A First Year in Canterbury Settlement 
 With Other Early Essays
 
 Complete List of Samuel Butler's Works 
 
 ["The late SAMUEL BUTLER was, in his own department, the greatest English 
 writer of the latter half of the nineteenth century. ... It drives one almost to 
 despair of English literature when one sees so extraordinary a study of English 
 life as "The Way of All Flesh" making so little stir that when, some years 
 later I produce plays in which Butler's extraordinarily fresh, free, and future- 
 piercing suggestions have an obvious share, I am met with nothing but vague 
 cacklings about Ibsen and Nietzsche." GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, in Preface to 
 Major Barbara.] 
 
 Edited by R. A Streatfeild. 
 A First Year in Canterbury Settlement. A New re-set 
 
 Edition. With other early essays (several not previously issued). 
 The Humour of Homer. Butler's complete essays. With 
 
 a sketch of his life by Henry Festing Jones, and a photogravure 
 
 portrait of 1887. New Edition. 
 The Fair Haven. New Edition, re-set. 
 Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino. 
 
 With 85 illustrations by the author, H. F. Jones, and Charles 
 
 Gogin. New and enlarged Edition, with Butler's index added. 
 The "Way of All Flesh. A novel. Seventh Impression 
 
 of Second Edition. [Impression. 
 
 Erewhon, or Over the Range. Enlarged Edition. Eighth 
 Erewhon Revisited. Fifth Impression. 
 Life and Habit. An essay after a completer view of 
 
 Evolution. Revised and enlarged Edition. 
 Unconscious Memory. Revised and re-set Edition. With 
 
 Introduction by Professor Marcus Hartog. 
 Evolution Old and New. A comparison of the theories 
 
 of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, with that of Charles 
 
 Darwin. Revised and enlarged Edition. 
 God the Known and God the Unknown. 
 The Iliad. A new translation into English prose. 
 
 Edited by Henry Festing Jones. 
 The Note-Books of Samuel Butler. With a photogravure 
 
 portrait of 1898, Butler's Poems, a list of biographical dates, 
 
 and an index. Second Impression. 
 
 Original Editions, with new title pages. 
 
 Luck or Cunning, as the main means of Organic Modification? (1887.) 
 Ex Veto. An account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at 
 
 Varallo-Sesia. With numerous collotype illustrations. (1888.) 
 The Authoress of the Odyssey, who and what she was, when and 
 
 where she wrote. (1897.) 
 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets, with notes and original text. (1899.) 
 The Odyssey. A new translation into English prose. (1900.) 
 
 Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler. A step towards reconciliation. 
 A pamphlet by Henry Festing Jones, with several letters between 
 Darwin and Butler.
 
 A First Year in 
 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 With Other Early Essays 
 
 By 
 
 Samuel Butler 
 
 Author of " Erewhon," " The Way of All Flesh," etc. 
 
 Edited by R. A. Streatfeild 
 
 London : A. C. Fifield 
 1914
 
 WILLIAM BRBNDOH AND SON, LTD. PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
 
 STACK 
 
 ANNEX stack 
 
 Annex 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction, by R. A. STREATFEILD . . vii 
 
 PART I. NEW ZEALAND 
 
 A First Year in Canterbury Settlement ... 3 
 
 Crossing the Rangitata . . . . . 143 
 
 Darwin on the Origin of Species . . . . 149 
 
 Darwin among the Machines ..... 179 
 
 Lucubratio Ebria . . . . . .186 
 
 A Note on " The Tempest " .... 195 
 
 The English Cricketers 198 
 
 PART II. CAMBRIDGE 
 
 On English Composition and Other Matters . . 205 
 
 Our Tour ........ 211 
 
 Translation from an Unpublished Work of Herodotus 234 
 
 The Shield of Achilles, with Variations . . ; 237 
 
 Prospectus of the Great Split Society . . . 239 
 
 Powers ........ 244 
 
 A Skit on Examinations 251 
 
 An Eminent Person ...... 255 
 
 Napoleon at St. Helena ..... 256 
 
 The Two Deans. I 258 
 
 The Two Deans. II ...... 259 
 
 The Battle of Alma Mater 261 
 
 On the Italian Priesthood ..... 265 
 Samuel Butler and the Simeonites, by A. T. Bartholo- 
 mew 266
 
 Introduction 
 By R. A. Streatfeild 
 
 C*INCE Butler's death in 1902 his fame has spread so 
 rapidly and the world of letters now takes so keen 
 an interest in the man and his writings that no apology 
 is necessary for the republication of even his least signifi- 
 cant works. I had long desired to bring out a new edition 
 of his earliest book A FIRST YEAR IN CANTERBURY 
 SETTLEMENT, together with the other pieces that he wrote 
 during his residence in New Zealand, and, that wish being 
 now realised, I have added a supplementary group of pieces 
 written during his undergraduate days at Cambridge, so 
 that the present volume forms a tolerably complete record 
 of Butter's literary activity up to the days of EREWHON, 
 the only omission of any importance being that of his 
 pamphlet, published anonymously in 1865, THE EVI- 
 DENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST AS 
 CONTAINED IN THE FOUR EVANGELISTS CRITICALLY 
 EXAMINED. / have not reprinted this, because practically 
 the whole of it was incorporated into THE FAIR HAVEN. 
 A FIRST YEAR IN CANTERBURY SETTLEMENT has 
 long been out of print, and copies of the original edition 
 
 vii
 
 viii Introduction 
 
 are difficult to procure. Butler professed to think poorly 
 of it. Writing in 1889 to his friend Alfred Marks, who 
 had picked up a second-hand copy and felt some doubt as 
 to its authorship, he said : M / am afraid the little book 
 you have referred to was written by me. My people edited 
 my letters home. I did not write freely to them, of course, 
 because they were my people. If I was at all freer any- 
 where they cut it out before printing it ; besides, I had 
 not yet shed my Cambridge skin and its trail is every- 
 where, I am afraid, perceptible. I have never read the 
 book myself. I dipped into a few pages when they sent 
 it to me in New Zealand, but saw ' prig ' written upon 
 them so plainly that I read no more and never have and 
 never mean to. I am told the book sells for i a copy in 
 New Zealand ; in fact, last autumn I know Sir Walter 
 Buller gave that for a copy in England, so as a specula- 
 tion it is worth 2s. 6d. or 35. I stole a passage or two from 
 it for EREWHON, meaning to let it go and never be re- 
 printed during my lifetime." 
 
 This must be taken with a grain of salt. It was Butler's 
 habit sometimes to entertain his friends and himself by 
 speaking of his own works with studied disrespect, as 
 when, with reference to his own DARWIN AND THE ORIGIN 
 OF SPECIES, which also is reprinted in this volume, he 
 described philosophical dialogues as " the most offensive 
 form, except poetry and books of travel into supposed un- 
 known countries, that even literature can assume." The 
 circumstances which led to A FIRST YEAR being written
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 have been fully described by Mr. Festing Jones in his 
 sketch of Butler's life prefixed to THE HUMOUR OF HOMER 
 (Fi field, London, 1913; Kennerley, New York], and I 
 will only briefly recapitulate them. Butler left England 
 f or New Zealand in September, 1859, remaining in the 
 colony until 1864. A FIRST YEAR was published in 1863 
 in Butler's name by his father ; who contributed a short 
 preface, stating that the book was compiled from his son's 
 journal and letters, with extracts from two papers con- 
 tributed to THE EAGLE, the magazine of St. John's 
 College, Cambridge. These two papers had appeared in 
 1861 in the form of three articles entitled " Our Emigrant " 
 and signed " Cellarius." By comparing these articles 
 with the book as published by Butler's father it is possible 
 to arrive at some conclusion as to the amount of editing 
 to which Butler's prose was submitted. Some passages in 
 the articles do not appear in the book at all ; others appear 
 unaltered ; others again have been slightly doctored, appa- 
 rently with the object of robbing them of a certain youthful 
 " cocksureness," which probably grated upon the paternal 
 nerves, but seems to me to create an atmosphere of an 
 engaging freshness which I miss in the edited version. 
 So much of the " Our Emigrant " articles is repeated in 
 A FIRST YEAR almost if not quite verbatim that it did 
 not seem worth while to reprint the articles in their en- 
 tirety. I have, however, included in this collection one 
 extract from the latter which was not incorporated into 
 A FIRST YEAR, though it describes at greater length an
 
 x Introduction 
 
 incident referred to on p. 74. From this extract, which 
 I have called " Crossing the Rangitata," readers will be 
 able to see for themselves how fresh and spirited Butler's 
 original descriptions of his adventures were, and will 
 probably regret that he did not take the publication of 
 A FIRST YEAR into his own hands, instead of allowing 
 his father to have a hand in it. 
 
 With regard to the other pieces included in this volume 
 I have thought it best to prefix brief notes, when necessary, 
 to each in turn explaining the circumstances in which 
 they were written and, when it was possible, giving the 
 date of composition. 
 
 In preparing the book for publication I have been 
 materially helped by friends in both hemispheres. My 
 thanks are specially due to Miss Colborne-Veel, of Christ- 
 church, N.Z., for copying some of Butler's early con- 
 tributions to THE PRESS, and in particular for her 
 kindness in allowing me to make use of her notes on " The 
 English Cricketers " ; to Mr. A. T. Bartholomew for his 
 courtesy in allowing me to reprint his article on " Butler 
 and the Simeonites," which originally appeared in THE 
 CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE of i March, 1913, and throws so 
 interesting a light upon a certain passage in THE WAY 
 OF ALL FLESH. The article is here reprinted by the kind 
 permission of the editor and proprietor of THE CAM- 
 BRIDGE MAGAZINE ; to Mr. J. F. Harris for his generous 
 assistance in tracing and copying several of Butler's early 
 contributions to THE EAGLE ; to Mr. W. H. Triggs, the
 
 Introduction xi 
 
 editor O/THE PRESS, for allowing me to make use of much 
 interesting matter relating to Butler that has appeared in 
 the columns of that journal ; and lastly to Mr. Henry 
 Festing Jones, whose help and counsel have been as in- 
 valuable to me in preparing this volume for the Press as 
 they have been in past years in the case of the other books 
 by Butler that I have been privileged to edit. 
 
 R. A. STREATFEILD.
 
 PART I 
 NEW ZEALAND
 
 A First Year in Canterbury Settlement
 
 Preface 
 
 [By the Rev. Thomas Butler] 
 
 writer of the following pages, having resolved 
 1 on emigrating to New Zealand, took his passage 
 in the ill-fated ship Burmah, which never reached her 
 destination, and is believed to have perished with all 
 on board. His berth was chosen, and the passage- 
 money paid, when important alterations were made 
 in the arrangements of the vessel, in order to make 
 room for some stock which was being sent out to the 
 Canterbury Settlement. 
 
 The space left for the accommodation of the pas- 
 sengers being thus curtailed, and the comforts of the 
 voyage seeming likely to be much diminished, the 
 writer was most providentially induced to change his 
 ship, and, a few weeks later, secured a berth in 
 another vessel. 
 
 The work is compiled from the actual letters and 
 journal of a young emigrant, with extracts from two 
 papers contributed by him to the Eagle, a periodical 
 issued by some of the members of St. John's College, 
 Cambridge, at which the writer took his degree. This 
 variety in the sources from which the materials are 
 put together must be the apology for some defects 
 in their connection and coherence. It is hoped also 
 that the circumstances of bodily fatigue and actual
 
 6 Preface to Canterbury Settlement 
 
 difficulty under which they were often written, will 
 excuse many faults of style. 
 
 For whatever of presumption may appear in giving 
 this little book to the public, the friends of the writer 
 alone are answerable. It was at their wish only that 
 he consented to its being printed. It is, however, 
 submitted to the reader, in the hope that the unbiassed 
 impressions of colonial life, as they fell freshly on a 
 young mind, may not be wholly devoid of interest. 
 Its value to his friends at home is not diminished by 
 the fact that the MS., having been sent out to New 
 Zealand for revision, was, on its return, lost in the 
 Colombo, and was fished up from the Indian Ocean 
 so nearly washed out as to have been with some 
 difficulty deciphered. 
 
 It should be further stated, for the encouragement 
 of those who think of following the example of the 
 author, and emigrating to the same settlement, that 
 his most recent letters indicate that he has no reason 
 to regret the step that he has taken, and that the results 
 of his undertaking have hitherto fully justified his 
 expectations. 
 
 LANGAR RECTORY 
 June 29, 1863
 
 Contents 
 
 Of "A First Year in Canterbury Settlement " 
 Chapter I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Embarkation at Gravesend Arrest of Passenger Tilbury 
 Fort Deal Bay of Biscay Gale Becalmed off Teneriffe 
 Fire in the Galley Trade Winds Belt of Calms Death on 
 Board Shark Current S.E. Trade Winds Temperature 
 Birds Southern Cross Cyclone ..... 9 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 Life on Board Calm Boat Lowered Snares and Traps 
 Land Driven off Coast Enter Port Lyttelton Requisites 
 for a Sea Voyage Spirit of Adventure aroused . . 22 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 Aspect of Port Lyttelton Ascent of Hill behind it View 
 Christ Church Yankeeisms Return to Port Lyttelton and 
 Ship Phormium Tenax Visit to a Farm Moa Bones . 31 
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 Sheep on Terms, Schedule and Explanation Investment in 
 Sheep-run Risk of Disease, and Laws upon the Subject 
 Investment in laying down Land hi English Grass In Farm- 
 ing Journey to Oxford Journey to the Glaciers Remote 
 Settlers Literature in the Bush Blankets and Flies 
 Ascent of the Rakaia Camping out Glaciers Minerals 
 Parrots Unexplored Col Burning the Flats Return . 37 
 
 Chapter V 
 
 Ascent of the Waimakiriri Crossing the River Gorge 
 Ascent of the Rangitata View of M'Kenzie Plains 
 M'Kenzie Mount Cook Ascent of the Hurunui Col lead- 
 ing to West Coast ....... 59 
 
 7
 
 8 Contents 
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Hut Cadets Openings for Emigrants without Capital For 
 those who bring Money Drunkenness Introductions 
 The Rakaia Valley leading to the Rangitata Snow-grass 
 and Spaniard Solitude Rain and Flood Cat Irishman 
 Discomforts of Hut Gradual Improvement Value of 
 Cat 68 
 
 Chapter VII 
 
 Loading Dray Bullocks Want of Roads Banks Peninsula 
 Front and Back Ranges of Mountains River-beds 
 Origin of the Plains Terraces Tutu Fords Floods 
 Lost Bullocks Scarcity of Features on the Plains Terraces 
 Crossing the Ashburton Change of Weather Roofless 
 Hut Brandy-keg ....... 80 
 
 Chapter VIII 
 
 Taking up the Run Hut within the Boundary Land Regula- 
 tions Race to Christ Church Contest for Priority of Appli- 
 cation Successful issue Winds and their Effects Their 
 conflicting Currents Sheep crossing the River . .102 
 
 Chapter IX 
 
 Plants of Canterbury Turnip Tutu Ferns Ti Palm 
 Birds Paradise Duck Tern Quail Woodhen 
 Robin Linnet Pigeon Moa New Parroquet 
 Quadrupeds Eels Insects Weta Lizards . . .115 
 
 Chapter X 
 
 Choice of a Run Boundaries Maoris Wages Servants 
 Drunkenness Cooking Wethers Choice of Home- 
 stead Watchfulness required Burning the Country 
 Yards for Sheep Ewes and Lambs Lambing Season 
 Wool Sheds Sheep Washing Putting up a Hut Gardens 
 Farewell . .... 126
 
 A First Year in Canterbury Settlement 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 Embarkation at Gravesend Arrest of Passenger Tilbury Fort 
 Deal Bay of Biscay Gale Becalmed off Teneriffe Fire in the 
 Galley Trade Winds Belt of Calms Death on Board Shark 
 Current S.E. Trade Winds Temperature Birds Southern 
 Cross Cyclone . 
 
 IT is a windy, rainy day cold withal ; a little boat 
 is putting off from the pier at Gravesend, and 
 making for a ship that is lying moored in the middle 
 of the river ; therein are some half-dozen passengers 
 and a lot of heterogeneous-looking luggage ; among 
 the passengers, and the owner of some of the most 
 heterogeneous of the heterogeneous luggage, is myself. 
 The ship is an emigrant ship, and I am one of the 
 emigrants. 
 
 On having clambered over the ship's side and found 
 myself on deck, I was somewhat taken aback with the 
 apparently inextricable confusion of everything on 
 board ; the slush upon the decks, the crying, the kiss- 
 ing, the mustering of the passengers, the stowing away 
 of baggage still left upon the decks, the rain and the 
 gloomy sky created a kind of half-amusing, half-dis- 
 tressing bewilderment, which I could plainly see to be 
 participated in by most of the other landsmen on board. 
 
 9
 
 io Canterbury Settlement 
 
 Honest country agriculturists and their wives were 
 looking as though they wondered what it would end in ; 
 some were sitting on their boxes and making a show 
 of reading tracts which were being presented to them 
 by a serious-looking gentleman in a white tie ; but all 
 day long they had perused the first page only, at least 
 I saw none turn over the second. 
 
 And so the afternoon wore on, wet, cold, and com- 
 fortless no dinner served on account of the general 
 confusion. The emigration commissioner was taking a 
 final survey of the ship and shaking hands with this, 
 that, and the other of the passengers. Fresh arrivals 
 kept continually creating a little additional excitement 
 these were saloon passengers, who alone were per- 
 mitted to join the ship at Gravesend. By and by a 
 couple of policemen made their appearance and arrested 
 one of the party, a London cabman, for debt. He had 
 a large family, and a subscription was soon started to 
 pay the sum he owed. Subsequently, a much larger 
 subscription would have been made in order to have 
 him taken away by anybody or anything. 
 
 Little by little the confusion subsided. The emi- 
 gration commissioner left ; at six we were at last 
 allowed some"; victuals. Unpacking my books and 
 arranging them in my cabin filled up the remainder of 
 the evening, save the time devoted to a couple of medi- 
 tative pipes. The emigrants went to bed, and when, at 
 about ten o'clock, I went up for a little time upon the 
 poop, I heard no sound save the clanging of the clocks 
 from the various churches of Gravesend, the pattering 
 of rain upon the decks, and the rushing of the river as 
 it gurgled against the ship's side. 
 
 Early next morning the cocks began to crow vocifer-
 
 Gravesend Tilbury Fort 1 1 
 
 ously. We had about sixty couple of the oldest 
 inhabitants of the hen-roost on board, which were 
 intended for the consumption of the saloon passengers 
 a destiny which they have since fulfilled : young 
 fowls die on shipboard, only old ones standing the 
 weather about the line. Besides this, the pigs began 
 grunting and the sheep gave vent to an occasional 
 feeble bleat, the only expression of surprise or discon- 
 tent which I heard them utter during the remainder of 
 their existence, for now, alas ! they are no more. I 
 remember dreaming I was in a farmyard, and woke as 
 soon as it was light. Rising immediately, I went on 
 deck and found the morning calm and sulky no rain, 
 but everything very wet and very grey. There was 
 Tilbury Fort, so different from Stanfield's dashing 
 picture. There was Gravesend, which but a year 
 before I had passed on my way to Antwerp with so 
 little notion that I should ever leave it thus. Musing 
 in this way, and taking a last look at the green fields 
 of old England, soaking with rain, and comfortless 
 though they then looked, I soon became aware that 
 we had weighed anchor, and that a small steam-tug 
 which had been getting her steam up for some little 
 time had already begun to subtract a mite of the 
 distance between ourselves and New Zealand. And 
 so, early in the morning of Saturday, October I, 1859, 
 we started on our voyage. 
 
 The river widened out hour by hour. Soon our little 
 steam-tug left us. A fair wind sprung up, and at two 
 o'clock, or thereabouts, we found ourselves off Rams- 
 gate. Here we anchored and waited till the tide, 
 early next morning. This took us to Deal, off which 
 we again remained a whole day. On Monday morning
 
 12 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 we weighed anchor, and since then we have had it on 
 the forecastle, and trust we may have no further occa- 
 sion for it until we arrive at New Zealand. 
 
 I will not waste time and space by describing the 
 horrible sea-sickness of most of the passengers, a 
 misery which I did not myself experience, nor yet will 
 I prolong the narrative of our voyage down the Channel 
 it was short and eventless. The captain says there 
 is more danger between Gravesend and the Start Point 
 (where we lost sight of land) than all the way between 
 there and New Zealand. Fogs are so frequent and 
 collisions occur so often. Our own passage was free 
 from adventure. In the Bay of Biscay the water 
 assumed a blue hue of almost incredible depth ; there, 
 moreover, we had our first touch of a gale not that it 
 deserved to be called a gale in comparison with what 
 we have since experienced, still we learnt what double- 
 reefs meant. After this the wind fell very light, and 
 continued so for a few days. On referring to my diary, 
 I perceive that on the loth of October we had only 
 got as far south as the forty-first parallel of latitude, 
 and late on that night a heavy squall coming up from 
 the S.W. brought a foul wind with it. It soon freshened, 
 and by two o'clock in the morning the noise of the flap- 
 ping sails, as the men were reefing them, and of the wind 
 roaring through the rigging, was deafening. All next 
 day we lay hove to under a close-reefed main-topsail, 
 which, being interpreted, means that the only sail set 
 was the main-topsail, and that that was close reefed ; 
 moreover, that the ship was laid at right angles to the 
 wind and the yards braced sharp up. Thus a ship drifts 
 very slowly, and remains steadier than she would other- 
 wise ; she ships few or no seas, and, though she rolls a
 
 Gale 1 3 
 
 good deal, is much more easy and safe than when run- 
 ning at all near the wind. Next day we drifted due 
 north, and on the third day, the fury of the gale having 
 somewhat moderated, we resumed not our course, but 
 a course only four points off it. The next several days 
 we were baffled by foul winds, jammed down on the 
 coast of Portugal ; and then we had another gale from 
 the south, not such a one as the last, but still enough to 
 drive us many miles out of our course ; and then it fell 
 calm, which was almost worse, for when the wind fell 
 the sea rose, and we were tossed about in such a manner 
 as would have forbidden even Morpheus himself to sleep. 
 And so we crawled on till, on the morning of the 24th 
 of October, by which time, if we had had anything like 
 luck, we should have been close on the line, we found 
 ourselves about thirty miles from the Peak of Teneriffe, 
 becalmed. This was a long way out of our course, 
 which lay three or four degrees to the westward at the 
 very least ; but the sight of the Peak was a great treat, 
 almost compensating for past misfortunes. The Island 
 of Teneriffe lies in latitude 28, longitude 16. It is 
 about sixty miles long ; towards the southern extremity 
 the Peak towers upwards to a height of 12,300 feet, 
 far above the other land of the island, though that too 
 is very elevated and rugged. Our telescopes revealed 
 serrated gullies upon the mountain sides, and showed 
 us the fastnesses of the island in a manner that made 
 us long to explore them. We deceived ourselves with 
 the hope that some speculative fisherman might come 
 out to us with oranges and grapes for sale. He would 
 have realised a handsome sum if he had, but unfor- 
 tunately none was aware of the advantages offered, and 
 so we looked and longed in vain. The other islands
 
 14 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 were Palma, Gomera, and Ferro, all of them lofty, 
 especially Palma all of them beautiful. On the sea- 
 board of Palma we could detect houses innumerable ; it 
 seemed to be very thickly inhabited and carefully 
 cultivated. The calm continuing three days, we took 
 stock of the islands pretty minutely, clear as they 
 were, and rarely obscured even by a passing cloud ; the 
 weather was blazing hot, but beneath the awning it was 
 very delicious ; a calm, however, is a monotonous thing 
 even when an island like Teneriffe is in view, and we 
 soon tired both of it and of the gambols of the blackfish 
 (a species of whale), and the operations on board an 
 American vessel hard by. 
 
