes are then unfastened and the pair left free to keep company for a month or so, by which time the old worker will have trained his young charge sufficiently to permit of his being put into the body of a team and submitted to the unmerciful charge of the bullock puncher (driver). There is no escape for the novice then, yoked fast to a powerful beast with others before and behind, and the cruel cutting whip over him, in the hands of a man possessing but little sentiment: he must obey, and after a time becomes as tractable as the rest. Indeed, it is wonderful how intelligent and obedient these animals become under the hands of an experienced driver. There is a code of bullock punching language they soon get to understand; they answer readily to their names, and are, if anything, more sensible, obedient, and manageable than horses.

My ride with Hudson, which I referred to, was as hard a day's work as I have experienced of the kind. We started from the Ashburton at daybreak, and after a quiet canter of five miles, reached an open piece of river bed flat, on which were grazing some two hundred head of cattle, amongst which were five young bullocks of Hudson's he wished to cut out and drive to Moorhouse's station on the Rangitata, about twenty miles further south. The cutting out is more difficult than driving the whole herd, which will be apparent.

Having entered among them and found the animals we were in search of, we proceeded quietly to move them to a common place near the edge, from which we meant to drive them, and Hudson, who had considerable experience, succeeded after a while in collecting his five beasts in a favourable spot for our enterprise. We then took up positions on either side, and with a sudden spurt endeavoured to drive them on to the plain.

We were partially successful, leaving only one of the five behind, and we got the other four clear away some miles before they seemed to be aware of the absence of their comrades, but with some smart galloping we were keeping them well together in the direction we wanted to go. We were not, however, destined to continue fortunate for long. After a while we unexpectedly came across a herd of fresh cattle, into which our charges at once bolted, and it took two hours hard galloping before we succeeded in extricating only two of them. With these we were obliged to be satisfied; our horses were showing signs of fatigue, and without fresh mounts and other a.s.sistance it would be impossible to cut out the others that day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BAKED STEERS.]

Fortunately those we had went away quietly, and we hoped that no further impediment would occur. We were sadly mistaken. For six miles all went well, but it was then clear that the animals were getting baked (jaded); they were in too good condition for the hard cutting out twice repeated.

On reaching an isolated cabbage tree one deliberately lay down, while the other backed against the tree and stood sulkily at bay. Being nearest, I ignorantly made at them with the whip, when I was saluted with a bellow and a sudden charge, which, had not my horse been more on guard than I was, might have maimed one or both of us. The beast, having charged, backed again to the tree, and stood with nozzle touching the ground, breathing heavily, with sunken flanks and half-glazed eyes, a picture of imbecility, recklessness, and fatigue.

Hudson, on coming up, saw it was useless to attempt driving him further, and so we left him and the cabbage tree, and resumed our course with one bullock, which we actually did succeed in getting to the stockyard as night was falling.

Here, unfortunately, we found the yards closed and no one by to open them, and whilst I dismounted to take down the rails, the infernal beast once more bolted, apparently as fresh as ever, and notwithstanding all our endeavours to overhaul him darkness and our jaded horses failed us, and we had no resource but to wend our weary way to the homestead, three miles up the river, disappointed, dead beat, and hungry.

We were most hospitably received by Mr. and Mrs. Ben Moorhouse, with whom for genuine kindness and hospitality few could compare, and they invited us to stay with them a day or two, which we gladly agreed to do.

It was a real treat to pa.s.s any time in such a lovely locality and with such friends. The homestead was built on the river bed flat, a natural park covered with shrubbery palms, pines, and forest trees, along which on one side the turbulent Rangitata rushed in a confusion of waterfalls, whirlpools, and cascades, amidst huge ma.s.ses of rock, and beyond which rose precipitous hills with their lower portions clothed in richest vegetation. The views up the gorge from this point were enchanting, but I will take another opportunity of describing some of the mountain scenery of the Southern Alps, the grandest in its own peculiar form of any in the world.

Mr. Ben Moorhouse was one of three brothers, two of whom were squatters, and the eldest superintendent of the Province of Canterbury. They had all been some years in Australia, and were exceedingly fine men over six feet in height and built in proportion, good shots and experts at most games of strength and skill, not amongst the least of which was the science of boxing. We were treated the morning after our arrival to a lesson with the gloves, subsequently often repeated, and following this we had turns each in trying to ride a very clever buckjumper, a late purchase.

The faculty of buckjumping is, I believe, almost confined to Australian horses, and seems to be bred in them--perhaps the original rough breaking was responsible for the vice; but whatever be the cause it was then a fact that eight out of every ten horses could and did buckjump, and with many of them the vice was incurable. An experienced buckjumper will decide as the saddle is being put on him to get rid of it as soon as possible without any apparent reason for such reprehensible conduct.