 On the evening of the third day a light air sprung 
 up, and we watched the islands gradually retire into the 
 distance. Next morning they were faint and shrunken, 
 and by midday they were gone. The wind was the 
 commencement of the north-east trades. On the next 
 day (Thursday, October 27, lat. 27 40') the cook was 
 boiling some fat in a large saucepan, when the bottom 
 burnt through and the fat fell out over the fire, got 
 lighted, and then ran about the whole galley, blazing 
 and flaming as though it would set the place on fire, 
 whereat an alarm of fire was raised, the effect of which 
 was electrical : there was no real danger about the 
 affair, for a fire is easily extinguishable on a ship when 
 only above board ; it is when it breaks out in the hold, 
 is unperceived, gains strength, .and finally bursts its 
 prison, that it becomes a serious matter to extinguish 
 it. This was quenched in five minutes, but the faces of 
 the female steerage passengers were awful. I noticed 
 about many a peculiar contraction and elevation of one 
 eyebrow, which I had never seen before on the living
 
 Belt of Calms 1 5 
 
 human face, though often in pictures. I don't mean to 
 say that all the faces of all the saloon passengers were 
 void of any emotion whatever. 
 
 The trades carried us down to latitude 9. They 
 were but light while they lasted, and left us soon. 
 There is no wind more agreeable than the N.E. trades. 
 The sun keeps the air deliciously warm, the breeze 
 deliciously fresh. The vessel sits bolt upright, steering 
 a S.S.W. course, with the wind nearly aft : she glides 
 along with scarcely any perceptible motion ; some- 
 times, in the cabin, one would fancy one must be on 
 dry land. The sky is of a greyish blue, and the sea 
 silver grey, with a very slight haze round the horizon. 
 The water is very smooth, even with a wind which 
 would elsewhere raise a considerable sea. In latitude 
 19, longitude 25, we first fell in with flying fish. 
 These are usually in flocks, and are seen in greatest 
 abundance in the morning ; they fly a great way and 
 very well, not with the kind of jump which a fish 
 takes when springing out of the water, but with a 
 bona fide flight, sometimes close to the water, some- 
 times some feet above it. One flew on board, and 
 measured roughly eighteen inches between the tips 
 of its wings. On Saturday, November 5, the trades 
 left us suddenly after a thunder-storm, which gave us 
 an opportunity of seeing chain lightning, which I only 
 remember to have seen once in England. As soon as 
 the storm was over, we perceived that the wind was 
 gone, and knew that we had entered that unhappy 
 region of calms which extends over a belt of some 
 five degrees rather to the north of the line. 
 
 We knew that the weather about the line was often 
 calm, but had pictured to ourselves a gorgeous sun,
 
 1 6 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 golden sunsets, cloudless sky, and sea of the deepest 
 blue. On the contrary, such weather is never known 
 there, or only by mistake. It is a gloomy region. 
 Sombre sky and sombre sea. Large cauliflower-headed 
 masses of dazzling cumulus tower in front of a back- 
 ground of lavender-coloured satin. There are clouds of 
 every shape and size. The sails idly flap as the sea 
 rises and falls with a heavy regular but windless swell. 
 Creaking yards and groaning rudder seem to lament 
 that they cannot get on. The horizon is hard and black, 
 save when blent softly into the sky upon one quarter or 
 another by a rapidly approaching squall. A puff of 
 wind " Square the yards ! " the ship steers again ; 
 another she moves slowly onward ; it blows she 
 slips through the water ; it blows hard she runs ; 
 very hard she flies ; a drop of rain the wind lulls ; 
 three or four more of the size of half a crown it falls 
 very light ; it rains hard, and then the wind is dead 
 whereon the rain comes down in a torrent which those 
 must see who would believe. The air is so highly 
 charged with moisture that any damp thing remains 
 damp and any dry thing dampens : the decks are 
 always wet. Mould springs up anywhere, even on the 
 very boots which one is wearing ; the atmosphere is 
 like that of a vapour bath, and the dense clouds seem 
 to ward off the light, but not the heat, of the sun. 
 The dreary monotony of such weather affects the 
 spirits of all, and even the health of some. One poor 
 girl who had long been consumptive, but who appar- 
 ently had rallied much during the voyage, seemed to 
 give way suddenly as soon as we had been a day in 
 this belt of calms, and four days after, we lowered her 
 over the ship's side into the deep.
 
 Current 1 7 
 
 One day we had a little excitement in capturing a 
 shark, whose triangular black fin had been veering 
 about above water for some time at a little distance 
 from the ship. I will not detail a process that has so 
 often been described, but will content myself with 
 saying that he did not die unavenged, inasmuch as he 
 administered a series of cuffs and blows to anyone that 
 was near him which would have done credit to a prize- 
 fighter, and several of the men got severe handling or, 
 I should rather say, " tailing " from him. He was 
 accompanied by two beautifully striped pilot fish the 
 never-failing attendants of the shark. 
 
 One day during this calm we fell in with a current, 
 when the aspect of the sea was completely changed. It 
 resembled a furiously rushing river, and had the sound 
 belonging to a strong stream, only much intensified ; 
 the waves, too, tossed up their heads perpendicularly 
 into the air ; whilst the empty flour-casks drifted 
 ahead of us and to one side. It was impossible to look 
 at the sea without noticing its very singular appearance. 
 Soon a wind springing up raised the waves and ob- 
 literated the more manifest features of the current, 
 but for two or three days afterwards we could perceive 
 it more or less. There is always at this time of year a 
 strong westerly set here. The wind was the commence- 
 ment of the S.E. trades, and was welcomed by all with 
 the greatest pleasure. In two days more we reached 
 the line. 
 
 We crossed the line far too much to the west, in 
 longitude 31 6', after a very long passage of nearly 
 seven weeks, such as our captain says he never re- 
 members to have made ; fine winds, however, now 
 began to favour us, and in another week we got out of
 
 1 8 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 the tropics, having had the sun vertically overhead, so 
 as to have no shadow, on the preceding day. Strange 
 to say, the weather was never at all oppressively hot 
 after latitude 2 north, or thereabouts. A fine wind, or 
 indeed a light wind, at sea removes all unpleasant heat 
 even of the hottest and most perpendicular sun. The 
 only time that we suffered any inconvenience at all 
 from heat was during the belt of calms ; when the sun 
 was vertically over our heads it felt no hotter than on 
 an ordinary summer day. Immediately, however, upon 
 leaving the tropics the cold increased sensibly, and in 
 latitude 27 8' I find that I was not warm once all day. 
 Since then we have none of us ever been warm, save 
 when taking exercise or in bed ; when the thermometer 
 was up at 50 we thought it very high and called it 
 warm. The reason of the much greater cold of the 
 southern than of the northern hemisphere is that the 
 former contains so much less land. I have not seen 
 the thermometer below 42 in my cabin, but am sure 
 that outside it has often been very much lower. We 
 almost all got chilblains, and wondered much what 
 the winter of this hemisphere must be like if this was 
 its summer : I believe, however, that as soon as we 
 get off the coast of Australia, which I hope we may do 
 in a couple of days, we shall feel a very sensible rise in 
 the thermometer at once. Had we known what was 
 coming, we should have prepared better against it, but 
 we were most of us under the impression that it would 
 be warm summer weather all the way. No doubt we 
 felt it more than we should otherwise on account of 
 our having so lately crossed the line. 
 
 The great feature of the southern seas is the multi- 
 tude of birds which inhabit it. Huge albatrosses,
 
 Albatrosses Southern Cross 19 
 
 molimorks (a smaller albatross), Cape hens, Cape 
 pigeons, parsons, boobies, whale birds, mutton birds, 
 and many more, wheel continually about the ship's 
 stern, sometimes in dozens, sometimes in scores, always 
 in considerable numbers. If a person takes two pieces 
 of pork and ties them together, leaving perhaps a yard 
 of string between the two pieces, and then throws them 
 into the sea, one albatross will catch hold of one 
 end, and another of the other, each bolts his own 
 end and then tugs and fights with his rival till one or 
 other has to disgorge his prize ; we have not, however, 
 succeeded in catching any, neither have we tried the 
 above experiment ourselves. Albatrosses are not white ; 
 they are grey, or brown with a white streak down the 
 back, and spreading a little into the wings. The under 
 part of the bird is a bluish-white. They remain without 
 moving the wing a longer time than any bird that I 
 have ever seen, but some suppose that each individual 
 feather is vibrated rapidly, though in very small space, 
 without any motion being imparted to the main pinions 
 of the wing. I am informed that there is a strong 
 muscle attached to each of the large plumes in their 
 wings. It certainly is strange how so large a bird 
 should be able to travel so far and so fast without any 
 motion of the wing. Albatrosses are often entirely 
 brown, but farther south, and when old, I am told, 
 they become sometimes quite white. The stars of the 
 southern hemisphere are lauded by some : I cannot see 
 that they surpass or equal those of the northern. Some, 
 of course, are the same. The southern cross is a very 
 great delusion. It isn't a cross. It is a kite, a kite 
 upside down, an irregular kite upside down, with only 
 three respectable stars and one very poor and very
 
 2O Canterbury Settlement 
 
 much out of place. Near it, however, is a truly mys- 
 terious and interesting object called the coal sack : it 
 is a black patch in the sky distinctly darker than all 
 the rest of the heavens. No star shines through it. 
 The proper name for it is the black Magellan cloud. 
 
 We reached the Cape, passing about six degrees south 
 of it, in twenty-five days after crossing the line, a very 
 fair passage ; and since the Cape we have done well 
 until a week ago, when, after a series of very fine runs, 
 and during as fair a breeze as one would wish to see, 
 we were some of us astonished to see the captain giving 
 orders to reef topsails. The royals were stowed, so 
 were the top-gallant-sails, topsails close reefed, mainsail 
 reefed, and just at 10.45 p.m., as I was going to bed, 
 I heard the captain give the order to take a reef in the 
 foresail and furl the mainsail ; but before I was in bed 
 a quarter of an hour afterwards, a blast of wind came 
 up like a wall, and all night it blew a regular hurricane. 
 The glass, which had dropped very fast all day, and 
 fallen lower than the captain had ever seen it in the 
 southern hemisphere, had given him warning what was 
 coming, and he had prepared for it. That night we 
 ran away before the wind to the north, next day we lay 
 hove-to till evening, and two days afterwards the gale 
 was repeated, but with still greater violence. The 
 captain was all ready for it, and a ship, if she is a good 
 sea-boat, may laugh at any winds or any waves pro- 
 vided she be prepared. The danger is when a ship has 
 got all sail set and one of these bursts of wind is shot 
 out at her ; then her masts go overboard in no time. 
 Sailors generally estimate a gale of wind by the amount 
 of damage it does, if they don't lose a mast or get their 
 bulwarks washed away, or at any rate carry away a few
 
 Cyclone 2 1 
 
 sails, they don't call it a gale, but a stiff breeze ; if, how- 
 ever, they are caught even by comparatively a very 
 inferior squall, and lose something, they call it a gale. 
 The captain assured us that the sea never assumes a 
 much grander or more imposing aspect than that which 
 it wore on this occasion. He called me to look at it 
 between two and three in the morning when it was at 
 its worst ; it was certainly very grand, and made a 
 tremendous noise, and the wind would scarcely let one 
 stand, and made such a roaring in the rigging as I never 
 heard, but there was not that terrific appearance that I 
 had expected. It didn't suggest any ideas to one's 
 mind about the possibility of anything happening to 
 one. It was excessively unpleasant to be rolled hither 
 and thither, and I never felt the force of gravity such 
 a nuisance before ; one's soup at dinner would face one 
 at an angle of 45 with the horizon, it would look as 
 though immovable on a steep inclined plane, and it 
 required the nicest handling to keep the plane truly 
 horizontal. So with one's tea, which would alternately 
 rush forward to be drunk and fly as though one were a 
 Tantalus ; so with all one's goods, which would be 
 seized with the most erratic propensities. Still we were 
 unable to imagine ourselves in any danger, save that 
 one flaxen-headed youth of two-and-twenty kept 
 waking up his companion for the purpose of saying to 
 
 him at intervals during the night, " I say, N , 
 
 isn't it awful ? " till finally N silenced him with a 
 
 boot. While on the subject of storms I may add, that 
 a captain, if at all a scientific man, can tell whether he 
 is in a cyclone (as we were) or not, and if he is in a 
 cyclone he can tell in what part of it he is, and how he 
 must steer so as to get out of it. A cyclone is a storm
 
 22 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 that moves in a circle round a calm of greater or less 
 diameter ; the calm moves forward in the centre of 
 the rotatory storm at the rate of from one or two to 
 thirty miles an hour. A large cyclone 500 miles in 
 diameter, rushing furiously round its centre, will still 
 advance in a right line, only very slowly indeed. A 
 small one 50 or 60 miles across will progress more 
 rapidly. One vessel sailed for five days at the rate of 
 12, 13, and 14 knots an hour round one of these 
 cyclones before the wind all the time, yet in the five 
 days she had made only 187 miles in a straight line. I 
 tell this tale as it was told to me, but have not studied 
 the subjects myself. Whatever saloon passengers may 
 think about a gale of wind, I am sure that the poor 
 sailors who have to go aloft in it and reef topsails 
 cannot welcome it with any pleasure. 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 Life on Board Calm Boat Lowered Snares and Traps Land 
 Driven off Coast Enter Port Lyttelton Requisites for a Sea 
 Voyage Spirit of Adventure aroused. 
 
 T3 EFORE continuing the narrative of my voyage, I 
 JL_) must turn to other topics and give you some 
 account of my life on board. My time has passed very 
 pleasantly : I have read a good deal ; I have nearly 
 finished Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
 am studying Liebig's Agricultural Chemistry, and learn- 
 ing the concertina on the instrument of one of my 
 fellow-passengers. Besides this, I have had the getting 
 up and management of our choir. We practise three 
 or four times a week ; we chant the Venite, Glorias, and
 
 Life on Board 23 
 
 Te Deums, and sing one hymn. I have two basses, two 
 tenors, one alto, and lots of girls, and the singing 
 certainly is better than you would hear in nine country 
 places out of ten. I have been glad by this means to 
 form the acquaintance of many of the poorer passengers. 
 My health has been very good all the voyage : I have 
 not had a day's sea-sickness. The provisions are not 
 very first-rate, and the day after to-morrow, being 
 Christmas Day, we shall sigh for the roast beef of Old 
 England, as our dinner will be somewhat of the 
 meagrest. Never mind ! On the whole I cannot see 
 reason to find any great fault. We have a good ship, 
 a good captain, and victuals sufficient in quantity. 
 Everyone but myself abuses the owners like pick- 
 pockets, but I rather fancy that some of them will find 
 themselves worse off in New Zealand. When I come 
 back, if I live to do so (and I sometimes amass a 
 wonderful fortune in a very short time, and come back 
 fabulously rich, and do all sorts of things), I think I 
 shall try the overland route. Almost every evening 
 four of us have a very pleasant rubber, which never 
 gets stale. So you will have gathered that, though very 
 anxious to get to our journey's end, which, with luck, 
 we hope to do in about three weeks' time, still the 
 voyage has not proved at all the unbearable thing that 
 some of us imagined it would have been. One great 
 amusement I have forgotten to mention that is, 
 shuffle-board, a game which consists in sending some 
 round wooden platters along the deck into squares 
 chalked and numbered from one to ten. This game 
 will really keep one quite hot in the coldest weather 
 if played with spirit.
 
 24 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 During the month that has elapsed since writing 
 the last sentence, we have had strong gales and long, 
 tedious calms. On one of these occasions the captain 
 lowered a- boat, and a lot of us scrambled over the ship's 
 side and got in, taking it in turns to row. The first 
 thing that surprised us was the very much warmer 
 temperature of the sea-level than that on deck. The 
 change was astonishing. I have suffered from a severe 
 cold ever since my return to the ship. On deck it was 
 cold, thermometer 46 ; on the sea-level it was 
 deliciously warm. The next thing that surprised us 
 was the way in which the ship was pitching, though it 
 appeared a dead calm. Up she rose and down she fell 
 upon a great hummocky swell which came lazily up 
 from the S.W., making our horizon from the boat all 
 uneven. On deck we had thought it a very slight 
 swell ; in the boat we perceived what a heavy, humpy, 
 ungainly heap of waters kept rising and sinking all 
 round us, sometimes blocking out the whole ship, save 
 the top of the main royal, in the strangest way in the 
 world. We pulled round the ship, thinking we had 
 never in our lives seen anything so beautiful as she 
 then looked in the sunny morning, when suddenly we 
 saw a large ripple in the waters not far off. At first 
 the captain imagined it to have been caused by a whale, 
 and was rather alarmed, but by and by it turned out 
 to be nothing but a shoal of fish. Then we made for a 
 large piece of seaweed which we had seen some way 
 astern. It extended some ten feet deep, and was a 
 huge, tangled, loose, floating mass ; among it nestled 
 little fishes innumerable, and as we looked down amid 
 its intricate branches through the sun-lit azure of the 
 water, the effect was beautiful. This mass we attached
 
 Boat Lowered 25 
 
 to the boat, and with great labour and long time suc- 
 ceeded in getting it up to the ship, the little fishes 
 following behind the seaweed. It was impossible to 
 lift it on board, so we fastened it to the ship's side and 
 came in to luncheon. After lunch some ropes were 
 arranged to hoist the ladies in a chair over the ship's 
 side and lower them into the boat a process which 
 created much merriment. Into the boat we put half a 
 dozen of champagne a sight which gave courage to 
 one or two to brave the descent who had not previously 
 ventured on such a feat. Then the ladies were pulled 
 round the ship, and, when about a mile ahead of her, we 
 drank the champagne and had a regular jollification. 
 Returning to show them the seaweed, the little fishes 
 looked so good that someone thought of a certain net 
 wherewith the doctor catches ocean insects, porpytas, 
 clios, spinulas, etc. With this we caught in half an hour 
 amid much screaming, laughter, and unspeakable 
 excitement, no less than 250 of them. They were about 
 five inches long funny little blue fishes with whole- 
 some-looking scales. We ate them next day, and they 
 were excellent. Some expected that we should have 
 swollen or suffered some bad effects, but no evil hap- 
 pened to us : not but what these deep-sea fishes are 
 frequently poisonous, but I believe that scaly fishes 
 are always harmless. We returned by half-past three, 
 after a most enjoyable day ; but, as proof of the heat 
 being much greater in the boat, I may mention that 
 one of the party lost the skin from his face and arms, 
 and that we were all much sunburnt even in so short a 
 time ; yet one man who bathed that day said he had 
 never felt such cold water in his life. 
 
 We are now (January 21) in great hopes of sighting
 
 26 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 land in three or four days, and are really beginning to 
 feel near the end of our voyage : not that I can realise 
 this to myself ; it seems as though I had always been on 
 board the ship, and was always going to be, and as if all 
 my past life had not been mine, but had belonged to 
 somebody else, or as though someone had taken mine 
 and left me his by mistake. I expect, however, that 
 when the land actually comes in sight we shall have 
 little difficulty in realising the fact that the voyage 
 has come to a close. The weather has been much 
 warmer since we have been off the coast of Australia, 
 even though Australia is some 10 north of our present 
 position. I have not, however, yet seen the ther- 
 mometer higher than 56 since we passed the Cape. 
 Now we are due south of the south point of Van 
 Diemen's Land, and consequently nearer land than 
 we have been for some time. We are making for the 
 Snares, two high islets about sixty miles south of 
 Stewart's Island, the southernmost of the New 
 Zealand group. We sail immediately to the north of 
 them, and then turn up suddenly. The route we have 
 to take passes between the Snares and the Traps 
 two rather ominous-sounding names, but I believe 
 more terrible in name than in any other particular. 
 
 January 22. Yesterday at midday I was sitting 
 writing in my cabin, when I heard the joyful cry of 
 " Land ! " and, rushing on deck, saw the swelling and 
 beautiful outline of the high land in Stewart's Island. 
 We had passed close by the Snares in the morning, but 
 the weather was too thick for us to see them, though the 
 birds flocked therefrom in myriads. We then passed 
 between the Traps, which the captain saw distinctly, 
 one on each side of him, from the main topgallant yard.
 
 Approach to Land 27 
 
 Land continued in sight till sunset, but since then it 
 has disappeared. To-day (Sunday) we are speeding 
 up the coast ; the anchors are ready, and to-morrow 
 by early daylight we trust to drop them in the harbour 
 of Lyttelton. We have reason, from certain newspapers, 
 to believe that the mails leave on the 23rd of the month, 
 in which case I shall have no time or means to add a 
 single syllable. 
 
 January 26. Alas for the vanity of human specu- 
 lation ! After writing the last paragraph the wind fell 
 light, then sprung up foul, and so we were slowly driven 
 to the E.N.E. On Monday night it blew hard, and we 
 had close-reefed topsails. Tuesday morning at five it 
 was lovely, and the reefs were all shaken out ; a light 
 air sprang up, and the ship, at 10 o'clock, had come up 
 to her course, when suddenly, without the smallest 
 warning, a gale came down upon us from the S.W. like 
 a wall. The men were luckily very smart in taking in 
 canvas, but at one time the captain thought he should 
 have had to cut away the mizzenmast. We were re- 
 duced literally to bare poles, and lay-to under a piece 
 of tarpaulin, six times doubled, and about two yards 
 square, fastened up in the mizzen rigging. All day and 
 night we lay thus, drifting to leeward at three knots an 
 hour. In the twenty-four hours we had drifted sixty 
 miles. Next day the wind moderated ; but at 12 we 
 found that we were eighty miles north of the peninsula 
 and some 3 east of it. So we set a little sail, and com- 
 menced forereaching slowly on our course. Little and 
 little the wind died, and it soon fell dead calm. That 
 evening (Wednesday), some twenty albatrosses being 
 congregated like a flock of geese round the ship's stern, 
 we succeeded in catching some of them, the first we
 
 28 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 had caught on the voyage. We would have let them 
 go again, but the sailors think them good eating, and 
 begged them of us, at the same time prophesying two 
 days' foul wind for every albatross taken. It was then 
 dead calm, but a light wind sprang up in the night, and 
 on Thursday we sighted Banks Peninsula. Again the 
 wind fell tantalisingly light, but we kept drawing 
 slowly toward land. In the beautiful sunset sky, 
 crimson and gold, blue, silver, and purple, exquisite 
 and tranquillising, lay ridge behind ridge, outline 
 behind outline, sunlight behind shadow, shadow 
 behind sunlight, gully and serrated ravine. Hot puffs 
 of wind kept coming from the land, and there were 
 several fires burning. I got my arm-chair on deck, and 
 smoked a quiet pipe with the intensest satisfaction. 
 Little by little the night drew down, and then we 
 rounded the headlands. Strangely did the waves sound 
 breaking against the rocks of the harbour ; strangely, 
 too, looked the outlines of the mountains through the 
 night. Presently we saw a light ahead from a ship : 
 we drew slowly near, and as we passed you might have 
 heard a pin drop. " What ship's that ? " said a strange 
 voice. The Roman Emperor, said the captain. " Are 
 you all well ? " " All well." Then the captain asked, 
 " Has the Robert Small arrived ? " " No," was the 
 answer, " nor yet the Burmah."* You may imagine 
 what I felt. Then a rocket was sent up, and the pilot 
 came on board. He gave us a roaring republican speech 
 on the subject of India, China, etc. I rather admired 
 him, especially as he faithfully promised to send us 
 some fresh beefsteaks and potatoes for breakfast. A 
 north-wester sprung up as soon as we had dropped 
 
 * See Preface.
 
 Requisites for a Voyage 29 
 
 anchor : had it commenced a little sooner we should 
 have had to put out again to sea. That night I packed 
 a knapsack to go on shore, but the wind blew so hard 
 that no boat could put off till one o'clock in the day, at 
 which hour I and one or two others landed, and, pro- 
 ceeding to the post office, were told there were no 
 letters for us. I afterwards found mine had gone 
 hundreds of miles away to a namesake a cruel dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 A few words concerning the precautions advisable 
 for anyone who is about to take a long sea-voyage may 
 perhaps be useful. First and foremost, unless provided 
 with a companion whom he well knows and can trust, 
 he must have a cabin to himself. There are many men 
 with whom one can be on excellent terms when not 
 compelled to be perpetually with them, but whom the 
 propinquity of the same cabin would render simply 
 intolerable. It would not even be particularly agree- 
 able to be awakened during a hardly captured wink of 
 sleep by the question " Is it not awful ? " that, how- 
 ever, would be a minor inconvenience. No one, I am 
 sure, will repent paying a few pounds more for a single 
 cabin who has seen the inconvenience that others have 
 suffered from having a drunken or disagreeable com- 
 panion in so confined a space. It is not even like 
 a large room. He should have books in plenty, both 
 light and solid. A folding arm-chair is a great com- 
 fort, and a very cheap one. In the hot weather I 
 found mine invaluable, and, in the bush, it will still 
 come in usefully. He should have a little table and 
 common chair : these are real luxuries, as all who have 
 tried to write, or seen others attempt it, from a low 
 arm-chair at a washing-stand will readily acknowledge.
 
 30 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 A small disinfecting charcoal filter is very desirable. 
 Ship's water is often bad, and the ship's filter may be 
 old and defective. Mine has secured me and others 
 during the voyage pure and sweet-tasting water, when 
 we could not drink that supplied us by the ship. A 
 bottle or two of raspberry vinegar will be found a 
 luxury when near the line. By the aid of these means 
 and appliances I have succeeded in making myself ex- 
 ceedingly comfortable. A small chest of drawers would 
 have been preferable to a couple of boxes for my clothes, 
 and I should recommend another to get one. A ten- 
 pound note will suffice for all these things. The bunk 
 should not be too wide : one rolls so in rough weather ; 
 of course it should not be athwartships, if avoidable. 
 No one in his right mind will go second class if he can, 
 by any hook or crook, raise money enough to go first. 
 
 On the whole, there are many advantageous results 
 from a sea-voyage. One's geography improves apace, 
 and numberless incidents occur pregnant with interest 
 to a landsman ; moreover, there are sure to be many 
 on board who have travelled far and wide, and one 
 gains a great deal of information about all sorts of 
 races and places. One effect is, perhaps, pernicious, 
 but this will probably soon wear off on land. It 
 awakens an adventurous spirit, and kindles a strong 
 desire to visit almost every spot upon the face of the 
 globe. The captain yarns about California and the 
 China seas the doctor about Valparaiso and the Andes 
 another raves about Hawaii and the islands of the 
 Pacific while a fourth will compare nothing with 
 Japan. 
 
 The world begins to feel very small when one finds 
 one can get half round it in three months ; and one
 
 Aspect of Port Lyttelton 3 1 
 
 mentally determines to visit all these places before 
 coming back again, not to mention a good many more. 
 I search my diary in vain to find some pretermitted 
 adventure wherewith to give you a thrill, or, as good 
 Mrs. B. calls it, " a feel " ; but I can find none. The 
 mail is going ; I will write again by the next. 
 
 Chapter III 
 
 Aspect of Port Lyttelton Ascent of Hill behind it View Christ 
 Church Yankeeisms Return to Port Lyttelton and Ship 
 Phormium Tenax Visit to a Farm Moa Bones. 
 
 /ANUARY 27, 1860. Oh, the heat! the clear 
 transparent atmosphere, and the dust ! How 
 shall I describe everything the little townlet, for I 
 cannot call it town, nestling beneath the bare hills 
 that we had been looking at so longingly all the morning 
 the scattered wooden boxes of houses, with ragged 
 roods of scrubby ground between them the tussocks 
 of brown grass the huge wide-leafed flax, with its 
 now seedy stem, sometimes 15 or 16 feet high, luxuriant 
 and tropical-looking the healthy clear-complexioned 
 men, shaggy-bearded, rowdy-hatted, and independent, 
 pictures of rude health and strength the stores, 
 supplying all heterogeneous commodities the moun- 
 tains, rising right behind the harbour to a height of over 
 a thousand feet the varied outline of the harbour now 
 smooth and sleeping. Ah me ! pleasant sight and 
 fresh to sea-stricken eyes. The hot air, too, was very 
 welcome after our long chill. 
 
 We dined at the table d'hote at the Mitre so foreign 
 and yet so English the windows open to the ground,
 
 32 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 looking upon the lovely harbour. Hither come more of 
 the shaggy clear-complexioned men with the rowdy 
 hats ; looked at them with awe and befitting respect. 
 Much grieved to find beer sixpence a glass. This was 
 indeed serious, and was one of the first intimations 
 which we received that we were in a land where money 
 flies like wild-fire. 
 
 After dinner I and another commenced the ascent of 
 the hill between port and Christ Church. We had not 
 gone far before we put our knapsacks on the back 
 of the pack-horse that goes over the hill every day 
 (poor pack-horse !). It is indeed an awful pull up that 
 hill ; yet we were so anxious to see what was on the 
 other side of it that we scarcely noticed the fatigue : 
 I thought it very beautiful. It is volcanic, brown, and 
 dry ; large intervals of crumbling soil, and then a stiff, 
 wiry, uncompromising-looking tussock of the very 
 hardest grass ; then perhaps a flax bush, or, as we 
 should have said, a flax plant ; then more crumbly, 
 brown, dry soil, mixed with fine but dried grass, and 
 then more tussocks ; volcanic rock everywhere cropping 
 out, sometimes red and tolerably soft, sometimes black 
 and abominably hard. There was a great deal, too, of a 
 very uncomfortable prickly shrub, which they call 
 Irishman, and which I do not like the look of at all. 
 There were cattle browsing where they could, but to 
 my eyes it seemed as though they had but poor times 
 of it. So we continued to climb, panting and broiling 
 in the afternoon sun, and much admiring the lovely 
 view beneath. At last we near the top, and look 
 down upon the plain, bounded by the distant Apen- 
 nines, that run through the middle of the island. Near 
 at hand, at the foot of the hill, we saw a few pretty
 
 Christ Church 33 
 
 little box-like houses in trim, pretty little gardens, 
 stacks of corn and fields, a little river with a craft or 
 two lying near a wharf, whilst the nearer country was 
 squared into many-coloured fields. But, after all, the 
 view was rather of the " long stare " description. 
 There was a great extent of country, but very few 
 objects to attract the eye and make it rest any while 
 in any given direction. The mountains wanted out- 
 lines ; they were not broken up into fine forms like 
 the Carnarvonshire mountains, but were rather a long, 
 blue, lofty, even line, like the Jura from Geneva or the 
 Berwyn from Shrewsbury. The plains, too, were lovely 
 in colouring, but would have been wonderfully im- 
 proved by an object or two a little nearer than the 
 mountains. I must confess that the view, though 
 undoubtedly fine, rather disappointed me. The one 
 in the direction of the harbour was infinitely superior. 
 
 At the bottom of the hill we met the car to Christ 
 Church ; it halted some time at a little wooden public- 
 house, and by and by at another, where was a Methodist 
 preacher, who had just been reaping corn for two 
 pounds an acre. He showed me some half-dozen stalks 
 of gigantic size, but most of that along the road- 
 side was thin and poor. Then we reached Christ 
 Church on the little river Avon ; it is larger than 
 Lyttelton and more scattered, but not so pretty. Here, 
 too, the men are shaggy, clear-complexioned, brown, 
 and healthy-looking, and wear exceedingly rowdy 
 hats. I put up at Mr. Rowland Davis's ; and as no one 
 during the evening seemed much inclined to talk to me, 
 I listened to the conversation. 
 
 The all-engrossing topics seemed to be sheep, horses, 
 dogs, cattle, English grasses, paddocks, bush, and so
 
 34 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 forth. From about seven o'clock in the evening till 
 about twelve at night I cannot say that I heard much 
 else. These were the exact things I wanted to hear 
 about, and I listened till they had been repeated so 
 many times over that I almost grew tired of the subject, 
 and wished the conversation would turn to something 
 else. A few expressions were not familiar to me. 
 When we should say in England " Certainly not," it is 
 here " No fear," or " Don't you believe it." When they 
 want to answer in the affirmative they say " It is so," 
 " It does so." The word " hum," too, without pro- 
 nouncing the M, is in amusing requisition. I perceived 
 that this stood either for assent, or doubt, or wonder, or 
 a general expression of comprehension without compro- 
 mising the hummer's own opinion, and indeed for a 
 great many more things than these ; in fact, if a man 
 did not want to say anything at all he said " hum hum." 
 It is a very good expression, and saves much trouble 
 when its familiar use has been acquired. Beyond these 
 trifles I noticed no Yankeeism, and the conversation 
 was English in point of expression. I was rather 
 startled at hearing one gentleman ask another whether 
 he meant to wash this year, and receive the answer 
 " No." I soon discovered that a person's sheep are 
 himself. If his sheep are clean, he is clean. He does 
 not wash his sheep before shearing, but he washes ; 
 and, most marvellous of all, it is not his sheep which 
 lamb, but he " lambs down " himself. 
 
 I have purchased a horse, by name Doctor. I hope 
 he is a homceopathist. He is in colour bay, distinctly 
 branded P. C. on the near shoulder. I am glad the
 
 Return to Ship 35 
 
 brand is clear, for, as you well know, all horses are alike 
 to me unless there is some violent distinction in their 
 
 colour. This horse I bought from , to whom Mr. 
 
 FitzGerald kindly gave me a letter of introduction. I 
 thought I could not do better than buy from a person of 
 known character, seeing that my own ignorance is so 
 very great upon the subject. I had to give 55, but, 
 as horses are going, that does not seem much out of the 
 way. He is a good river-horse, and very strong. A 
 horse is an absolute necessity in this settlement ; he is 
 your carriage, your coach, and your railway train. 
 
 On Friday I went to Port Lyttelton, meeting on 
 the way many of our late fellow-passengers some des- 
 pondent, some hopeful ; one or two dinnerless and in the 
 dumps when we first encountered them, but dinnered 
 and hopeful when we met them again on our return. 
 We chatted with and encouraged them all, pointing out 
 the general healthy, well-conditioned look of the 
 residents. Went on board. How strangely changed the 
 ship appeared ! Sunny, motionless, and quiet ; no 
 noisy children, no slatternly, slipshod women rolling 
 about the decks, no slush, no washing of dirty linen in 
 dirtier water. There was the old mate in a clean shirt 
 at last, leaning against the mainmast, and smoking his 
 yard of clay ; the butcher close-shaven and clean ; the 
 sailors smart, and welcoming us with a smile. It 
 almost looked like going home. Dined in Lyttelton 
 with several of my fellow-passengers, who evidently 
 thought it best to be off with the old love before they 
 were on with the new, i.e. to spend all they brought 
 with them before they set about acquiring a new 
 fortune. Then went and helped Mr. and Mrs. R. to 
 arrange their new house, i.e. R. and I scrubbed the
 
 36 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 floors of the two rooms they have taken with soap, 
 scrubbing-brushes, flannel, and water, made them 
 respectably clean, and removed his boxes into their 
 proper places. 
 
 Saturday. Rode again to port, and saw my case of 
 saddlery still on board. When riding back the haze 
 obscured the snowy range, and the scenery reminded 
 me much of Cambridgeshire. The distinctive marks 
 which characterise it as not English are the occasional 
 Ti palms, which have a very tropical appearance, and 
 the luxuriance of the Phormium tenax. If you strip 
 a shred of this leaf not thicker than an ordinary piece 
 of string, you will find it hard work to break it, if you 
 succeed in doing so at all without cutting your finger. 
 On the whole, if the road leading from Heathcote Ferry 
 to Christ Church were through an avenue of mulberry 
 trees, and the fields on either side were cultivated with 
 Indian corn and vineyards, and if through these you 
 could catch an occasional glimpse of a distant cathedral 
 of pure white marble, you might well imagine yourself 
 nearing Milan. As it is, the country is a sort of a cross 
 between the plains of Lombardy and the fens of North 
 Cambridgeshire. 
 
 At night, a lot of Nelson and Wellington men came 
 to the club. I was amused at dinner by a certain sailor 
 and others, who maintained that the end of the world 
 was likely to arrive shortly ; the principal argument 
 appearing to be, that there was no more sheep country 
 to be found in Canterbury. This fact is, I fear, only too 
 true. With this single exception, the conversation was 
 purely horsy and sheepy. The fact is, the races are 
 approaching, and they are the grand annual jubilee of 
 Canterbury.
 
 Sheep on Terms 37 
 
 Next morning, I rode some miles into the country, 
 and visited a farm. Found the inmates (two brothers) 
 at dinner. Cold boiled mutton and bread, and cold tea 
 without milk, poured straight from a huge kettle in 
 which it is made every morning, seem the staple com- 
 modities. No potatoes nothing hot. They had no 
 servant, and no cow. The bread, which was very white, 
 was made by the younger. They showed me, with 
 some little pleasure, some of the improvements they 
 were making, and told me what they meant to do ; 
 and I looked at them with great respect. These men 
 were as good gentlemen, in the conventional sense of 
 the word, as any with whom we associate in England 
 I daresay, de facto, much better than many of them. 
 They showed me some moa bones which they had 
 ploughed up (the moa, as you doubtless know, was an 
 enormous bird, which must have stood some fifteen 
 feet high), also some stone Maori battle-axes. They 
 bought this land two years ago, and assured me that, 
 even though they had not touched it, they could get 
 for it cent per cent upon the price which they then 
 gave. 
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 Sheep on Terms, Schedule and Explanation Investment in Sheep- 
 run Risk of Disease, and Laws upon the Subject Investment 
 in laying down Land in English Grass In Farming Journey to 
 Oxford Journey to the Glaciers Remote Settlers Literature in 
 the Bush Blankets and Flies Ascent of the Rakaia Camping 
 out Glaciers Minerals Parrots Unexplored Col Burning the 
 Flats Return. 
 
 l^EBRUARY 10, 1860. I must confess to being 
 fairly puzzled to know what to do with the money 
 you have sent me. Everyone suggests different invest- 
 ments. One says buy sheep and put them out on terms.
 
 3 8 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 I will explain to you what this means. I can buy a 
 thousand ewes for 1250 ; these I should place in the 
 charge of a squatter whose run is not fully stocked (and 
 indeed there is hardly a run in the province fully 
 stocked) . This person would take my sheep for either 
 three, four, five, or more years, as we might arrange, 
 and would allow me yearly 2s. 6d. per head in lieu of 
 wool. This would give me 2s. 6d. as the yearly interest 
 on 255. Besides this he would allow me 40 per cent 
 per annum of increase, half male, and half female, and 
 of these the females would bear increase also as soon 
 as they had attained the age of two years ; moreover, 
 the increase would return me 2s. 6d. per head wool 
 money as soon as they became sheep. At the end of 
 the term, my sheep would be returned to me as per 
 agreement, with no deduction for deaths, but the 
 original sheep would be, of course, so much the older, 
 and some of them being doubtless dead, sheep of the 
 same age as they would have been will be returned in 
 their place. 
 
 I will subjoin a schedule showing what 500 ewes 
 will amount to in seven years ; we will date from 
 January, 1860, and will suppose the yearly increase to 
 be one-half male and one-half female. 
 
 
 Ewes 
 
 Ewe 
 Lambs 
 
 Wether 
 Lambs 
 
 Ewe 
 Hoggets 
 
 Wether 
 Hoggets 
 
 Wethers 
 
 Total 
 
 I year old \ 
 January, i86o/ 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 500 
 
 1861 
 
 500 
 
 IOO 
 
 IOO 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 700 
 
 1862 
 
 500 
 
 100 
 
 IOO 
 
 IOO 
 
 IOO 
 
 
 
 900 
 
 1863 
 
 600 
 
 I2O 
 
 120 
 
 IOO 
 
 IOO 
 
 IOO 
 
 1140 
 
 1864 
 
 700 
 
 140 
 
 140 
 
 120 
 
 120 
 
 2OO 
 
 1420 
 
 1865 
 
 820 
 
 I6 4 
 
 164 
 
 140 
 
 140 
 
 320 
 
 1748 
 
 1866 
 
 960 
 
 192 
 
 192 
 
 164 
 
 164 
 
 460 
 
 2132 
 
 1867 
 
 1124 
 
 225 
 
 225 
 
 192 
 
 192 
 
 624 
 
 2582
 
 Rate of Increase 
 
 The yearly wool money would be : 
 
 39 
 
 January, 1861 
 1862 
 1863 
 1864 
 1865 
 1866 
 1867 
 
 Total wool money received . 
 Original capital expended . 
 
 2s. 6d. per head 
 
 s. d. 
 
 62 10 o 
 
 87 10 o 
 
 112 IO O 
 
 142 10 o 
 
 177 10 o 
 
 218 10 o 
 
 266 10 o 
 
 . 1067 10 o 
 
 . ^625 o o 
 
 I will explain briefly the meaning of this. 
 