He will swell himself out so that the girths cannot be fully tightened, and when he is mounted will suddenly bound off the ground, throw down his head, and prop violently on his fore feet, and this he will continue to repeat till the saddle comes on to his withers, and the rider finds some other resting place. So long as the saddle keeps its position, and the girths hold, there is a chance for the rider, but if they go he must, although he frequently goes without them.

There is a special saddle made for buckjumpers, provided with heavy pads to prop the knee against, and so prevent the rider from being chucked forward, and this is sometimes a.s.sisted by securely fastening an iron bar with a roll of blanket around it across the pommel of the saddle.

This presses across the thighs just above the knees, and affords great additional security, and a surcingle is strapped over the seat of the saddle as a further a.s.sistance to the girths.

There is also another plan adopted with a really bad brute--namely, a crutch of wood or iron fastened to a martingale below, with two rings above, through which the reins are led. This contrivance is to prevent the animal lowering his head, which is a necessary movement on his part for accomplished bucking.

CHAPTER X.

I UNDERTAKE EMPLOYMENT WITH A BUSH CONTRACTOR--GET SERIOUSLY ILL--START FOR THE SOUTH AND THE GOLD DIGGINGS.

I had now been more than a month on the Ashburton, but as I could not expect home letters yet for some weeks, and was getting tired of mere amus.e.m.e.nt, I accepted an offer made me to join in a new line of work.

A man named Metcalfe, a relative of a neighbouring squatter, had lately started work as a bush contractor, and had just then undertaken to construct a number of station buildings for a run holder on the Ashburton. Metcalfe was an experienced bushman and a good rough carpenter. He asked me to join him and I at once accepted.

We would have to fell and cut up our own timber in the forest, cart it down some forty miles, and construct all the works without other a.s.sistance.

Our first business was to provide a habitation for ourselves in the forest, as we required to stay there a month or two while cutting the necessary timber. We laid out a s.p.a.ce 10 feet by 12 feet, drove in posts at the corners, and nailed a strong rail on top, then we felled and split up into slabs a number of white pine trees, and set them upwards all round with their edges overlapping and nailed them at the top to the rail, or, more properly, wall plate, the feet of the slabs being set a few inches in the ground. Over this enclosure we made a sloping framework of wickers (fine saplings) and covered it with an old tent which Metcalfe possessed. At one end of the hut we constructed a wide fireplace and chimney in the same manner, and hung up an old blanket over the s.p.a.ce left for a doorway. The inside of the slab walls and chimney we wattled with mud and laths, which we split up, and plastered over with mud and chopped gra.s.s. We made rough cots with wickers and slabs, raised a foot above the ground, so as to form seats as well as beds, and covered them with a thick layer of minuka branches, which made capital springy mattresses, and over all we laid our blankets. For a table we split and dressed fairly smooth a pine slab a foot wide in which we bored four holes and inserted therein wicker legs. Our mansion was now complete and it had not occupied two days to build.

We rose at daybreak, boiled a kettle of tea, which with cold baked mutton and damper formed our breakfast, then to work till 12 o'clock, when we took an hour for dinner, and again to work till dark, when we adjourned to the hut, and after a visit to the creek for ablutions, and seeing that our horses were watered and put on fresh pasture for the night, we sat down to supper by a rousing fire, then lit pipes and chatted or read till it was time to turn in, when the fire was raked over, and the damper of bread inserted under the hot ashes to be ready for the morning. During the evening also one of us made the bread; the camp oven would be put on the fire with sufficient mutton to last us for two or three days. It was a grand life for healthy, strong fellows as we were, living and working alone in a virgin forest, with no sound around us but the rippling of the brook and the whisper of the wind through the foliage of the tall pines, or the ringing of our axes, with every now and then the crashing fall of a huge tree.

I should remark here that the black and white pine (so called) of New Zealand is not by any means similar to that which grows in Europe. They grow straight and tall, it is true, but for fully half their height throw out heavy and numerous branches thickly covered all the year round with very small evergreen leaves. The trees are easily cut up and split into posts and rails, or sawn into boards. At the time I refer to the forests were free to all settlers for their home needs on the payment of a nominal fee to the Provincial Government.

The timber in due time was felled, cut up, and carted to the station, and we removed our camp to the site of the operations. It was a bleak, wild place, three miles from the south mail track, and consisted only of a small slab hut or two with a wool shed and sheep yards. The owner, Mr.

T. Moorhouse, had lately purchased the run, and was about to improve and reside on it. A description of our life here would not be interesting, so I will pa.s.s over three months during which we worked steadily and the buildings were nearly complete, when one day, as I was nailing the shingles on a roof under a powerful sun, I suddenly felt sick and giddy, and was obliged to go inside and lie down. The same evening I developed a severe attack of gastric fever which three days after turned to a kind of brain fever, and for nigh on six weeks I lay betwixt life and death. For half of this time I lay on the floor in a corner of the new building, the bare ground with a layer of tea leaves for my bed, the noise grinding into my brain when I was at all conscious, and only Metcalfe (good man that he was) with an old Scottish shepherd to look after me when they could find time to do so. No doctor, medicine, or attendance of any kind was procurable nearer than sixty miles away, with a weekly post. One night, to make me sleep they gave me laudanum (a bottle of which Metcalfe had with him for toothache) and the following morning I was discovered standing on the brink of an artificial pond nearly a quarter of a mile off, barefoot and half naked, to reach which I must have walked over places I could not easily have pa.s.sed in my senses. This was when the brain attack came on, and for a week I lay, I was told, almost unconscious. Metcalfe contrived to send some information to Christchurch, and after I had been down for over three weeks Moorhouse arrived and removed me to his own hut, where he looked after me for some time. Then he had me carried to and fixed up in his dog cart and drove me sixty miles over the plains in a single day to Christchurch, where I arrived a good bit more dead than alive, but to find a comfortable room, and every attendance and luxury a sick man could wish for, prepared for me by my good friends Mr. and Mrs. Gresson.

I must have taken a good deal of killing in those days, but the drive to Christchurch, severe as it was, saved me, and in three weeks I was myself again.

When I was convalescent I found letters from home awaiting me. My father sent a little money, but wished me to utilise it in paying my pa.s.sage home, and appeared to have lost faith in my doing any good in New Zealand; but I was more determined than ever to remain. Was I not acc.u.mulating colonial experiences, and always found employment of some kind awaiting me? and I was still very young--only a little over eighteen. The free life I had spent for nearly two years had had its effect, and I could not consent to throw it up, at any rate not just yet.

The doctors who had attended me expressed their opinions that I had overtaxed my strength at work to which I was not accustomed, and forbade my undertaking anything of the kind for a while. This of course was nonsense, but I saw no reason why I should not enjoy a holiday for a month or so in Christchurch till I had settled future plans.

Just at this time I received a letter from Smith, informing me that the run he had charge of was sold, and having thereby lost his appointment, he was coming to Christchurch _en route_ for Otago on a voyage of enterprise, and invited me to join him. This was excellent; the wandering disposition was again strong upon me, and I looked forward to such a trip to a new part of the country in company with my old friend with the keenest delight. I agreed to his proposal at once, and immediately he arrived we set to work to make preparations for our journey south, although where that journey was to lead us or of what might be before us we were profoundly ignorant; but that knowledge or want of knowledge enhanced the glory of the movement. We were a couple of free lances starting to seek what might turn up, and eventually we were led into a new and very interesting experience, even if it did not turn out a remunerative one.

After paying my expenses in Christchurch, I possessed about 50 in cash and a valuable and well-bred mare. Smith's possessions were about on an equivalent. We decided to travel with one pack horse, and for this purpose we purchased between us for 15, a notorious buckjumper, called "Jack the Devil," and if ever deformity of temper and the lowest vice were depicted in an animal's face and bearing, this beast possessed them in an eminent degree. Although small and not beautiful to look at, he was very powerful, and had he been less vicious his price would have been treble what we obtained him for, but n.o.body cared to own him.

How well I remember the first time he was loaded, how quietly he stood with the whites of his eyes rolling and girths swelled until all was apparently secure, and then in less time than I can relate, how saddle and swags were scattered to the winds.

Smith was a determined fellow and a Yorkshireman to boot, and he had no intention of giving in to Jack; on the contrary, this little exhibition of devilry made him all the more determined to discover Jack's weak point and take the devil out of him.

The pack saddle was gathered up and taken to the harness maker along with the animal, and the two were put together in such a manner that if he again bucked it off, some part of Jack's personality would have to accompany it. The next trial was more successful, and after a few attempts he gave in, and from that day he became a most docile pack horse.

On the eve of starting we were joined by our mutual friend Legge, who had been some years overseer of a station. He was a smart, handy fellow, and although he did not contribute much in the way of financial a.s.sistance, we were glad to have him join our party, knowing him to be dependable, plucky, and good-tempered.

At length we started, and after journeying through the scene of our late life on the Ashburton and Rangitata, we arrived without adventure at the then small town of Timaru on the sea coast, about a hundred miles south.

Here we found the inhabitants in great excitement over news just arrived that gold had been discovered in large quant.i.ties on the Lindis, about one hundred and twenty miles inland from Dunedin in Otago. We, in common with every one else, were, of course, immediately infected with the gold mania, the more so as we were bent on adventure of any kind that might turn up, and here was an unexpected piece of good fortune ready to our hands. During our few days sojourn at Timaru we made another addition to our party in the person of a man named Fowler, whom, at his urgent request, we permitted to accompany us in our now proposed expedition to the gold diggings.

We arranged to start at once, and deferred preparations until we would arrive at Dunedin, the capital and port of Otago, and which, with fair marching, we hoped to reach on the third day.