 We will suppose that the ewes have all two teeth to 
 start with two teeth indicate one year old, four teeth 
 two years, six teeth three years, eight teeth (or full 
 mouthed) four years. For the edification of some of 
 my readers as ignorant as I am myself upon ovine 
 matters, I may mention that the above teeth are to be 
 looked for in the lower jaw and not the upper, the front 
 portion of which is toothless. The ewes, then, being one 
 year old to start with, they will be eight years old at the 
 end of seven years. I have only, however, given you so 
 long a term that you may see what would be the result 
 of putting out sheep on terms either for three, four, five, 
 six, or seven years, according as you like. Sheep at 
 eight years old will be in their old age : they will live 
 nine or ten years sometimes more, but an eight-year- 
 old sheep would be what is called a broken-mouthed 
 creature ; that is to say, it would have lost some of its 
 teeth from old age, and would generally be found to 
 crawl along at the tail end of the mob ; so that of the 
 2582 sheep returned to me, 500 would be very old, 200 
 would be seven years old, 200 six years old. All these 
 would pass as old sheep, and not fetch very much ; one
 
 4-O Canterbury Settlement 
 
 might get about 155. a head for the lot all round. 
 Perhaps, however, you might sell the 200 six years old 
 with the younger ones. Not to overestimate, count 
 these 700 old sheep as worth nothing at all, and con- 
 sider that I have 1800 sheep in prime order, reckoning 
 the lambs as sheep (a weaned lamb being worth nearly 
 as much as a full-grown sheep). Suppose these sheep 
 to have gone down in value from 255. a head to ios., 
 and at the end of my term I realise 900. Suppose 
 that of the wool money I have only spent 62 ios. per 
 annum, i.e. ten per cent on the original outlay, and 
 that I have laid by the remainder of the wool money. 
 I shall have from the wool money a surplus of 630 
 (some of which should have been making ten per cent 
 interest for some time) ; that is to say, my total receipts 
 for the sheep should be at the least 1530. Say that 
 the capital had only doubled itself in the seven years, 
 the investment could not be considered a bad one. 
 The above is a bona-ftde statement of one of the 
 commonest methods of investing money in sheep. I 
 cannot think from all I have heard that sheep will be 
 lower than ios. a head, still some place the minimum 
 value as low as 6s.* 
 
 * August, 1862. Since writing the above, matters have some- 
 what changed. Firstly, Ewes are fully worth 305. a head, and are 
 not to be had under. Secondly, The diggings in Otago have caused 
 the value of wethers to rise, and as they are now selling at 335. on 
 the runs of the Otago station (I quote the Lyttelton Times, which 
 may be depended upon), and those runs are only very partially 
 stocked, the supply there must in all probability fall short of the 
 demand. The price of sheep in this settlement is therefore raised 
 also, and likely to continue high. All depends upon what this next 
 spring may bring forth upon the Otago gold-fields. If they keep up 
 the reputation which they sustained until the winter caused the 
 diggers to retreat, the price will be high for some few years longer ; 
 if they turn out a failure, it must fall before very long. Still, there 
 is a large and increasing population in Canterbury, and as its sheep-
 
 Investment in Sheep-runs 41 
 
 The question arises, What is to be done with one's 
 money when the term is out ? I cannot answer ; yet 
 surely the colony cannot be quite used up in seven 
 years, and one can hardly suppose but that, even in 
 that advanced state of the settlement, means will not 
 be found of investing a few thousand pounds to 
 advantage. 
 
 The general recommendation which I receive is to 
 buy the goodwill of a run ; this cannot be done under 
 about 100 for every thousand acres. Thus, a run of 
 20,000 acres will be worth 2000. Still, if a man has 
 sufficient capital to stock it well at once, it will pay 
 him, even at this price. We will suppose the run to 
 carry 10,000 sheep. The wool money from these 
 should be 2500 per annum. If a man can start with 
 2000 ewes, it will not be long before he finds himself 
 worth 10,000 sheep. Then the sale of surplus stock 
 which he has not country to feed should fetch him in 
 fully 1000 per annum ; so that, allowing the country 
 to cost 2000, and the sheep 2500, and allowing 1000 
 for working, plant, buildings, dray, bullocks, and 
 
 feeding area is as nothing compared with that of Australia, we do 
 not expect sheep here ever to fall as low as they did there before 
 the diggings. Indeed, they hardly can do so ; for our sheep are 
 larger than the Australian, and clip a much heavier fleece, so that 
 their fleece, and skins, and tallow must be of greater value. Should 
 means be found of converting the meat into portable soup, the 
 carcase of the sheep ought, even at its lowest value, to be consider- 
 ably higher than xos. Nothing is heard about this yet, for the coun- 
 try is not nearly stocked, so that the thing is not needed ; but 
 one would, d priori, be under the impression that there should ulti- 
 mately be no insuperable difficulty in rescuing the meat from waste. 
 It is a matter which might well attract the attention of scientific 
 men in England. We should all be exceedingly obliged to them if 
 they would kindly cause sheep to be as high as 155. or 175. seven 
 years hence, and I can see no reason why, if the meat could be made 
 use of, they should fall lower. In other respects, what I have 
 written about sheep on terms is true to the present day.
 
 42 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 stores, and 500 more for contingencies and expenses 
 of the first two years, during which the run will not 
 fully pay its own expenses for a capital of 6000 a 
 man may in a few years find himself possessed of 
 something like a net income of 2000 per annum. 
 Marvellous as all this sounds, I am assured that it is 
 true.* On the other hand, there are risks. There is the 
 uncertainty of what will be done in the year 1870, 
 when the runs lapse to the Government. The general 
 opinion appears to be, that they will be re-let, at a 
 greatly advanced rent, to the present occupiers. The 
 present rent of land is a farthing per acre for the first 
 and second years, a halfpenny for the third, and three 
 farthings for the fourth and every succeeding year. 
 Most of the waste lands in the province are now 
 paying three farthings per acre. There is the danger 
 also of scab. This appears to depend a good deal 
 upon the position of the run and its nature. Thus, a 
 run situated in the plains over which sheep are being 
 constantly driven from the province of Nelson, will be 
 in more danger than one on the remoter regions of the 
 back country. In Nelson there are few, if any, laws 
 against carelessness in respect of scab. In Canterbury 
 the laws are very stringent. Sheep have to be dipped 
 three months before they quit Nelson, and inspected 
 and re-dipped (in tobacco water and sulphur) on their 
 entry into this province. Nevertheless, a single sheep 
 may remain infected, even after this second dipping. 
 The scab may not be apparent, but it may break out 
 after having been a month or two in a latent state. 
 
 * The above is true to the present day (August, 1862), save that 
 a higher price must be given for the goodwill of a run, and that sheep 
 are fully 305. a head. Say 8000 instead of 6000, and the rest will 
 stand. ^8000 should do the thing handsomely.
 
 Laying Land in English Grass 43 
 
 One sheep will infect others, and the whole mob will 
 soon become diseased ; indeed, a mob is considered 
 unsound, and compelled to be dipped, if even a single 
 scabby sheep have joined it. Dipping is an expensive 
 process, and if a man's sheep trespass on to his neigh- 
 bour's run he has to dip his neighbour's also. More- 
 over, scab may break out just before or in mid-winter, 
 when it is almost impossible, on the plains, to get fire- 
 wood sufficient to boil the water and tobacco (sheep 
 must be dipped whilst the liquid is at a temperature of 
 not less than 90), and when the severity of the sou'- 
 westers renders it nearly certain that a good few sheep 
 will be lost. Lambs, too, if there be lambs about, will 
 be lost wholesale. If the sheep be not clean within six 
 months after the information is laid, the sum required 
 to be deposited with Government by the owner, on the 
 laying of such information, is forfeited. This sum is 
 heavy, though I do not exactly know its amount. One 
 dipping would not be ruinous, but there is always a 
 chance of some scabby sheep having been left upon 
 the run unmustered, and the flock thus becoming 
 infected afresh, so that the whole work may have to 
 be done over again. I perceive a sort of shudder to 
 run through a sheep farmer at the very name of this 
 disease. There are no four letters in the alphabet 
 which he appears so mortally to detest, and with good 
 reason. 
 
 Another mode of investment highly spoken of is 
 that of buying land and laying it down in English 
 grass, thus making a permanent estate of it. But I 
 fear this will not do for me, both because it requires a 
 large experience of things in general, which, as you 
 well know, I do not possess, and because I should want
 
 44 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 a greater capital than would be required to start a run. 
 More money is sunk, and the returns do not appear to 
 be so speedy. I cannot give you even a rough estimate 
 of the expenses of such a plan. I will only say that I 
 have seen gentlemen who are doing it, and who are 
 confident of success, and these men bear the reputation 
 of being shrewd and business-like. I cannot doubt, 
 therefore, that it is both a good and safe investment of 
 money. My crude notion concerning it is, that it is 
 more permanent and less remunerative. In this I may 
 be mistaken, but I am certain it is a thing which might 
 very easily be made a mess of by an inexperienced 
 person ; whilst many men, who have known no more 
 about sheep than I do, have made ordinary sheep 
 farming pay exceedingly well. I may perhaps as well 
 say, that land laid down in English grass is supposed to 
 carry about five or six sheep to the acre ; some say 
 more and some less. Doubtless, somewhat will depend 
 upon the nature of the soil, and as yet the experiment 
 can hardly be said to have been fully tried. As for 
 farming as we do in England, it is universally main- 
 tained that it does not pay ; there seems to be no dis- 
 crepancy of opinion about this. Many try it, but most 
 men give it up. It appears as if it were only bona-fide 
 labouring men who can make it answer. The number 
 of farms in the neighbourhood of Christ Church seems 
 at first to contradict this statement ; but I believe 
 the fact to be, that these farms are chiefly in the hands 
 of labouring men, who had made a little money, 
 bought land, and cultivated it themselves. These men 
 can do well, but those who have to buy labour cannot 
 make it answer. The difficulty lies in the high rate of 
 wages
 
 Monotonous Plains 45 
 
 February 13. Since my last I have been paying a 
 visit of a few days at Kaiapoi, and made a short trip 
 up to the Harewood Forest, near to which the town- 
 ship of Oxford is situated. Why it should be called 
 Oxford I do not know. 
 
 After leaving Rangiora, which is about 8 miles 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 recom- 
 mend them but the facility they afford for travelling, 
 and the grass which grows upon them. This, at least, 
 was the impression I derived 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
 
 46 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 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 re- 
 ceived kindness already upon several occasions, from 
 persons upon whom I had no sort of claim.
 
 Journey to Oxford 47 
 
 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, I saw 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 ever- 
 greens, 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 Mal- 
 vern 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 un- 
 pleasant 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, how- 
 ever, it somewhat moderated, as it generally does. 
 There was nothing of interest on the track, save a dry
 
 48 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 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 moun- 
 tains, 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 I let 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. However, I did my 
 best to conceal my deficiency, and before night had 
 become comparatively expert without having betrayed 
 myself to my companion. I dare say he knew what 
 was going on, well enough, but was too good and kind 
 to notice it. 
 At night, and by a lovely clear, cold moonlight, we
 
 Reach our Destination 49 
 
 arrived at our destination, heartily glad to hear the dogs 
 barking and to know that we were at our journey's end. 
 Here we were bona fide beyond the pale of civilisation ; 
 no boarded floors, no chairs, nor any similar luxuries ; 
 everything was of the very simplest description. Four 
 men inhabited the hut, and their life appears a kind of 
 mixture of that of a dog and that of an emperor, with 
 a considerable predominance of the latter. They have 
 no cook, and take it turn and turn to cook and wash 
 up, two one week, and two the next. They have a 
 good garden, and gave us a capital feed of potatoes 
 and peas, both fried together, an excellent combination. 
 Their culinary apparatus and plates, cups, knives, and 
 forks, are very limited in number. The men are all 
 gentlemen and sons of gentlemen, and one of them is 
 a Cambridge man, who took a high second-class a year 
 or two before my time. Every now and then he leaves 
 his up-country avocations, and becomes a great gun at 
 the college in Christ Church, examining the boys ; he 
 then returns to his shepherding, cooking, bullock- 
 driving, etc. etc., as the case may be. I am informed 
 that the having faithfully learned the ingenuous 
 arts, has so far mollified his morals that he is an 
 exceedingly humane and judicious bullock-driver. He 
 regarded me as a somewhat despicable new-comer (at 
 least so I imagined), and when next morning I asked 
 where I should wash, he gave rather a French shrug of 
 the shoulders, and said, " The lake." I felt the rebuke 
 to be well merited, and that with the lake in front of 
 the house, I should have been at no loss for the means 
 of performing my ablutions. So I retired abashed and 
 cleansed myself therein. Under his bed I found 
 Tennyson's Idylls of the King. So you will see that
 
 50 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 even in these out-of-the-world places people do care a 
 little for something besides sheep. I was told an 
 amusing story of an Oxford man shepherding down in 
 Otago. Someone came into his hut, and, taking up a 
 book, found it in a strange tongue, and enquired what 
 it was. The Oxonian (who was baking at the time) 
 answered that it was Machiavellian discourses upon the 
 first decade of Livy. The wonder-stricken visitor laid 
 down the book and took up another, which was, at any 
 rate, written in English. This he found to be Bishop 
 Butler's Analogy. Putting it down speedily as some- 
 thing not in his line, he laid hands upon a third. This 
 proved to be Patrum Apostolicorum Opera, on which 
 he saddled his horse and went right away, leaving the 
 Oxonian to his baking This man must certainly be 
 considered a rare exception. New Zealand seems far 
 better adapted to develop and maintain in health the 
 physical than the intellectual nature. The fact is, 
 people here are busy making money ; that is the induce- 
 ment which led them to come in the first instance, and 
 they show their sense by devoting their energies to the 
 work. Yet, after all, it may be questioned whether the 
 intellect is not as well schooled here as at home, though 
 in a very different manner. Men are as shrewd and 
 sensible, as alive to the humorous, and as hard-headed. 
 Moreover, there is much nonsense in the old country 
 from which people here are free. There is little con- 
 ventionalism, little formality, and much liberality of 
 sentiment ; very little sectarianism, and, as a general 
 rule, a healthy, sensible tone in conversation, which I 
 like much. But it does not do to speak about John 
 Sebastian Bach's Fugues, or pre-Raphaelite pictures. 
 To return, however, to the matter in hand. Of
 
 Blankets and Flies 51 
 
 course everyone at stations like the one we visited 
 washes his own clothes, and of course they do not use 
 sheets. Sheets would require far too much washing. 
 Red blankets are usual ; white show fly-blows. The 
 blue-bottle flies blow among blankets that are left 
 lying untidily about, but if the same be neatly folded 
 up and present no crumpled creases, the flies will leave 
 them alone. It is strange, too, that, though flies 
 will blow a dead sheep almost immediately, they will 
 not touch one that is living and healthy. Coupling 
 their good nature in this respect with the love of neat- 
 ness and hatred of untidiness which they exhibit, I 
 incline to think them decidedly in advance of our 
 English bluebottles, which they perfectly resemble in 
 every other respect. The English house-fly soon drives 
 them away, and, after the first year or two, a station is 
 seldom much troubled with them : so at least I am 
 told by many. Fly-blown blankets are all very well, 
 provided they have been quite dry ever since they were 
 blown : the eggs then come to nothing ; but if the 
 blankets be damp, maggots make their appearance in a 
 few hours, and the very suspicion of them is attended 
 with an unpleasant creepy crawly sensation. The 
 blankets in which I slept at the station which I have 
 been describing were perfectly innocuous. 
 
 On the morning after I arrived, for the first time 
 in my life I saw a sheep killed. It is rather unpleasant, 
 but I suppose I shall get as indifferent to it as other 
 people are by and by. To show you that the knives 
 of the establishment are numbered, I may mention 
 that the same knife killed the sheep and carved the 
 mutton we had for dinner. After an early dinner, 
 my patron and myself started on our journey, and
 
 52 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 after travelling for some few hours over rather a 
 rough country, though one which appeared to me to 
 be beautiful indeed, we came upon a vast river-bed, 
 with a little river winding about it. This is the Harpur, 
 a tributary of the Rakaia, and the northern branch of 
 that river. We were now going to follow it to its 
 source, in the hopes of being led by it to some saddle 
 over which we might cross, and come upon entirely new 
 ground. The river itself was very low, but the huge 
 and wasteful river-bed showed that there were times 
 when its appearance must be entirely different. We 
 got on to the river-bed, and, following it up for a little 
 way, soon found ourselves in a close valley between two 
 very lofty ranges, which were plentifully wooded with 
 black birch down to their base. There were a few 
 scrubby, stony flats covered with Irishman and spear- 
 grass (Irishman is the unpleasant thorny shrub which I 
 saw going over the hill from Lyttelton to Christ Church) 
 on either side the stream ; they had been entirely left 
 to nature, and showed me the difference between 
 country which had been burnt and that which is in its 
 natural condition. This difference is very great. The 
 fire dries up many swamps at least many disappear 
 after country has been once or twice burnt ; the 
 water moves more freely, unimpeded by the tangled 
 and decaying vegetation which accumulates round it 
 during the lapse of centuries, and the sun gets freer 
 access to the ground. Cattle do much also : they form 
 tracks through swamps, and trample down the earth, 
 making it harder and firmer. Sheep do much : they 
 convey the seeds of the best grass and tread them into 
 the ground. The difference between country that has 
 been fed upon by any live stock, even for a single
 
 Camping Out 53 
 
 year, and that which has never yet been stocked is very 
 noticeable. If country is being burnt for the second or 
 third time, the fire can be crossed without any diffi- 
 culty ; of course it must be quickly traversed, though 
 indeed, on thinly grassed land, you may take it almost 
 as coolly as you please. On one of these flats, just on 
 the edge of the bush, and at the very foot of the moun- 
 tain, we lit a fire as soon as it was dusk, and, tethering 
 our horses, boiled our tea and supped. The night was 
 warm and quiet, the silence only interrupted by the 
 occasional sharp cry of a wood-hen, and the rushing of 
 the river, whilst the ruddy glow of the fire, the sombre 
 forest, and the immediate foreground of our saddles 
 and blankets, formed a picture to me entirely new and 
 rather impressive. Probably after another year or two 
 I shall regard camping out as the nuisance which it 
 really is, instead of writing about sombre forests and so 
 forth. Well, well, that night I thought it very fine, 
 and so in good truth it was. 
 
 Our saddles were our pillows and we strapped our 
 blankets round us by saddle-straps, and my com- 
 panion (I believe) slept very soundly ; for my part 
 the scene was altogether too novel to allow me to 
 sleep. I kept looking up and seeing the stars just as 
 I was going off to sleep, and that woke me again ; I 
 had also underestimated the amount of blankets 
 which I should require, and it was not long before the 
 romance of the situation wore off, and a rather chilly 
 reality occupied its place ; moreover, the flat was 
 stony, and I was not knowing enough to have selected 
 a spot which gave a hollow for the hip-bone. My 
 great object, however, was to conceal my condition 
 from my companion, for never was a freshman at Cam-
 
 54 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 bridge more anxious to be mistaken for a third-year 
 man than I was anxious to become an old chum, as the 
 colonial dialect calls a settler thereby proving my 
 new chumship most satisfactorily. Early next morn- 
 ing the birds began to sing beautifully, and the day 
 being thus heralded, I got up, lit the fire, and set the 
 pannikins on to boil : we then had breakfast, and 
 broke camp. The scenery soon became most glorious, 
 for, turning round a corner of the river, we saw a very 
 fine mountain right in front of us. I could at once 
 see that there was a neve near the top of it, and was 
 all excitement. We were very anxious to know if 
 this was the backbone range of the island, and were 
 hopeful that if it was we might find some pass to the 
 other side. The ranges on either hand were, as I said 
 before, covered with bush, and these, with the rugged 
 Alps in front of us, made a magnificent view. We 
 went on, and soon there came out a much grander 
 mountain a glorious glaciered fellow and then came 
 more, and the mountains closed in, and the river 
 dwindled and began leaping from stone to stone, and 
 we were shortly in scenery of the true Alpine nature 
 very, very grand. It wanted, however, a chalet or 
 two, or some sign of human handiwork in the fore- 
 ground ; as it was, the scene was too savage. 
 
 All the time we kept looking for gold, not in a 
 scientific manner, but we had a kind of idea that if we 
 looked in the shingly beds of the numerous tributaries 
 to the Harpur, we should surely find either gold or 
 copper or something good. So at every shingle-bed 
 we came to (and every little tributary had a great 
 shingle-bed) we lay down and gazed into the pebbles 
 with all our eyes. We found plenty of stones with
 
 Minerals 5 5 
 
 yellow specks in them, but none of that rich goodly 
 hue which makes a man certain that what he has 
 found is gold. We did not wash any of the gravel, for 
 we had no tin dish, neither did we know how to wash. 
 The specks we found were mica ; but I believe I am 
 right in saying that there are large quantities of 
 chromate of iron in the ranges that descend upon the 
 river. We brought down several specimens, some of 
 which we believed to be copper, but which did not turn 
 out to be so. The principal rocks were a hard, grey, 
 gritty sandstone, interwoven with thin streaks of 
 quartz. We saw no masses of quartz ; what we found 
 was intermixed with sandstone, and was always in 
 small pieces. The sandstone, in like manner, was 
 almost always intermingled with quartz. Besides 
 this sandstone there was a good deal of pink and blue 
 slate, the pink chiefly at the top of the range, showing 
 a beautiful colour from the river-bed. In addition to 
 this, there were abundance of rocks, of every gradation 
 between sandstone and slate some sandstone almost 
 slate, some slate almost sandstone. There was also a 
 good deal of pudding-stone ; but the bulk of the rock 
 was this very hard, very flinty sandstone. You know 
 I am no geologist. I will undertake, however, to say 
 positively that we did not see one atom of granite ; 
 all the mountains that I have yet seen are either 
 volcanic or composed of this sandstone and slate. 
 
 When we had reached nearly the base of the moun- 
 tains, we left our horses, for we could use them no 
 longer, and, crossing and recrossing the stream, at 
 length turned up through the bush to our right. This 
 bush, though very beautiful to look at, is composed of 
 nothing but the poorest black birch. We had no dim-
 
 56 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 culty in getting through it, for it had no undergrowth, 
 as the bushes on the front ranges have. I should sup- 
 pose we were here between three and four thousand feet 
 above the level of the sea ; and you may imagine that 
 at that altitude, in a valley surrounded by snowy 
 ranges, vegetation would not be very luxuriant. There 
 was sufficient wood, however, to harbour abundance of 
 parroquets brilliant little glossy green fellows, that 
 shot past you now and again with a glisten in the sun, 
 and were gone. There was a kind of dusky brownish- 
 green parrot, too, which the scientific call a Nestor. 
 What they mean by this name I know not. To the un- 
 scientific it is a rather dirty-looking bird, with some 
 bright red feathers under its wings. It is very tame, 
 sits still to be petted, and screams like a real parrot. 
 Two attended us on our ascent after leaving the bush. 
 We threw many stones at them, and it was not their 
 fault that they escaped unhurt. 
 
 Immediately on emerging from the bush we found 
 all vegetation at an end. We were on the moraine of 
 an old glacier, and saw nothing in front of us but 
 frightful precipices and glaciers. There was a saddle, 
 however, not above a couple of thousand feet higher. 
 This saddle was covered with snow, and, as we had 
 neither provisions nor blankets, we were obliged to 
 give up going to the top of it. We returned with less 
 reluctance, from the almost absolute certainty, firstly, 
 that we were not upon the main range ; secondly, 
 that this saddle would only lead to the Waimakiriri, 
 the next river above the Rakaia. Of these two points 
 my companion was so convinced, that we did not 
 greatly regret leaving it unexplored. Our object was 
 commercial, and not scientific ; our motive was
 
 Unexplored Col 57 
 
 pounds, shillings, and pence : and where this failed us, 
 we lost all excitement and curiosity. I fear that we 
 were yet weak enough to have a little hankering after 
 the view from the top of the pass, but we treated such 
 puerility with the contempt that it deserved, and sat 
 down to rest ourselves at the foot of a small glacier. 
 We then descended, and reached the horses at nightfall, 
 fully satisfied that, beyond the flat beside the river- 
 bed of the Harpur, there was no country to be had 
 in that direction. We also felt certain that there was 
 no pass to the west coast up that branch of the 
 Rakaia, but that the saddle at the head of it would 
 only lead to the Waimakiriri, and reveal the true back- 
 bone range farther to the west. The mountains 
 among which we had been climbing were only offsets 
 from the main chain. 
 
 This might be shown also by a consideration of the 
 volume of water which supplies the main streams of 
 the Rakaia and the Waimakiriri, and comparing it 
 with the insignificant amount which finds its way 
 down the Harpur. The glaciers that feed the two 
 larger streams must be very extensive, thus showing 
 that the highest range lies still farther to the north- 
 ward and westward. The Waimakiriri is the next 
 river to the northward of the Rakaia. 
 
 That night we camped as before, only I was more 
 knowing, and slept with my clothes on, and found a 
 hollow for my hip-bone, by which contrivances I slept 
 like a top. Next morning, at early dawn, the scene was 
 most magnificent. The mountains were pale as ghosts, 
 and almost sickening from their death-like whiteness. 
 We gazed at them for a moment or two, and then turned 
 to making a fire, which in the cold frosty morning was
 
 c8 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 f / 
 
 not unpleasant. Shortly afterwards we were again en 
 route for the station from which we had started. We 
 burnt the flats as we rode down, and made a smoke 
 which was noticed between fifty and sixty miles off. I 
 have seen no grander sight than the fire upon a country 
 which has never before been burnt, and on which there 
 is a large quantity of Irishman. The sun soon loses all 
 brightness, and looks as though seen through smoked 
 glass. The volumes of smoke are something that must 
 be seen to be appreciated. The flames roar, and the 
 grass crackles, and every now and then a glorious lurid 
 flare marks the ignition of an Irishman ; his dry 
 thorns blaze fiercely for a minute or so, and then the 
 fire leaves him, charred and blackened for ever. A year 
 or two hence, a stiff nor'-wester will blow him over, and 
 he will lie there and rot, and fatten the surrounding 
 grass ; often, however, he shoots out again from the 
 roots, and then he is a considerable nuisance. On the 
 plains Irishman is but a small shrub, that hardly rises 
 higher than the tussocks ; it is only in the back country 
 that it attains any considerable size : there its trunk is 
 often as thick as a man's body. 
 
 We got back about an hour after sundown, just as 
 heavy rain was coming on, and were very glad not to 
 be again camping out, for it rained furiously and inces- 
 santly the whole night long. Next day we returned to 
 the lower station belonging to my companion, which 
 was as replete with European comforts as the upper 
 was devoid of them ; yet, for my part, I could live 
 very comfortably at either.
 
 Ascent of the Waimakiriri 59 
 
 Chapter V 
 
 Ascent of the Waimakiriri Crossing the River Gorge Ascent of 
 the Rangitata View of M'Kenzie Plains M'Kenzie Mount 
 Cook Ascent of the Hurunui Col leading to West Coast. 
 
 SINCE my last, I have made another expedition 
 into the back country, in the hope of finding 
 some little run which had been overlooked. I have 
 been unsuccessful, as indeed I was likely to be : still 
 I had a pleasant excursion, and have seen many more 
 glaciers, and much finer ones than on my last trip. 
 This time I went up the Waimakiriri by myself, and 
 found that we had been fully right in our supposition 
 that the Rakaia saddles would only lead on to that 
 river. The main features were precisely similar to 
 those on the Rakaia, save that the valley was broader, 
 the river longer, and the mountains very much 
 higher. I had to cross the Waimakiriri just after a 
 fresh, when the water was thick, and I assure you 
 I did not like it. I crossed it first on the plains, 
 where it flows between two very high terraces, which 
 are from half a mile to a mile apart, and of which the 
 most northern must be, I should think, 300 feet 
 high. It was so steep, and so covered with stones 
 towards the base, and so broken with strips of shingle 
 that had fallen over the grass, that it took me a full 
 hour to lead my horse from the top to the bottom. I 
 dare say my clumsiness was partly in fault ; but cer- 
 tainly in Switzerland I never saw a horse taken down 
 so nasty a place : and so glad was I to be at the bottom 
 of it, that I thought comparatively little of the river, 
 which was close at hand waiting to be crossed. From
 
 60 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 the top of the terrace I had surveyed it carefully as it 
 lay beneath, wandering capriciously in the wasteful 
 shingle-bed, and looking like a maze of tangled silver 
 ribbons. I calculated how to cut off one stream after 
 another, but I could not shirk the main stream, dodge 
 it how I might ; and when on the level of the river, I 
 lost all my landmarks in the labyrinth of streams, and 
 determined to cross each just above the first rapid I 
 came to. The river was very milky, and the stones at 
 the bottom could not be seen, except just at the edges : 
 I do not know how I got over. I remember going in, 
 and thinking that the horse was lifting his legs up and 
 putting them down in the same place again, and that 
 the river was flowing backwards. In fact I grew dizzy 
 directly, but by fixing my eyes on the opposite bank, 
 and leaving Doctor to manage matters as he chose, 
 somehow or other, and much to my relief, I got to the 
 other side. It was really nothing at all. I was wet 
 only a little above the ankle ; but it is the rapidity of 
 the stream which makes it so unpleasant in fact, so 
 positively hard to those who are not used to it. On 
 their few first experiences of one of these New Zealand 
 rivers, people dislike them extremely ; they then be- 
 come very callous to them, and are as unreasonably 
 foolhardy as they were before timorous ; then they 
 generally get an escape from drowning or two, or else 
 they gel drowned in earnest. After one or two escapes 
 their original respect for the rivers returns, and for ever 
 after they learn not to play any unnecessary tricks with 
 them. Not a year passes but what each of them sends 
 one or more to his grave ; yet as long as they are at 
 their ordinary level, and crossed with due care, there is 
 no real danger in them whatever. I have crossed and
 
 Alpine Scenery 61 
 
 recrossed the Waimakiriri so often in my late trip 
 that I have ceased to be much afraid of it unless it is 
 high, and then I assure you that I am far too nervous 
 to attempt it. When I crossed it first I was assured 
 that it was not high, but only a little full. 
 
 The Waimakiriri flows from the back country out 
 into the plains through a very beautiful narrow gorge. 
 The channel winds between wooded rocks, beneath 
 which the river whirls and frets and eddies most 
 gloriously. Above the lower cliffs, which descend per- 
 pendicularly into the river, rise lofty mountains to an 
 elevation of several thousand feet : so that the scenery 
 here is truly fine. In the river-bed, near the gorge, 
 there is a good deal of lignite, and, near the Kowai, a 
 little tributary which comes in a few miles below the 
 gorge, there is an extensive bed of true and valuable 
 coal. 
 
 The back country of the Waimakiriri is inaccessible 
 by dray, so that all the stores and all the wool have to 
 be packed in and packed out on horseback. This is a 
 very great drawback, and one which is not likely to be 
 soon removed. In winter-time, also, the pass which 
 leads into it is sometimes entirely obstructed by snow, 
 so that the squatters in that part of the country must 
 have a harder time of it than those on the plains. 
 They have bush, however, and that is a very important 
 thing. 
 
 I shall not give you any full account of what I saw 
 as I went up the Waimakiriri, for were I to do so I 
 should only repeat my last letter. Suffice it that there 
 is a magnificent mountain chain of truly Alpine 
 character at the head of the river, and that, in parts, 
 the scenery is quite equal in grandeur to that of Switzer-
 
 62 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 land, but far inferior in beauty. How one does long to 
 see some signs of human care in the midst of the loneli- 
 ness ! How one would like, too, to come occasionally 
 across some little auberge, with its vin ordinaire and re- 
 freshing fruit ! These things, however, are as yet in the 
 far future. As for vin ordinaire, I do not suppose that, 
 except at Akaroa, the climate will ever admit of grapes 
 ripening in this settlement not that the summer is not 
 warm enough, but because the night frosts come early, 
 even while the days are exceedingly hot. Neither does 
 one see how these back valleys can ever become so 
 densely peopled as Switzerland ; they are too rocky 
 and too poor, and too much cut up by river-beds. 
 
 I saw one saddle low enough to be covered with bush, 
 ending a valley of some miles in length, through which 
 flowed a small stream with dense bush on either side. 
 I firmly believe that this saddle will lead to the West 
 Coast ; but as the valley was impassable for a horse, 
 and as, being alone, I was afraid to tackle the carrying 
 food and blankets, and to leave Doctor, who might very 
 probably walk off whilst I was on the wrong side of the 
 Waimakiriri, I shirked the investigation. I certainly 
 ought to have gone up that valley. I feel as though I 
 had left a stone unturned, and must, if all is well, at 
 some future time take someone with me and explore 
 it. I found a few flats up the river, but they were too 
 small and too high up to be worth my while to take. 
 
 April, 1860. I have made another little trip, and 
 this time have tried the Rangitata. My companion 
 and myself have found a small piece of country, which 
 we have just taken up. We fear it may be snowy in 
 winter, but the expense of taking up country is very 
 small ; and even should we eventually throw it up the
 
 Narrow Gorge 63 
 
 chances are that we may be able to do so with profit. 
 We are, however, sanguine that it may be a very useful 
 little run, but shall have to see it through next winter 
 before we can safely put sheep upon it. 
 
 I have little to tell you concerning the Rangitata 
 different from what I have already written about the 
 Waimakiriri and the Harpur. The first great interest 
 was, of course, finding the country which we took up ; 
 the next was what I confess to the weakness of having 
 enjoyed much more namely, a most magnificent 
 view of that most magnificent mountain, Mount Cook. 
 It is one of the grandest I have ever seen. I will give 
 you a short account of the day. 
 
 We started from a lonely valley, down which runs 
 a stream called Forest Creek. It is an ugly, barren- 
 looking place enough a deep valley between two high 
 ranges, which are not entirely clear of snow for more 
 than three or four months in the year. As its name 
 imports, it has some wood, though not much, for the 
 Rangitata back country is very bare of timber. We 
 started, as I said, from the bottom of this valley on a 
 clear frosty morning so frosty that the tea-leaves in 
 our pannikins were frozen, and our outer blanket 
 crisped with frozen dew. We went up a little gorge, as 
 narrow as a street in Genoa, with huge black and drip- 
 ping precipices overhanging it, so as almost to shut 
 out the light of heaven. I never saw so curious a 
 place in my life. It soon opened out, and we followed 
 up the little stream which flowed through it. This 
 was no easy work. The scrub was very dense, and the 
 rocks huge. The Spaniard " piked us intil the bane," 
 and I assure you that we were hard set to make any 
 headway at all. At last we came to a waterfall, the
 
 64 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 only one worthy of the name that I have yet seen. 
 This " stuck us up," as they say here concerning any 
 difficulty. We managed, however, to " slew " it, as 
 they, no less elegantly, say concerning the surmounting 
 of an obstacle. After five hours of most toilsome 
 climbing, we found the vegetation become scanty, 
 and soon got on to the loose shingle which was near 
 the top of the range. 
 
 In seven hours from the time we started, we were on 
 the top. Hence we had hoped to discover some entirely 
 new country, but were disappointed, for we only saw 
 the Mackenzie Plains lying stretched out for miles away 
 to the southward. These plains are so called after a 
 notorious shepherd, who discovered them some few 
 years since. Keeping his knowledge to himself, he used 
 to steal his master's sheep and drive them quietly into 
 his unsuspected hiding-place. This he did so cleverly 
 that he was not detected until he had stolen many 
 hundred. Much obscurity hangs over his proceedings : 
 it is supposed that he made one successful trip down to 
 Otago, through this country, and sold a good many of 
 the sheep he had stolen. He is a man of great physical 
 strength, and can be no common character ; many 
 stories are told about him, and his fame will be lasting. 
 He was taken and escaped more than once, and finally 
 was pardoned by the Governor, on condition of his 
 leaving New Zealand. It was rather a strange proceed- 
 ing, and I doubt how fair to the country which he may 
 have chosen to honour with his presence, for I should 
 suppose there is hardly a more daring and dangerous 
 rascal going. However, his boldness and skill had won 
 him sympathy and admiration, so that I believe the 
 pardon was rather a popular act than otherwise. To
 
 Mount Cook 65 
 
 return. There we lay on the shingle-bed, at the top of 
 the range, in the broiling noonday ; for even at that 
 altitude it was very hot, and there was no cloud in the 
 sky and very little breeze. I saw that if we wanted a 
 complete view we must climb to the top of a peak 
 which, though only a few hundred feet higher than 
 where we were lying, nevertheless hid a great deal from 
 us. I accordingly began the ascent, having arranged 
 with my companion that if there was country to be 
 seen he should be called, if not, he should be allowed 
 to take it easy. Well, I saw snowy peak after snowy 
 peak come in view as the summit in front of me 
 narrowed, but no mountains were visible higher or 
 grander than what I had already seen. Suddenly, as 
 my eyes got on a level with the top, so that I could see 
 over, I was struck almost breathless by the wonderful 
 mountain that burst on my sight. The effect was 
 startling. It rose towering in a massy parallelogram, 
 disclosed from top to bottom in the cloudless sky, far 
 above all the others. It was exactly opposite to me, and 
 about the nearest in the whole range. So you may 
 imagine that it was indeed a splendid spectacle. It has 
 been calculated by the Admiralty people at 13,200 feet, 
 but Mr. Haast, a gentleman of high scientific attain- 
 ments in the employ of Government as geological 
 surveyor, says that it is considerably higher. For my 
 part, I can well believe it. Mont Blanc himself is not 
 so grand in shape, and does not look so imposing. 
 Indeed, I am not sure that Mount Cook is not the finest 
 in outline of all the snowy mountains that I have ever 
 seen. It is not visible from many places on the eastern 
 side of the island, and the front ranges are so lofty that 
 they hide it. It can be seen from the top of Banks
 
 66 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 Peninsula, and for a few hundred yards somewhere near 
 Timaru, and over a good deal of the Mackenzie country, 
 but nowhere else on the eastern side of this settlement, 
 unless from a great height. It is, however, well worth 
 any amount of climbing to see. No one can mistake it. 
 If a person says he thinks he has seen Mount Cook, you 
 may be quite sure that he has not seen it. The moment 
 it comes into sight the exclamation is, " That is Mount 
 Cook ! " not " That must be Mount Cook ! " There is 
 no possibility of mistake. There is a glorious field for 
 the members of the Alpine Club here. Mount Cook 
 awaits them, and he who first scales it will be crowned 
 with undying laurels : for my part, though it is 
 hazardous to say this of any mountain, I do not think 
 that any human being will ever reach its top. 
 
 I am forgetting myself into admiring a mountain 
 which is of no use for sheep. This is wrong. A moun- 
 tain here is only beautiful if it has good grass on it. 
 Scenery is not scenery it is " country," subauditd voce 
 " sheep." If it is good for sheep, it is beautiful, magni- 
 ficent, and all the rest of it ; if not, it is not worth 
 looking at. I am cultivating this tone of mind with 
 considerable success, but you must pardon me for an 
 occasional outbreak of the old Adam. 
 
 Of course I called my companion up, and he agreed 
 with me that he had never seen anything so wonderful. 
 We got down, very much tired, a little after dark. We 
 had had a very fatiguing day, but it was amply repaid. 
 That night it froze pretty sharply, and our upper 
 blankets were again stiff. 
 
 May, 1860. Not content with the little piece of
 
 Col leading to West Coast 67 
 
 country we found recently, we have since been up the 
 Hurunui to its source, and seen the water flowing down 
 the Teramakaw (or the " Tether-my-cow," as the 
 Europeans call it). We did no good, and turned back, 
 partly owing to bad weather, and partly from the im- 
 possibility of proceeding farther with horses. Indeed, 
 our pack-horse had rolled over more than once, frighten- 
 ing us much, but fortunately escaping unhurt. The 
 season, too, is getting too late for any long excursion. 
 The Hurunui is not a snow river ; the great range 
 becomes much lower here, and the saddle of the 
 Hurunui can hardly be more than 3000 feet above the 
 level of the sea. Vegetation is luxuriant most 
 abominably and unpleasantly luxuriant (for there is 
 no getting through it) at the very top. The reason 
 of this is, that the nor'-westers, coming heavily 
 charged with warm moisture, deposit it on the western 
 side of the great range, and the saddles, of course, get 
 some of the benefit. As we were going up the river, 
 we could see the gap at the end of it, covered with 
 dense clouds, which were coming from the N.W., and 
 which just lipped over the saddle, and then ended. 
 There are some beautiful lakes on the Hurunui, sur- 
 rounded by lofty wooded mountains. The few Maories 
 that inhabit this settlement travel to the West Coast 
 by way of this river. They always go on foot, and we 
 saw several traces of their encampments little 
 mimis, as they are called a few light sticks thrown 
 together, and covered with grass, affording a sort of 
 half-and-half shelter for a single individual. How 
 comfortable !
 
 68 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 Chapter VI 
 
 Hut Cadets Openings for Emigrants without Capital For those 
 who bring Money Drunkenness Introductions The Rakaia 
 Valley leading to the Rangitata Snow-grass and Spaniard Soli- 
 tude Rain and Flood Cat Irishman Discomforts of Hut 
 Gradual Improvement Value of Cat. 
 
 I AM now going to put up a V hut on the country 
 that I took up on the Rangitata, meaning to hiber- 
 nate there in order to see what the place is like. I shall 
 also build a more permanent hut there, for I must have 
 someone with me, and we may as well be doing some- 
 thing as nothing. I have hopes of being able to pur- 
 chase some good country in the immediate vicinity. 
 There is a piece on which I have my eye, and which 
 adjoins that I have already. There can be, I imagine, 
 no doubt that this is excellent sheep country ; still, I 
 should like to see it in winter. 
 
 June, 1860. The V hut is a fait accompli, if so 
 small an undertaking can be spoken of in so dignified a 
 manner. It consists of a small roof set upon the ground; 
 it is a hut, all roof and no walls. I was very clumsy, 
 and so, in good truth, was my man. Still, at last, by 
 dint of perseverance, we have made it wind and water 
 tight. It was a job that should have taken us about a 
 couple of days to have done in first-rate style ; as it 
 was, I am not going to tell you how long it did take. I 
 must certainly send the man to the right-about, but 
 the difficulty is to get another, for the aforesaid hut is 
 five-and-twenty miles (at the very least) from any
 
 Cadets 69 
 
 human habitation, so that you may imagine men do not 
 abound. I had two cadets with me, and must explain 
 that a cadet means a young fellow who has lately come 
 out, and who wants to see a little of up-country life. 
 He is neither paid nor pays. He receives his food and 
 lodging gratis, but works (or is supposed to work) in 
 order to learn. The two who accompanied me both 
 left me in a very short time. I have nothing to say 
 against either of them ; both did their best, and I am 
 much obliged to them for what they did, but a very 
 few days' experience showed me that the system is a 
 bad one for all the parties concerned in it. The cadet 
 soon gets tired of working for nothing ; and, as he is 
 not paid, it is difficult to come down upon him. If he 
 is good for anything, he is worth pay, as well as board 
 and lodging. If not worth more than these last, he is 
 simply a nuisance, for he sets a bad example, which 
 cannot be checked otherwise than by dismissal ; and it 
 is not an easy or pleasant matter to dismiss one whose 
 relation is rather that of your friend than your servant. 
 The position is a false one, and the blame of its failure 
 lies with the person who takes the cadet, for either he 
 is getting an advantage without giving its due equiva- 
 lent, or he is keeping a useless man about his place, to 
 the equal detriment both of the man and of himself. It 
 may be said that the advantage offered to the cadet, 
 in allowing him an insight into colonial life, is a bona- 
 fide payment for what work he may do. This is not the 
 case ; for where labour is so very valuable, a good man 
 is in such high demand that he may find well-paid 
 employment directly. When a man takes a cadet's 
 billet it is a tolerably sure symptom that he means 
 half-and-half work, in which case he is much worse
 
 jo Canterbury Settlement 
 
 than useless. There is, however, another alternative 
 which is a very different matter. Let a man pay not 
 only for his board and lodging, but a good premium 
 likewise, for the insight that he obtains into up-country 
 life, then he is at liberty to work or not as he chooses ; 
 the station-hands cannot look down upon him, as they 
 do upon the other cadet, neither, if he chooses to do 
 nothing (which is far less likely if he is on this footing 
 than on the other), is his example pernicious it is well 
 understood that he pays for the privilege of idleness, 
 and has a perfect right to use it if he sees fit. I need 
 not say that this last arrangement is only calculated 
 for those who come out with money ; those who have 
 none should look out for the first employment which 
 they feel themselves calculated for, and go in for it at 
 once. 
 
 You may ask, What is the opening here for 
 young men of good birth and breeding, who have 
 nothing but health and strength and energy for their 
 capital ? I would answer, Nothing very brilliant ; 
 still, they may be pretty sure of getting a shepherd's 
 billet somewhere up-country, if they are known to be 
 trustworthy. If they sustain this character, they will 
 soon make friends, and find no great difficulty, after the 
 lapse of a year or two, in getting an overseer's place, 
 with from 100 to 200 a year, and their board and 
 lodging. They will find plenty of good investments 
 for the small sums which they may be able to lay by, 
 and if they are bona-fide smart men, some situation is 
 quite sure to turn up by and by in which they may 
 better themselves. In fact, they are quite sure to do 
 well in time ; but time is necessary here, as well as in 
 other places. True, less time may do here, and true
 
 Investment in Land 71 
 
 also that there are more openings ; but it may be 
 questioned whether good, safe, ready-witted men will 
 not fetch nearly as high a price in England as in any 
 part of the world. So that if a young and friendless 
 lad lands here and makes his way and does well, the 
 chances are that he would have done well also had he 
 remained at home. If he has money the case is 
 entirely changed ; he can invest it far more profitably 
 here than in England. Any merchant will give him 
 10 per cent, for it. Money is not to be had for less, go 
 where you will for it ; and if obtained from a merchant, 
 his 2\ per cent, commission, repeated at intervals of 
 six months, makes a nominal 10 per cent, into 15. I 
 mention this to show you that, if it pays people to give 
 this exorbitant rate of interest (and the current rate 
 must be one that will pay the borrower), the means of 
 increasing capital in this settlement are great. For 
 young men, however, sons of gentlemen and gentlemen 
 themselves, sheep or cattle are the most obvious and 
 best investment. They can buy and put out upon 
 terms, as I have already described. They can also 
 buy land, and let it with a purchasing clause, by which 
 they can make first-rate interest. Thus, twenty acres 
 cost 40 ; this they can let for five years, at 55. an acre, 
 the lessee being allowed to purchase the land at 5 an 
 acre in five years' time, which, the chances are, he will 
 be both able and willing to do. Beyond sheep, cattle, 
 and land, there are few if any investments here for 
 gentlemen who come out with little practical experience 
 in any business or profession, but others would turn up 
 with time. 
 
 What I have written above refers to good men. There 
 are many such who find the conventionalities of English
 
 72 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 life distasteful to them, who want to breathe a freer 
 atmosphere, and yet have no unsteadiness of character 
 or purpose to prevent them from doing well men 
 whose health and strength and good sense are more 
 fully developed than delicately organised who find 
 head-work irksome and distressing, but who would be 
 ready to do a good hard day's work at some physically 
 laborious employment. If they are in earnest, they are 
 certain to do well ; if not, they had better be idle at 
 home than here. Idle men in this country are pretty 
 sure to take to drinking. Whether men are rich or poor, 
 there seems to be far greater tendency towards drink 
 here than at home ; and sheep farmers, as soon as they 
 get things pretty straight and can afford to leave off 
 working themselves, are apt to turn drunkards, unless 
 they have a taste for intellectual employments. They 
 find time hang heavy on their hands, and, unknown 
 almost to themselves, fall into the practice of drinking, 
 till it becomes a habit. I am no teetotaller, and do not 
 want to moralise unnecessarily ; still it is impossible, 
 after a few months' residence in the settlement, not to 
 be struck with the facts I have written above. 
 
 I should be loth to advise any gentleman to come 
 out here unless he have either money and an average 
 share of good sense, or else a large amount of proper 
 self-respect and strength of purpose. If a young man 
 goes out to friends, on an arrangement definitely 
 settled before he leaves England, he is at any rate 
 certain of employment and of a home upon his land- 
 ing here ; but if he lands friendless, or simply the 
 bearer of a few letters of introduction, obtained from 
 second or third hand because his cousin knew some- 
 body who had a friend who had married a lady whose
 
 Crossing the Rakaia 73 
 
 nephew was somewhere in New Zealand he has no 
 very enviable look-out upon his arrival. 
 
 A short time after I got up to the Rangitata, I had 
 occasion to go down again to Christ Church, and stayed 
 there one day. On my return, with a companion, we 
 were delayed two days at the Rakaia : a very heavy 
 fresh had come down, so as to render the river impass- 
 able even in the punt. The punt can only work upon 
 one stream ; but in a heavy fresh the streams are very 
 numerous, and almost all of them impassable for a horse 
 without swimming him, which, in such a river as the 
 Rakaia, is very dangerous work. Sometimes, perhaps 
 half a dozen times in a year, the river is what is called 
 bank and bank ; that is to say, one mass of water from 
 one side to the other. It is frightfully rapid, and as 
 thick as pea soup. The river-bed is not far short of a 
 mile in breadth, so you may judge of the immense 
 volume of water that comes down it at these times. It 
 is seldom more than three days impassable in the punt. 
 On the third day they commenced crossing in the punt, 
 behind which we swam out horses ; since then the 
 clouds had hung unceasingly upon the mountain ranges, 
 and though much of what had fallen would, on the back 
 ranges, be in all probability snow, we could not doubt 
 but that the Rangitata would afford us some trouble, 
 nor were we even certain about the Ashburton, a river 
 which, though partly glacier-fed, is generally easily 
 crossed anywhere. 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
 
 74 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 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 im- 
 pressive 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
 
 Snow-grass 7 5 
 
 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 Tr^yy vapOrjKOTrXypwTov TTI/PO?, 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
 
 7 6 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 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 whatso- 
 ever, 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
 
 Rain and Flood 77 
 
 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. 
 
 We all wanted to get back, for home, though 
 home be only a V hut, is worth pushing for ; a little 
 thing will induce a man to leave it, but if he is near 
 his journey's end he will go through most places to 
 reach it again. So we determined on going on, and 
 after great difficulty and many turnings up one stream 
 and down another we succeeded in getting safely over. 
 We were wet well over the knee, but just avoided 
 swimming. I got into one quicksand, of which the 
 river is full, and had to jump off my mare, but this was 
 quite near the bank. 
 
 I had a cat on the pommel of my saddle, for the rats 
 used to come and take the meat from off our very 
 plates by our side. She got a sousing when the mare 
 was in the quicksand, but I heard her purring not 
 very long after, and was comforted. Of course she was 
 in a bag. I do not know how it is, but men here are 
 much fonder of cats than they are at home. 
 
 After we had crossed the river, there were many 
 troublesome creeks yet to go through sluggish and 
 swampy, with bad places for getting in and out at ; 
 these, however, were as nothing in comparison with the 
 river itself, which we all had feared more than we cared 
 to say, and which, in good truth, was not altogether 
 unworthy of fear. 
 
 By and by we turned up the shingly river-bed which 
 leads to the spot on which my hut is built. The 
 river is called Forest Creek, and, though usually no- 
 thing but a large brook, it was now high, and unpleasant 
 from its rapidity and the large boulders over which it
 
 78 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 flows. Little by little, night and heavy rain came on, 
 and right glad were we when we saw the twinkling 
 light on the terrace where the hut was, and were thus 
 assured that the Irishman, who had been left alone 
 and without meat for the last ten days, was still in the 
 land of the living. Two or three coo-eys soon made 
 him aware that we were coming, and I believe he was 
 almost as pleased to see us as Robinson Crusoe was to 
 see the Spaniard who was brought over by the cannibals 
 to be killed and eaten. What the old Irishman had 
 been about during our absence I cannot say. He could 
 not have spent much time in eating, for there was 
 wonderfully little besides flour, tea, and sugar for him 
 to eat. There was no grog upon the establishment, so 
 he could not have been drinking. He had distinctly 
 seen my ghost two nights before. I had been coherently 
 drowned in the Rangitata ; and when he heard us coo- 
 eying he was almost certain that it was the ghost again. 
 I had left the V hut warm and comfortable, and on 
 my return found it very different. I fear we had not 
 put enough thatch upon it, and the ten days' rain had 
 proved too much for it. It was now neither air-tight 
 nor water-tight ; the floor, or rather the ground, was 
 soaked and soppy with mud ; the nice warm snow-grass 
 on which I had lain so comfortably the night before I 
 left, was muddy and wet ; altogether, there being no 
 fire inside, the place was as revolting-looking an affair as 
 one would wish to see : coming wet and cold off a 
 journey, we had hoped for better things. There was 
 nothing for it but to make the best of it, so we had tea, 
 and fried some of the beef the smell of which was 
 anything but agreeable, for it had been lying ten days 
 on the ground on the other side the Rangitata, and was,
 
 Irishman at the Hut 79 
 
 to say the least, somewhat high and then we sat in our 
 great-coats on four stones round the fire, and smoked ; 
 then I baked, and one of the cadets washed up ; and 
 then we arranged our blankets as best we could, and 
 were soon asleep, alike unconscious of the dripping rain, 
 which came through the roof of the hut, and of the cold, 
 raw atmosphere which was insinuating itself through 
 the numerous crevices of the thatch. 
 
 I had brought up a tin kettle with me. This was a 
 great comfort and acquisition, for before we had nothing 
 larger than pint pannikins to fetch up water in from the 
 creek ; this was all very well by daylight, but in the 
 dark the hundred yards from the hut to the creek were 
 no easy travelling with a pannikin in each hand. The 
 ground was very stony, and covered with burnt Irish- 
 man scrub, against which (the Irishman being black 
 and charred, and consequently invisible in the dark) 
 I was continually stumbling and spilling half the water. 
 There was a terrace, too, so that we seldom arrived with 
 much more than half a pannikin, and the kettle was an 
 immense step in advance. The Irishman called it very 
 " beneficial," as he called everything that pleased him. 
 He was a great character : he used to " destroy " his 
 food, not eat it. If I asked him to have any more bread 
 or meat, he would say, with perfect seriousness, that 
 he had " destroyed enough this time." He had many 
 other quaint expressions of this sort, but they did not 
 serve to make the hut water-tight, and I was half 
 regretfully obliged to send him away a short time 
 afterwards. 
 
 The winter's experience satisfied me that the country 
 
 that H and I had found would not do for sheep, 
 
 unless worked in connection with more that was clear
 
 8o Canterbury Settlement 
 
 of snow throughout the year. As soon, therefore, as I 
 was convinced that the adjacent country was safe, I 
 bought it, and settled upon it in good earnest, abandon- 
 ing the V hut. I did so with some regret, for we had 
 gool fare enough in it, and I rather liked it ; we had 
 only stones for seats, but we made splendid fires, and 
 got fresh and clean snow-grass to lie on, and dried the 
 floor with wood-ashes. Then we confined the snow- 
 grass within certain limits by means of a couple of 
 poles laid upon the ground and fixed into their places 
 with pegs ; then we put up several slings to hang our 
 saddle-bags, tea, sugar, salt, bundles, etc. ; then we 
 made a horse for the saddles four riding-saddles and a 
 pack-saddle and underneath this went our tools at one 
 end and our culinary utensils, limited but very effective, 
 at the other. Having made it neat we kept it so, and 
 of a night it wore an aspect of comfort quite domestic, 
 even to the cat, which would come in through a hole 
 left in the thatched door for her especial benefit, and 
 purr a regular hurricane. We blessed her both by day 
 and by night, for we saw no rats after she came ; and 
 great excitement prevailed when, three weeks after her 
 arrival, she added a litter of kittens to our establish- 
 ment. 
 
 Chapter VII 
 
 Loading Dray Bullocks Want of Roads Banks Peninsula 
 Front and Back Ranges of Mountains River-beds Origin of the 
 Plains Terraces Tutu Fords Floods Lost Bullocks Scar- 
 city of Features on the Plains Terraces Crossing the Ashburton 
 Change of Weather Roofless Hut Brandy-keg. 
 
 I COMPLETED the loading of my dray on a 
 Tuesday afternoon in the early part of October, 
 1860, and determined on making Main's accommoda-
 
 Bullocks 8 1 
 
 tion-house that night. Of the contents of the dray I 
 need hardly speak, though perhaps a full enumeration 
 of them might afford no bad index to the requirements 
 of a station ; they are more numerous than might at 
 first be supposed rigidly useful and rarely if ever 
 ornamental. 
 
 Flour, tea, sugar, tools, household utensils few and 
 rough, a plough and harrows, doors, windows, oats 
 and potatoes for seed, and all the usual denizens of a 
 kitchen garden ; these, with a few private effects, 
 formed the main bulk of the contents, amounting to 
 about a ton and a half in weight. I had only six 
 bullocks, but these were good ones, and worth many a 
 team of eight ; a team of eight will draw from two to 
 three tons along a pretty good road. Bullocks are very 
 scarce here ; none are to be got under twenty pounds, 
 while thirty pounds is no unusual price for a good 
 harness bullock. They can do much more in harness 
 than in bows and yokes, but the expense of harness 
 and the constant disorder into which it gets, render it 
 cheaper to use more bullocks in the simpler tackle. 
 Each bullock has its name, and knows it as well as a 
 dog does his. There is generally a tinge of the comic in 
 the names given to them. Many stations have a small 
 mob of cattle from whence to draw their working 
 bullocks, so that a few more or a few less makes little 
 or no difference. They are not fed with corn at accom- 
 modation-houses, as horses are ; when their work is 
 done, they are turned out to feed till dark, or till eight 
 or nine o'clock. A bullock fills himself, if on pretty 
 good feed, in about three or three and a half hours ; he 
 then lies down till very early morning, at which time 
 the chances are ten to one that, awakening refreshed
 
 82 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 and strengthened, he commences to stray back along 
 the way he came, or in some other direction ; accord- 
 ingly, it is a common custom, about eight or nine 
 o'clock, to yard one's team, and turn them out with 
 the first daylight for another three or four hours' feed. 
 Yarding bullocks is, however, a bad plan. They do 
 their day's work of from fifteen to twenty miles, or 
 sometimes more, at one spell, and travel at the rate 
 of from two and a half to three miles an hour. 
 
 The road from Christ Church to Main's is metalled 
 for about four and a half miles ; there are fences and 
 fields on both sides, either laid down in English grass 
 or sown with grain ; the fences are chiefly low ditch 
 and bank planted with gorse, rarely with quick, the 
 scarcity of which detracts from the resemblance to 
 English scenery which would otherwise prevail. The 
 copy, however, is slatternly compared with the original ; 
 the scarcity of timber, the high price of labour, and 
 the pressing urgency of more important claims upon 
 the time of the small agriculturist, prevent him, for the 
 most part, from attaining the spick-and-span neatness 
 of an English homestead. Many makeshifts are neces- 
 sary ; a broken rail or gate is mended with a piece of 
 flax, so, occasionally, are the roads. I have seen the 
 Government roads themselves being repaired with no 
 other material than stiff tussocks of grass, flax, and 
 rushes : this is bad, but to a certain extent necessary, 
 where there is so much to be done and so few hands 
 and so little money with which to do it. 
 
 After getting off the completed portion of the road, 
 the track commences along the plains unassisted by the 
 hand of man. Before one, and behind one, and on 
 either hand, waves the yellow tussock upon the stony
 
 Characteristics of the Country 8 3 
 
 plain, interminably monotonous. On the left, as you 
 go southward, lies Banks Peninsula, a system of 
 submarine volcanoes culminating in a flattened dome, 
 a little more than 3000 feet high. Cook called it 
 Banks Island, either because it was an island in his 
 day, or because no one, to look at it, would imagine 
 that it was anything else. Most probably the latter is 
 the true reason ; though, as the land is being raised by 
 earthquakes, it is just possible that the peninsula may 
 have been an island in Cook's days, for the foot of the 
 peninsula is very little above the sea-level. It is 
 indeed true that the harbour of Wellington has been 
 raised some feet since the foundation of the settlement 
 but the opinion here is general that it must have been 
 many centuries since the peninsula was an island. 
 
 On the right, at a considerable distance, rises the 
 long range of mountains which the inhabitants of 
 Christ Church suppose to be the backbone of the 
 island, and which they call the Snowy Range. The real 
 axis of the island, however, lies much farther back, and 
 between it and the range now in sight the land has no 
 rest, but is continually steep up and steep down, as if 
 Nature had determined to try how much mountain she 
 could place upon a given space ; she had, however, still 
 some regard for utility, for the mountains are rarely 
 precipitous very steep, often rocky and shingly when 
 they have attained a great elevation, but seldom, if 
 ever, until in immediate proximity to the West Coast 
 range, abrupt like the descent from the top of Snowdon 
 towards Capel Curig or the precipices of Clogwyn du'r 
 arddu. The great range is truly Alpine, and the front 
 range occasionally reaches an altitude of nearly 7000 
 feet.
 
 84 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 The result of this absence of precipice is, that there 
 are no waterfalls in the front ranges and few in the back, 
 and these few very insignificant as regards the volume 
 of the water. In Switzerland one has the falls of the 
 Rhine, of the Aar, the Giesbach, the Staubbach, and 
 cataracts great and small innumerable ; here there is 
 nothing of the kind, quite as many large rivers, but 
 few waterfalls, to make up for which the rivers run 
 with an almost incredible fall. Mount Peel is twenty- 
 five miles from the sea, and the river-bed of the Ran- 
 gitata underneath that mountain is 800 feet above 
 the sea line, the river running in a straight course 
 though winding about in its wasteful river-bed. To all 
 appearance it is running through a level plain. Of the 
 remarkable gorges through which each river finds its 
 way out of the mountains into the plains I must speak 
 when I take my dray through the gorge of the Ash- 
 burton, though this is the least remarkable of them all ; 
 in the meantime I must return to the dray on its way 
 to Main's, although I see another digression awaiting 
 me as soon as I have got it two miles ahead of its 
 present position. 
 
 It is tedious work keeping constant company with 
 the bullocks ; they travel so slowly. Let us linger 
 behind and sun ourselves upon a tussock or a flax 
 bush, and let them travel on until we catch them up 
 again. 
 
 They are now going down into an old river-bed 
 formerly tenanted by the Waimakiriri, which then 
 flowed into Lake Ellesmere, ten or a dozen miles south 
 of Christ Church, and which now enters the sea at 
 Kaiapoi, twelve miles north of it ; besides this old 
 channel, it has others which it has discarded with fickle
 
 Channels of the Rivers 85 
 
 caprice for the one in which it happens to be flowing at 
 present, and which there appears some reason for 
 thinking it is soon going to tire of. If it eats about a 
 hundred yards more of its gravelly bank in one place, 
 the river will find an old bed several feet lower than its 
 present ; this bed will conduct it into Christ Church. 
 Government had put up a wooden defence, at a 
 cost of something like 2000, but there was no getting 
 any firm starting-ground, and a few freshes carried 
 embankment, piles, and all away, and ate a large slice 
 off the bank into the bargain ; there is nothing for it 
 but to let the river have its own way. Every fresh 
 changes every ford, and to a certain extent alters every 
 channel ; after any fresh the river may shift its course 
 directly on to the opposite side of its bed, and leave 
 Christ Church in undisturbed security for centuries ; or, 
 again, any fresh may render such a shift in the highest 
 degree improbable, and sooner or later seal the fate of 
 our metropolis. At present no one troubles his head 
 much about it, although a few years ago there was a 
 regular panic upon the subject. 
 
 These old river channels, or at any rate channels 
 where portions of the rivers have at one time come 
 down, are everywhere about the plains, but the nearer 
 you get to a river the more you see of them ; on either 
 side the Rakaia, after it has got clear of the gorge, 
 you find channel after channel, now completely grassed 
 over for some miles, betraying the action of river water 
 as plainly as possible. The rivers after leaving their 
 several gorges lie, as it were, on the highest part of a 
 huge fanlike delta, which radiates from the gorge down 
 to the sea ; the plains are almost entirely, for many 
 miles on either side the rivers, composed of nothing but
 
 86 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 stones, all betraying the action of water. These stones 
 are so closely packed, that at times one wonders how 
 the tussocks and fine, sweet undergrowth can force their 
 way up through them, and even where the ground is 
 free from stones at the surface I am sure that at a little 
 distance below stones would be found packed in the 
 same way. One cannot take one's horse out of a walk 
 in many parts of the plains when off the track I mean, 
 one cannot without doing violence to old-world notions 
 concerning horses' feet. 
 
 I said the rivers lie on the highest part of the delta ; 
 not always the highest, but seldom the lowest. There 
 is reason to believe that in the course of centuries they 
 oscillate from side to side. For instance, four miles 
 north of the Rakaia there is a terrace some twelve or 
 fourteen feet high ; the water in the river is nine feet 
 above the top of this terrace. To the eye of the casual 
 observer there is no perceptible difference between the 
 levels, still the difference exists and has been measured. 
 I am no geologist myself, but have been informed of 
 this by one who is in the Government Survey Office, 
 and upon whose authority I can rely. 
 
 The general opinion is that the Rakaia is now tending 
 rather to the northern side. A fresh comes down upon 
 a crumbling bank of sand and loose shingle with in- 
 credible force, tearing it away hour by hour in ravenous 
 bites. In fording the river one crosses now a consider- 
 able stream on the northern side, where four months 
 ago there was hardly any ; while after one has done 
 with the water part of the story, there remains a large 
 extent of river-bed, in the process of gradually being 
 covered with cabbage-trees, flax, tussock, Irishman, and 
 other plants and evergreens ; yet after one is once clear
 
 River-beds 87 
 
 of the blankets (so to speak) of the river-bed, the traces 
 of the river are no fresher on the southern than on the 
 northern side, even if so fresh. 
 
 The plains, at first sight, would appear to have been 
 brought down by the rivers from the mountains. The 
 stones upon them are all water-worn, and they are 
 traversed by a great number of old water-courses, all 
 tending more or less from the mountains to the sea. 
 How, then, are we to account for the deep and very 
 wide channels cut by the rivers ? for channels, it may 
 be, more than a mile broad, and flanked on either side 
 by steep terraces, which, near the mountains, are 
 several feet high ? If the rivers cut these terraces, and 
 made these deep channels, the plains must have been 
 there already for the rivers to cut them. It must be 
 remembered that I write without any scientific know- 
 ledge. 
 
 How, again, are we to account for the repetition of 
 the phenomenon exhibited by the larger rivers, in every 
 tributary, small or great, from the glaciers to the sea ? 
 They are all as like as pea to pea in principle, though 
 of course varying in detail. Yet every trifling water- 
 course, as it emerges from mountainous to level ground, 
 presents the same phenomenon, namely, a large gully, 
 far too large for the water which could ever have come 
 down it, gradually widening out, and then disappearing. 
 The general opinion here among the reputed cognoscenti 
 is, that all these gullies were formed in the process of 
 the gradual upheaval of the island from the sea, and 
 that the plains were originally sea-bottoms, slowly 
 raised, and still slowly raising themselves. Doubtless, 
 the rivers brought the stones down, but they were 
 deposited in the sea.
 
 88 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 The terraces, which are so abundant all over the 
 back country, and which rise, one behind another, to 
 the number, it may be, of twenty or thirty, with the 
 most unpicturesque regularity (on my run there are 
 fully twenty), are supposed to be elevated sea-beaches. 
 They are to be seen even as high as four or five thousand 
 feet above the level of the sea, and I doubt not that a 
 geologist might find traces of them higher still. 
 
 Therefore, though, when first looking at the plains 
 and river-bed flats which are so abundant in the back 
 country, one might be inclined to think that no other 
 agent than the rivers themselves had been at work, 
 and though, when one sees the delta below, and the 
 empty gully above, like a minute-glass after the egg 
 has been boiled the top glass empty of the sand, and 
 the bottom glass full of it one is tempted to rest 
 satisfied ; yet when we look closer, we shall find that 
 more is wanted in order to account for the phenomena 
 exhibited, and the geologists of the island supply that 
 more, by means of upheaval. 
 
 I pay the tribute of a humble salaam to science, and 
 return to my subject. 
 
 We crossed the old river-bed of the Waimakiriri, and 
 crawled slowly on to Main's, through the descending 
 twilight. One sees Main's about six miles off, and 
 it appears to be about six hours before one reaches it. 
 A little hump for the house, and a longer hump for the 
 stables. 
 
 The tutu not having yet begun to spring, I yarded 
 my bullocks at Main's. This demands explanation. 
 Tutu is a plant which dies away in the winter, and 
 shoots up anew from the old roots in spring, growing 
 from six inches to two or three feet in height, some-
 
 Tutu 89 
 
 times even to five or six. It is of a rich green colour, 
 and presents, at a little distance, something the ap- 
 pearance of myrtle. On its first coming above the 
 ground it resembles asparagus. I have seen three 
 varieties of it, though I am not sure whether two of 
 them may not be the same, varied somewhat by soil 
 and position. The third grows only in high situations, 
 and is unknown upon the plains ; it has leaves very 
 minutely subdivided, and looks like a fern, but the 
 blossom and seed are nearly identical with the other 
 varieties. The peculiar property of the plant is, that, 
 though highly nutritious both for sheep and cattle 
 when eaten upon a tolerably full stomach, it is very 
 fatal upon an empty one. Sheep and cattle eat it to 
 any extent, and with perfect safety, when running loose 
 on their pasture, because they are then always pretty 
 full ; but take the same sheep and yard them for 
 some few hours, or drive them so that they cannot 
 feed, then turn them into tutu, and the result is that 
 they are immediately attacked with apoplectic symp- 
 toms, and die unless promptly bled. Nor does bleeding 
 by any means always save them. The worst of it is, 
 that when empty they are keenest after it, and nab it 
 in spite of one's most frantic appeals, both verbal and 
 flagellatory. Some say that tutu acts like clover, and 
 blows out the stomach, so that death ensues. The 
 seed-stones, however, contained in the dark pulpy 
 berry, are poisonous to man, and superinduce apoplectic 
 symptoms. The berry (about the size of a small 
 currant) is rather good, though (like all the New 
 Zealand berries) insipid, and is quite harmless if the 
 stones are not swallowed. Tutu grows chiefly on and 
 in the neighbourhood of sandy river-beds, but occurs
 
 90 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 more or less all over the settlement, and causes con- 
 siderable damage every year. Horses won't touch it. 
 
 As, then, my bullocks could not get tuted on being 
 turned out empty, I yarded them. The next day we 
 made thirteen miles over the plains to the Waikitty 
 (written Waikirikiri) or Selwyn. Still the same mono- 
 tonous plains, the same interminable tussock, dotted 
 with the same cabbage-trees. 
 
 On the morrow, ten more monotonous miles to the 
 banks of the Rakaia. This river is one of the largest in 
 the province, second only to the Waitaki. It contains 
 about as much water as the Rhone above Martigny, 
 perhaps even more, but it rather resembles an Italian 
 than a Swiss river. With due care, it is fordable in 
 many places, though very rarely so when occupying a 
 single channel. It is, however, seldom found in one 
 stream, but flows, like the rest of these rivers, with 
 alternate periods of rapid and comparatively smooth 
 water every few yards. The place to look for a ford 
 is just above a spit where the river forks into two or 
 more branches ; there is generally here a bar of shingle 
 with shallow water, while immediately below, in each 
 stream, there is a dangerous rapid. A very little 
 practice and knowledge of each river will enable a 
 man to detect a ford at a glance. These fords shift 
 every fresh. In the Waimakiriri or Rangitata, they 
 occur every quarter of a mile or less ; in the Rakaia, 
 you may go three or four miles for a good one. During 
 a fresh, the Rakaia is not fordable, at any rate, no one 
 ought to ford it ; but the two first-named rivers may 
 be crossed, with great care, in pretty heavy freshes, 
 without the water going higher than the knees of the 
 rider. It is always, however, an unpleasant task to
 
 Fords 9 1 
 
 cross a river when full without a thorough previous 
 acquaintance with it ; then, a glance at the colour and 
 consistency of the water will give a good idea whether 
 the fresh is coming down, at its height, or falling. When 
 the ordinary volume of the stream is known, the height 
 of the water can be estimated at a spot never before 
 seen with wonderful correctness. The Rakaia some- 
 times comes down with a run a wall of water two feet 
 high, rolling over and over, rushes down with irresistible 
 force. I know a gentleman who had been looking at 
 some sheep upon an island in the Rakaia, and, after 
 finishing his survey, was riding leisurely to the bank on 
 which his house was situated. Suddenly, he saw the 
 river coming down upon him in the manner I have 
 described, and not more than two or three hundred 
 yards off. By a forcible application of the spur, he was 
 enabled to reach terra firma, just in time to see the 
 water sweeping with an awful roar over the spot that 
 he had been traversing not a second previously. This is 
 not frequent : a fresh generally takes four or five hours 
 to come down, and from two days to a week, ten days, 
 or a fortnight, to subside again. 
 
 If I were to speak of the rise of the Rakaia, or rather 
 of the numerous branches which form it ; of their 
 vast and wasteful beds ; the glaciers that they spring 
 from, one of which conies down half-way across the 
 river-bed (thus tending to prove that the glaciers are 
 descending, for the river-bed is both above and below 
 the glacier) ; of the wonderful gorge with its terraces 
 rising shelf upon shelf, like fortifications, many hun- 
 dred feet above the river; the crystals found there, 
 and the wild pigs I should weary the reader too 
 much, and fill half a volume : the bullocks must
 
 92 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 again claim our attention, and I unwillingly revert to 
 my subject. 
 
 On the night of our arrival at the Rakaia I did not 
 yard the bullocks, as they seemed inclined to stay 
 quietly with some others that were about the place ; 
 next morning they were gone. Were they up the river, 
 or down the river, across the river, or gone back ? You 
 are at Cambridge, and have lost your bullocks. They 
 were bred in Yorkshire, but have been used a good deal 
 in the neighbourhood of Dorchester, and may have 
 consequently made in either direction ; they may, how- 
 ever, have worked down the Cam, and be in full feed 
 for Lynn ; or, again, they may be snugly stowed away 
 in a gully half-way between the Fitzwilliam Museum 
 and Trumpington. You saw a mob of cattle feeding 
 quietly about Madingley on the preceding evening, and 
 they may have joined in with these ; or were they 
 attracted by the fine feed in the neighbourhood of 
 Cherryhinton ? Where shall you go to look for them ? 
 
 Matters in reality, however, are not so bad as this. 
 A bullock cannot walk without leaving a track, if the 
 ground he travels on is capable of receiving one. Again, 
 if he does not know the country in advance of him, 
 the chances are strong that he has gone back the way 
 he came ; he will travel in a track if he happens to 
 lighl on one ; he finds it easier going. Animals are 
 cautious in proceeding onwards when they don't know 
 the ground. They have ever a lion in their path until 
 they know it, and have found it free from beasts of 
 prey. If, however, they have been seen heading de- 
 cidedly in any direction over-night, in that direction 
 they will most likely be found sooner or later. Bullocks 
 cannot go long without water. They will travel to a
 
 Bullocks 93 
 
 river, then they will eat, drink, and be merry, and 
 during that period of fatal security they will be caught. 
 Ours had gone back ten miles, to the Waikitty ; we 
 soon obtained clues as to their whereabouts, and had 
 them back again in time to proceed on our journey. 
 The river being very low, we did not unload the dray 
 and put the contents across in the boat, but drove the 
 bullocks straight through. Eighteen weary monotonous 
 miles over the same plains, covered with the same 
 tussock grass, and dotted with the same cabbage-trees. 
 The mountains, however, grew gradually nearer, and 
 Banks Peninsula dwindled perceptibly. That night 
 
 we made Mr. M 's station, and were thankful. 
 
 Again we did not yard the bullocks, and again we 
 lost them. They were only five miles off, but we did 
 not find them till afternoon, and lost a day. As they 
 had travelled in all nearly forty miles, I had had mercy 
 upon them, intending that they should fill themselves 
 well during the night, and be ready for a long pull 
 next day. Even the merciful man himself, however, 
 would except a working bullock from the beasts who 
 have any claim upon his good feeling. Let him go 
 straining his eyes examining every dark spot in a cir- 
 cumference many long miles in extent. 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
 
 94 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 white, appears in remote distance, distinct and unmis- 
 takable. 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
 
 Entangled Harness 95 
 
 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 conjurer'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
 
 96 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 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. 
 
 First, there is the river, flowing very rapidly upon a 
 bed of large shingle, with alternate rapids and smooth 
 places, constantly forking and constantly reuniting 
 itself like tangled skeins of silver ribbon surrounding 
 lozenge-shaped islets of sand and gravel. On either side 
 is a long flat composed of shingle similar to the bed of 
 the river itself, but covered with vegetation, tussock, 
 and scrub, with fine feed for sheep or cattle among the 
 burnt Irishman thickets. The flat is some half-mile 
 broad on each side the river, narrowing as the mountains 
 draw in closer upon the stream. It is terminated by a 
 steep terrace. Twenty or thirty feet above this terrace 
 is another flat, we will say semicircular, for I am gene- 
 ralising, which again is surrounded by a steeply sloping 
 terrace like an amphitheatre ; above this another flat, 
 receding still farther back, perhaps half a mile in 
 places, perhaps almost close above the one below it ; 
 above this another flat, receding farther, and so on, 
 until the level of the plain proper, or highest flat, is 
 several hundred feet above the river. I have not seen 
 a single river in Canterbury which is not more or less 
 terraced even below the gorge. The angle of the ter- 
 race is always very steep : I seldom see one less than 
 45. One always has to get off and lead one's horse 
 down, except when an artificial cutting has been made, 
 or advantage can be taken of some gully that descends
 
 Crossing the Ashburton 97 
 
 into the flat below. Tributary streams are terraced in 
 like manner on a small scale, while even the mountain 
 creeks repeat the phenomena in miniature : the terraces 
 being always highest where the river emerges from its 
 gorge, and slowly dwindling down as it approaches the 
 sea, till finally, instead of the river being many hundred 
 feet below the level of the plains, as is the case at the 
 foot of the mountains, the plains near the sea are 
 considerably below the water in the river, as on the 
 north side of the Rakaia, before described. 
 
 Our road lay up the Ashburton, which we had re- 
 peatedly to cross and recross. 
 
 A dray going through a river is a pretty sight enough 
 when you are utterly unconcerned in the contents 
 thereof ; the rushing water stemmed by the bullocks 
 and the dray, the energetic appeals of the driver to 
 Tommy or Nobbier to lift the dray over the large stones 
 in the river, the creaking dray, the cracking whip, form 
 a tout ensemble rather agreeable than otherwise. But 
 when the bullocks, having pulled the dray into the 
 middle of the river, refuse entirely to pull it out again ; 
 when the leaders turn sharp round and look at you, or 
 stick their heads under the bellies of the polars ; when 
 the gentle pats on the forehead with the stock of the 
 whip prove unavailing, and you are obliged to have 
 recourse to strong measures, it is less agreeable : 
 especially if the animals turn just after having got your 
 dray half-way up the bank, and, twisting it round upon 
 a steeply inclined surface, throw the centre of gravity 
 far beyond the base : over goes the dray into the water. 
 Alas, my sugar ! my tea ! my flour ! my crockery ! It 
 is all over drop the curtain. 
 
 I beg to state my dray did not upset this time,
 
 98 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 though the centre of gravity fell far without the base : 
 what Newton says on that subject is erroneous ; so are 
 those illustrations of natural philosophy, in which a 
 loaded dray is represented as necessarily about to fall, 
 because a dotted line from the centre of gravity falls 
 outside the wheels. It takes a great deal more to upset 
 a well-loaded dray than one would have imagined, 
 although sometimes the most unforeseen trifle will 
 effect it. Possibly the value of the contents may have 
 something to do with it ; but my ideas are not yet fully 
 formed upon the subject. 
 
 We made about seventeen miles and crossed the river 
 ten times, so that the bullocks, which had never before 
 been accustomed to river-work, became quite used to it, 
 and manageable, and have continued so ever since. 
 
 We halted for the night at a shepherd's hut : awaken- 
 ing out of slumber I heard the fitful gusts of violent 
 wind come puff, puff, buffet, and die away again ; nor'- 
 wester all over. I went out and saw the unmistakable 
 north-west clouds tearing away in front of the moon. 
 
 I remembered Mrs. W 's corns, and anathematised 
 
 them in my heart. 
 
 It may be imagined that I turned out of a comfort- 
 able bed, slipped on my boots, and then went out ; no 
 such thing : we were all lying in our clothes with one 
 blanket between us and the bare floor our heads 
 pillowed on our saddle-bags. 
 
 The next day we made only three miles to Mr. 
 
 P 's station. There we unloaded the dray, greased 
 
 it, and restored half the load, intending to make another 
 journey for the remainder, as the road was very bad. 
 
 One dray had been over the ground before us. That 
 took four days to do the first ten miles, and then was
 
 Change of Weather 99 
 
 delayed several weeks on the bank of the Rangitata by 
 a series of very heavy freshes, so we determined on 
 trying a different route : we got farther on our first day 
 than our predecessor had done in two, and then Possum, 
 one of the bullocks, lay down (I am afraid he had had 
 an awful hammering in a swampy creek where he had 
 stuck for two hours) , and would not stir an inch ; so we 
 turned them all adrift with their yokes on (had we 
 taken them off we could not have yoked them up 
 again), whereat Possum began feeding in a manner 
 which plainly showed that there had not been much 
 amiss with him. But during the interval that elapsed 
 between our getting into the swampy creek and getting 
 out of it a great change had come over the weather. 
 While poor Possum was being chastised I had been re- 
 clining on the bank hard by, and occasionally interced- 
 ing for the unhappy animal, the men were all at him 
 (but what is one to do if one's dray is buried nearly to 
 the axle in a bog, and Possum won't pull ?) ; so I was 
 taking it easy, without coat or waistcoat, and even then 
 feeling as if no place could be too cool to please me, 
 for the nor'-wester was still blowing strong and in- 
 tensely hot, when suddenly I felt a chill, and looking 
 at the lake below saw that the white-headed waves had 
 changed their direction, and that the wind had chopped 
 round to sou '-west. 
 
 We left the dray and went on some two or three 
 miles on foot for the purpose of camping where there 
 was firewood. There was a hut, too, in the place for 
 which we were making. It was not yet roofed, and 
 had neither door nor window ; but as it was near 
 firewood and water we made for it, had supper, and 
 turned in.
 
 ioo Canterbury Settlement 
 
 In the middle of the night someone, poking his nose 
 out of his blanket, informed us that it was snowing, 
 and in the morning we found it continuing to do so, 
 with a good sprinkling on the ground. We thought 
 nothing of it, and, returning to the dray, found the 
 bullocks, put them to, and started on our way ; but 
 when we came above the gully, at the bottom of which 
 the hut lay, we were obliged to give in. There was a 
 very bad creek, which we tried in vain for an hour or so 
 to cross. The snow was falling very thickly, and driving 
 right into the bullocks' faces. We were all very cold 
 and weary, and determined to go down to the hut again, 
 expecting fine weather in the morning. We carried 
 down a kettle, a camp oven, some flour, tea, sugar, and 
 salt beef ; also a novel or two, and the future towels of 
 the establishment, which wanted hemming ; also the 
 two cats. Thus equipped we went down the gulley, and 
 got back to the hut about three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 The gulley sheltered us, and there the snow was kind 
 and warm, though bitterly cold on the terrace. We 
 threw a few burnt Irishman sticks across the top of the 
 walls, and put a couple of counterpanes over them, 
 thus obtaining a little shelter near the fire. The snow 
 inside the hut was about six inches deep, and soon 
 became sloppy, so that at night we preferred to make a 
 hole in the snow and sleep outside. 
 
 The fall continued all that night, and in the morning 
 we found ourselves thickly covered. It was still snow- 
 ing hard, so there was no stirring. We read the novels, 
 hemmed the towels, smoked, and took it philosophi- 
 cally. There was plenty of firewood to keep us warm. 
 By night the snow was fully two feet thick everywhere, 
 and in the drifts five and six feet. I determined that
 
 Brandy-keg i o i 
 
 we would have some grog, and had no sooner hinted 
 the bright idea than two volunteers undertook the 
 rather difficult task of getting it. The terrace must have 
 been 150 feet above the hut ; it was very steep, inter- 
 sected by numerous gullies filled with deeply drifted 
 snow ; from the top it was yet a full quarter of a mile 
 to the place where we had left the dray. Still the brave 
 fellows, inspired with hope, started in full confidence, 
 while we put our kettle on the fire and joyfully awaited 
 their return. They had been gone at least two hours, 
 and we were getting fearful that they had broached 
 the cask and helped themselves too liberally on the 
 way, when they returned in triumph with the two- 
 gallon keg, vowing that never in their lives before had 
 they worked so hard. How unjustly we had suspected 
 them will appear in the sequel. 
 
 Great excitement prevailed over drawing the cork. 
 It was fast ; it broke the point of someone's knife. 
 " Shove it in," said I, breathless with impatience ; no 
 no it yielded, and shortly afterwards, giving up all 
 opposition, came quickly out. A tin pannikin was pro- 
 duced. With a gurgling sound out flowed the precious 
 liquid. " Halloa ! " said one ; " it's not brandy, it's 
 port wine." " Port wine ! " cried another ; "it smells 
 more like rum." I voted for its being claret ; another 
 moment, however, settled the question, and established 
 the contents of the cask as being excellent vinegar. 
 The two unfortunate men had brought the vinegar keg 
 instead of the brandy. 
 
 The rest may be imagined. That night, however, 
 two of us were attacked with diarrhoea, and the vinegar 
 proved of great service, for vinegar and water is an 
 admirable remedy for this complaint.
 
 IO2 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 The snow continued till afternoon the next day. It 
 then sulkily ceased, and commenced thawing. At night 
 it froze very hard indeed, and the next day a nor'-wester 
 sprang up which made the snow disappear with the 
 most astonishing rapidity. Not having then learnt that 
 no amount of melting snow will produce any important 
 effect upon the river, and, fearing that it might rise, we 
 determined to push on : but this was as yet impossible. 
 Next morning, however, we made an early start, and 
 got triumphantly to our journey's end at about half- 
 past ten o'clock. My own country, which lay con- 
 siderably lower, was entirely free of snow, while we 
 learnt afterwards that it had never been deeper than 
 four inches. 
 
 Chapter VIII 
 
 Taking up the Run Hut within the Boundary Land Regulations 
 Race to Christ Church Contest for Priority of Application 
 Successful issue Winds and their Effects Their conflicting 
 Currents Sheep crossing the River. 
 
 HERE was a little hut on my run built by another 
 
 person, and tenanted by his shepherd. G 
 had an application for 5,000 acres in the same block of 
 country with mine, and as the boundaries were un- 
 certain until the whole was surveyed, and the runs 
 definitely marked out on the Government maps, he had 
 placed his hut upon a spot that turned out eventually 
 not to belong to him. I had waited to see how the land 
 was allotted before I took it up. Knowing the country 
 well, and finding it allotted to my satisfaction, I made 
 my bargain on the same day that the question was 
 settled. I took a tracing from the Government map 
 up with me, and we arrived on the run about a fortnight 
 
 T
 
 Land Regulations 103 
 
 after the allotment. It was necessary for me to wait for 
 this, or I might have made the same mistake which 
 G had done. His hut was placed where it was now 
 of no use to him whatever, but on the very site on which 
 I had myself intended to build. It is beyond all 
 
 possibility of doubt upon my run ; but G is a very 
 
 difficult man to deal with, and I have had a hard task 
 to get rid of him. To allow him to remain where he was 
 was not to be thought of : but I was perfectly ready to 
 pay him for his hut (such as it is) and his yard. Know- 
 ing him to be at P 's, I set the men to their contract, 
 
 and went down next day to see him and to offer him 
 any compensation for the loss of his hut which a 
 third party might arrange. I could do nothing with 
 him ; he threatened fiercely, and would hear no 
 reason. My only remedy was to go down to Christ 
 Church at once and buy the freehold of the site from 
 the Government. 
 
 The Canterbury regulations concerning the purchase 
 of waste lands from the Crown are among the very best 
 existing. They are all free to any purchaser with the 
 exception of a few Government reserves for certain 
 public purposes, as railway-township reserves, and so 
 forth. Every run-holder has a pre-emptive right over 
 250 acres round his homestead, and 50 acres round any 
 other buildings he may have upon his run. He must 
 register this right, or it is of no avail. By this means 
 he is secured from an enemy buying up his homestead 
 without his previous knowledge. Whoever wishes to 
 purchase a sheep farmer's homestead must first give him 
 a considerable notice, and then can only buy if the 
 occupant refuses to do so at the price of 2 an acre. 
 Of course the occupant would not refuse, and the thing
 
 IO4 .Canterbury Settlement 
 
 is consequently never attempted. All the rest, how- 
 ever, of any man's run is open to purchase at the rate 
 of 2 per acre. This price is sufficient to prevent 
 monopoly, and yet not high enough to interfere with 
 the small capitalist. The sheep farmer cannot buy up 
 his run and stand in the way of the development of the 
 country, and at the same time he is secured from the 
 loss of it through others buying, because the price is too 
 high to make it worth a man's while to do so when so 
 much better investments are still open. On the plains, 
 however, many run-holders are becoming seriously 
 uneasy even at the present price, and blocks of 1000 
 acres are frequently bought with a view to their being 
 fenced in and laid down in English grasses. In the 
 back country this has not yet commenced, nor is it 
 likely to do so for many years. 
 
 But to return. Firstly, G had not registered 
 
 any pre-emptive right, and, secondly, if he had it would 
 have been worthless, because his hut was situated on 
 my run and not on his own. I was sure that he had 
 not bought the freehold ; I was also certain that he 
 meant to buy it. So, well knowing there was not a 
 moment to lose, I went towards Christ Church the 
 same afternoon, and supped at a shepherd's hut three 
 miles lower down, and intended to travel quietly all 
 night. 
 
 The Ashburton, however, was heavily freshed, and 
 the night was pitch dark. After crossing and re-crossing 
 it four times I was afraid to go on, and camping 
 down, waited for daylight. Resuming my journey 
 with early dawn, I had not gone far when, happening to 
 turn round, I saw a man on horseback about a quarter 
 of a mile behind me. I knew at once that this was
 
 Race to Christ Church 105 
 
 G , and letting him come up with me, we rode for 
 
 some miles together, each of us of course well aware of 
 the other's intentions, but too politic to squabble about 
 them when squabbling was no manner of use. It was 
 then early on the Wednesday morning, and the Board 
 sat on the following day. A book is kept at the Land- 
 Office called the application-book, in which anyone who 
 has business with the Board enters his name, and his 
 case is attended to in the order in which his name 
 
 stands. The race between G and myself was as to 
 
 who should first get his name down in this book, and 
 secure the ownership of the hut by purchasing the 
 freehold of twenty acres round it. We had nearly a 
 hundred miles to ride ; the office closed at four in the 
 
 afternoon, and I knew that G could not possibly 
 
 be in time for that day ; I had therefore till ten 
 o'clock on the following morning ; that is to say, about 
 twenty-four hours from the time we parted company. 
 Knowing that I could be in town by that time, I took 
 it easily, and halted for breakfast at the first station we 
 
 came to. G went on, and I saw him no more. 
 
 I feared that our applications would be simultaneous, 
 or that we should have an indecorous scuffle for the 
 book in the Land Office itself. In this case, there would 
 only have remained the unsatisfactory alternative of 
 drawing lots for precedence. There was nothing for it 
 but to go on, and see how matters would turn up. 
 Before midday, and whilst still sixty miles from town, 
 my horse knocked-up completely, and would not go 
 
 another step. G 's horse, only two months before, 
 
 had gone a hundred miles in less than fifteen hours, and 
 was now pitted against mine, which was thoroughly 
 done-up. Rather anticipating this, I had determined
 
 106 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 on keeping the tracks, thus passing stations where I 
 
 might have a chance of getting a fresh mount. G 
 
 took a short cut, saving fully ten miles in distance, but 
 travelling over a very stony country, with no track. A 
 track is a great comfort to a horse. 
 
 I shall never forget my relief when, at a station where 
 I had already received great kindness, I obtained the 
 loan of a horse that had been taken up that morning 
 from a three-months' spell. No greater service could, 
 at the time, have been rendered me, and I felt that I 
 had indeed met with a friend in need. 
 
 The prospect was now brilliant, save that the Rakaia 
 was said to be very heavily freshed. Fearing I might 
 
 have to swim for it, I left my watch at M 's, and 
 
 went on with the satisfactory reflection that, at any 
 
 rate, if I could not cross, G could not do so either. 
 
 To my delight, however, the river was very low, and I 
 forded it without the smallest difficulty a little before 
 sunset. A few hours afterwards, down it came. I 
 
 heard that G was an hour ahead of me, but this 
 
 was of no consequence. Riding ten miles farther, and 
 now only twenty-five miles from Christ Church, I called 
 
 at an accommodation-house, and heard that G was 
 
 within, so went on, and determined to camp and rest my 
 horse. The night was again intensely dark, and it soon 
 came on to rain so heavily that there was nothing for it 
 but to start again for the next accommodation-house, 
 twelve miles from town. I slept there a few hours, and 
 by seven o'clock next morning was in Christ Church. 
 
 So was G . We could neither of us do anything 
 
 till the Land Office opened at ten o'clock. At twenty 
 minutes before ten I repaired thither, expecting to find 
 G - in waiting, and anticipating a row. If it came
 
 Application at Land Office 107 
 
 to fists, I should get the worst of it that was a moral 
 certainty and I really half-feared something of the 
 kind. To my surprise, the office-doors were open all 
 the rooms were open and on reaching that in which 
 the application-book was kept, I found it already upon 
 the table. I opened it with trembling fingers, and saw 
 my adversary's name written in bold handwriting, 
 defying me, as it were, to do my worst. 
 
 The clock, as the clerk was ready to witness, was 
 twenty minutes before ten. I learnt from him also 
 that G - had written his name down about half an 
 hour. This was all right. My course was to wait till 
 after ten, write my name, and oppose G 's applica- 
 tion as having been entered unduly, and before office- 
 hours. I have no doubt that I should have succeeded 
 in gaining my point in this way, but a much easier 
 victory was in store for me. 
 
 Running my eye through the list of names, to my 
 great surprise I saw my own among them. It had been 
 entered by my solicitor, on another matter of business, 
 
 the previous day, but it stood next below G 's. 
 
 G 's name, then, had clearly been inserted unfairly, 
 out of due order. The whole thing was made clear to 
 the Commissioners of the Waste Lands, and I need not 
 say that I effected my purchase without difficulty. A 
 few weeks afterwards, allowing him for his hut and 
 
 yard, I bought G out entirely. I will now return 
 
 to the Rangitata. 
 
 There is a large flat on either side of it, sloping very 
 gently down to the river-bed proper, which is from one 
 to two miles across. The one flat belongs to me, and 
 that on the north bank to another. The river is very 
 easily crossed, as it flows in a great many channels ; in
 
 io8 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 a fresh, therefore, it is still often fordable. We found 
 it exceedingly low, as the preceding cold had frozen up 
 the sources, whilst the nor'-wester that followed was of 
 short duration, and unaccompanied with the hot 
 tropical rain which causes the freshes. The nor'- 
 westers are vulgarly supposed to cause freshes simply 
 by melting the snow upon the back ranges. We, how- 
 ever, and all who live near the great range, and see 
 the nor'-wester while still among the snowy ranges, 
 know for certain that the river does not rise more 
 than two or three inches, nor lose its beautiful milky 
 blue colour, unless the wind be accompanied with 
 rain upon the great range rain extending sometimes 
 as low down as the commencement of the plains. 
 These rains are warm and heavy, and make the feed 
 beautifully green. 
 
 The nor'-westers are a very remarkable feature in 
 the climate of this settlement. They are excessively 
 violent, sometimes shaking the very house ; hot, dry, 
 from having already poured out their moisture, and 
 enervating like the Italian sirocco. The fact seems to 
 be, that the nor' -west winds come heated from the 
 tropics, and charged with moisture from the ocean, 
 and this is precipitated by the ice-fields of the moun- 
 tains in deluges of rain, chiefly on the western side, but 
 occasionally extending some distance to the east. 
 They blow from two or three hours to as many days, 
 and if they last any length of time, are generally 
 succeeded by a sudden change to sou'-west the cold, 
 rainy, or snowy wind. We catch the nor' -west in full 
 force, but are sheltered from the sou'-west, which, 
 with us, is a quiet wind, accompanied with gentle 
 drizzling but cold rain, and, in the winter, snow.
 
 North- Westers 109 
 
 The nor'-wester is first descried on the river-bed. 
 Through the door of my hut, from which the snowy 
 range is visible, at our early breakfast, I see a lovely 
 summer's morning, breathlessly quiet, and intensely 
 hot. Suddenly a little cloud of dust is driven down 
 the river-bed a mile and a half off ; it increases, till 
 one would think the river was on fire, and that the 
 opposite mountains were obscured by volumes of 
 smoke. Still it is calm with us. By and by, as the 
 day increases, the wind gathers strength, and, extend- 
 ing beyond the river-bed, gives the flats on either side 
 a benefit ; then it catches the downs, and generally 
 blows hard till four or five o'clock, when it calms 
 down, and is followed by a cool and tranquil night, 
 delightful to every sense. If, however, the wind does 
 not cease, and it has been raining up the gorges, there 
 will be a fresh ; and, if the rain has come down any 
 distance from the main range, it will be a heavy fresh ; 
 while if there has been a clap or two of thunder (a 
 very rare occurrence), it will be a fresh in which the 
 river will not be fordable. The floods come and go 
 with great rapidity. The river will begin to rise a 
 very few hours after the rain commences, and will 
 generally have subsided to its former level about forty- 
 eight hours after the rain has ceased. 
 
 As we generally come in for the tail-end of the nor'- 
 western rains, so we sometimes, though less frequently, 
 get that of the sou'-west winds also. The sou'-west 
 rain comes to us up the river through the lower gorge, 
 and is consequently sou'-east rain with us, owing to 
 the direction of the valley. But it is always called 
 sou'-west if it comes from the southward at all. In 
 fact, there are only three recognised winds, the north-
 
 no Canterbury Settlement 
 
 west, the north-east, and the south-west, and I never 
 recollect perceiving the wind to be in any other 
 quarter, saving from local causes. The north-east is 
 most prevalent in summer, and blows with delightful 
 freshness during the greater part of the day, often 
 rendering the hottest weather very pleasant. 
 
 It is curious to watch the battle between the north- 
 west and south-east wind, as we often see it. For some 
 days, perhaps, the upper gorges may have been obscured 
 with dark and surging clouds, and the snowy ranges 
 hidden from view. Suddenly the mountains at the 
 lower end of the valley become banked-up with clouds, 
 and the sand begins to blow up the river-bed some 
 miles below, while it is still blowing down with us. 
 The southerly " burster," as it is called, gradually 
 creeps up, and at last drives the other off the field. A 
 few chilly puffs, then a great one, and in a minute or 
 two the air becomes cold, even in the height of summer. 
 Indeed, I have seen snow fall on the I2th of January. 
 It was not much, but the air was as cold as in mid- 
 winter. 
 
 The force of the south-west wind is here broken by 
 the front ranges, and on these it often leaves its rain or 
 snow, while we are quite exempt from either. We fre- 
 quently hear both of more rain and of more snow on the 
 plains than we have had, though my hut is at an eleva- 
 tion of 1840 feet above the level of the sea. On the 
 plains, it will often blow for forty-eight hours, accom- 
 panied by torrents of pelting, pitiless rain, and is some- 
 times so violent, that there is hardly any possibility of 
 making headway against it. Sheep race before it as 
 hard as they can go helter-skelter, leaving their lambs 
 behind them to shift for themselves. There is no
 
 Conflict of Winds 1 1 1 
 
 shelter on the plains, and, unless stopped by the shep- 
 herds, they will drive from one river to the next. The 
 shepherds, therefore, have a hard time of it, for they 
 must be out till the wind goes down ; and the worse the 
 weather the more absolutely necessary it is that they 
 should be with the sheep. Different flocks not unfre- 
 quently join during these gales, and the nuisance to 
 both the owners is very great. 
 
 In the back country, sheep can always find shelter 
 in the gullies, or under the lee of the mountain. 
 
 We have here been singularly favoured with regard 
 to snow this last winter, for whereas I was absolutely 
 detained by the snow upon the plains on my way from 
 Christ Church, because my horse would have had 
 nothing to eat had I gone on, when I arrived at home 
 I found they had been all astonishment as to what 
 could possibly have been keeping me so long away. 
 
 The nor '-westers sometimes blow even in mid-winter, 
 but are most frequent in spring and summer, sometimes 
 continuing for a fortnight together. 
 
 During a nor'-wester, the sand on the river-bed is 
 blinding, filling eyes, nose, and ears, and stinging 
 sharply every exposed part. I lately had the felicity of 
 getting a small mob of sheep into the river-bed (with a 
 view of crossing them on to my own country) whilst this 
 wind was blowing. There were only between seven and 
 eight hundred, and as we were three, with two dogs, we 
 expected to be able to put them through ourselves. 
 We did so through the two first considerable streams, 
 and then could not get them to move on any farther. 
 As they paused, I will take the opportunity to digress 
 and describe the process of putting sheep across a 
 river.
 
 1 1 2 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 The first thing is to carefully secure a spot fitted for 
 the purpose, for which the principal requisites are : first, 
 that the current set for the opposite bank, so that the 
 sheep will be carried towards it. Sheep cannot swim 
 against a strong current, and if the stream be flowing 
 evenly down mid-channel, they will be carried down a 
 long way before they land ; if, however, it sets at all 
 towards the side from which they started, they will 
 probably be landed by the stream on that same side. 
 Therefore the current should flow towards the opposite 
 bank. Secondly, there must be a good landing-place 
 for the sheep. A spot must not be selected where the 
 current sweeps underneath a hollow bank of gravel or a 
 perpendicular wall of shingle ; the bank on to which the 
 sheep are to land must shelve, no matter how steeply, 
 provided it does not rise perpendicularly out of the 
 water. Thirdly, a good place must be chosen for putting 
 them in ; the water must not become deep all at once, 
 or the sheep won't face it. It must be shallow at the 
 commencement, so that they may have got too far to 
 recede before they find their mistake. Fourthly, there 
 should be no tutu in the immediate vicinity of either 
 the place where the sheep are put into the river or that 
 on to which they are to come out ; for, in spite of your 
 most frantic endeavours, you will be very liable to get 
 some sheep tuted. These requisites being secured, the 
 depth of the water is, of course, a matter of no moment ; 
 the narrowness of the stream being a point of far greater 
 importance. These rivers abound in places combining 
 every requisite. 
 
 The sheep being mobbed up together near the spot 
 where they are intended to enter the water, the best 
 plan is to split off a small number, say a hundred or
 
 Sheep Crossing the River 113 
 
 hundred and fifty (a larger mob would be less easily 
 managed), dog them, bark at them yourself furiously, 
 beat them, spread out arms and legs to prevent their 
 escaping, and raise all the unpleasant din about their 
 ears that you possibly can. In spite of all that you 
 can do they will very likely break through you and 
 make back ; if so, persevere as before, and in about 
 ten minutes a single sheep will be seen eyeing the 
 opposite bank, and evidently meditating an attempt to 
 gain it. Pause a moment that you interrupt not a 
 consummation so devoutly to be wished ; the sheep 
 bounds forward with three or four jumps into mid- 
 stream, is carried down, and thence on to the opposite 
 bank ; immediately that one sheep has entered, let 
 one man get into the river below them, and splash 
 water up at them to keep them from working lower 
 and lower down the stream and getting into a bad 
 place ; let another be bringing up the remainder of 
 the mob, so that they may have come up before the 
 whole of the leading body are over ; if this be done 
 they will cross in a string of their own accord, and 
 there will be no more trouble from the moment when 
 the first sheep entered the water. 
 
 If the sheep are obstinate and will not take the 
 water, it is a good plan to haul one or two over first, 
 pulling them through by the near hind leg ; these will 
 often entice the others, or a few lambs will encourage 
 their mothers to come over to them, unless indeed they 
 immediately swim back to their mothers : the first was 
 the plan we adopted. 
 
 As I said, our sheep were got across the first two 
 streams without much difficulty ; then they became 
 completely silly. The awful wind, so high that we could
 
 H4 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 scarcely hear ourselves talk, the blinding sand, the cold 
 glacier water, rendered more chilling by the strong wind, 
 which, contrary to custom, was very cold, all combined 
 to make them quite stupid ; the little lambs stuck up 
 their backs and shut their eyes and looked very shaky 
 on their legs, while the bigger ones and the ewes would 
 do nothing but turn round and stare at us. Our dogs 
 knocked-up completely, and we ourselves were some- 
 what tired and hungry, partly from night-watching and 
 partly from having fasted since early dawn, whereas it 
 was now four o'clock. Still we must get the sheep 
 over somehow, for a heavy fresh was evidently about 
 to come down ; the river was yet low, and could we 
 get them over before dark they would be at home. I 
 rode home to fetch assistance and food ; these arriv- 
 ing, by our united efforts we got them over every 
 stream, save the last, before eight o'clock, and then 
 it became quite dark, and we left them. The wind 
 changed from very cold to very hot it literally blew 
 hot and cold in the same breath. Rain came down 
 in torrents, six claps of thunder (thunder is very 
 rare here) followed in succession about midnight, 
 and very uneasy we all were. Next morning, before 
 daybreak, we were by the river side ; the fresh had 
 come down, and we crossed over to the sheep with 
 difficulty, finding them up to their bellies in water 
 huddled up in a mob together. We shifted them 
 on to one of the numerous islands, where they were 
 secure, and had plenty of feed, and with great diffi- 
 culty recrossed, the river having greatly risen since we 
 had got upon its bed. In two days' time it had gone 
 down sufficiently to allow of our getting the sheep 
 over, and we did so without the loss of a single one.
 
 Plants 115 
 
 I hardly know why I have introduced this into an 
 account of a trip with a bullock dray ; it is, however, a 
 colonial incident, such as might happen any day. In a 
 life of continual excitement one thinks very little of 
 these things. They may, however, serve to give 
 English readers a glimpse of some of the numerous 
 incidents wMch, constantly occurring in one shape or 
 other, render the life of a colonist not only endurable, 
 but actually pleasant. 
 
 Chapter IX 
 
 Plants of Canterbury Turnip Tutu Ferns Ti Palm 
 Birds Paradise Duck Tern Quail Wood Hen Robin 
 Linnet Pigeon Moa New Parroquet Quadrupeds 
 Eels Insects Weta Lizards . 
 
 r I ^HE flora of this province is very disappointing, 
 J. and the absence of beautiful flowers adds to the 
 uninteresting character which too generally pervades 
 the scenery, save among the great Southern Alps 
 themselves. There is no burst of bloom as there is in 
 Switzerland and Italy, and the trees being, with few 
 insignificant exceptions, all evergreen, the difference 
 between winter and summer is chiefly perceptible by 
 the state of the grass and the temperature. I do not 
 know one really pretty flower which belongs to the 
 plains ; I believe there are one or two, but they are 
 rare, and form no feature in the landscape. I never 
 yet saw a blue flower growing wild here, nor indeed 
 one of any other colour but white or yellow ; if there 
 are such they do not prevail, and their absence is 
 sensibly felt. We have no soldanellas and auriculas, 
 and Alpine cowslips, no brilliant gentians and anemones.
 
 n6 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 We have one very stupid white gentian ; but it is, to 
 say the least of it, uninteresting to a casual observer. 
 We have violets, very like those at home, but they 
 are small and white, and have no scent. We have 
 also a daisy, very like the English, but not nearly so 
 pretty ; we have a great ugly sort of Michaelmas 
 daisy too, and any amount of Spaniard. I do not 
 say but that by hunting on the peninsula, one might 
 find one or two beautiful species, but simply that on 
 the whole the flowers are few and ugly. The only 
 plant good to eat is Maori cabbage, and that is swede 
 turnip gone wild, from seed left by Captain Cook. 
 Some say it is indigenous, but I do not believe it. 
 The Maoris carry the seed about with them, and 
 sow it wherever they camp. I should rather write, 
 used to sow it where they camped, for the Maoris in 
 this island are almost a thing of the past. 
 
 The root of the Spaniard, it should be added, will 
 support life for some little time. 
 
 Tutu (pronounced toot) is a plant which abounds 
 upon the plains for some few miles near the river-beds ; 
 it is at first sight not much unlike myrtle, but is in 
 reality a wholly different sort of plant ; it dies down in 
 the winter, and springs up again from its old roots. 
 These roots are sometimes used for firewood, and are 
 very tough, so much so as not unfrequently to break 
 ploughs. It is poisonous for sheep and cattle if eaten 
 on an empty stomach. 
 
 New Zealand is rich in ferns. We have a tree-fern 
 which grows as high as twenty feet. We have also 
 some of the English species ; among them I believe 
 the Hymenophyllum Tunbridgcnse, with many of the 
 same tribe. I see a little fern which, to my eyes, is
 
 Birds 117 
 
 our English Asplenimn Trichomanes. Every English 
 fern which I know has a variety something like it here, 
 though seldom identical. We have one to correspond 
 with the adder's tongue and moonwort, with the 
 Adiantum nigrum and Capillus Veneris, with the 
 Blechnum boreale, with the Ceterach and Ruta 
 muraria, and with the Cystopterids. I never saw a 
 Woodsia here ; but I think that every other English 
 family is represented, and that we have many more 
 besides. On the whole, the British character of many 
 of the ferns is rather striking, as indeed is the case 
 with our birds and insects ; but, with a few con- 
 spicuous exceptions, the old country has greatly the 
 advantage over us. 
 
 The cabbage-tree or ti palm is not a true palm, 
 though it looks like one. It has not the least resem- 
 blance to a cabbage. It has a tuft of green leaves, 
 which are rather palmy-looking at a distance, and 
 which springs from the top of a pithy, worthless stem, 
 varying from one to twenty or thirty feet in height. 
 Sometimes the stem is branched at the top, and each 
 branch ends in a tuft. The flax and the cabbage- 
 tree and the tussock-grass are the great botanical 
 features of the country. Add fern and tutu, and for 
 the back country, spear-grass and Irishman, and 
 we have summed up such prevalent plants as strike 
 the eye. 
 
 As for the birds, they appear at first sight very 
 few indeed. On the plains one sees a little lark with 
 two white feathers in the tail, and in other respects 
 exactly like the English skylark, save that he does 
 not soar, and has only a little chirrup instead of song. 
 There are also paradise ducks, hawks, terns, red-bills,
 
 1 1 8 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 and sand-pipers, seagulls, and occasionally, though very 
 rarely, a quail. 
 
 The paradise duck is a very beautiful bird. The 
 male appears black, with white on the wing, when 
 flying : when on the ground, however, he shows some 
 dark greys and glossy greens and russets, which make 
 him very handsome. He is truly a goose, and not a 
 duck. He says " whiz " through his throat, and dwells 
 a long time upon the " z." He is about the size of a 
 farmyard duck. The plumage of the female is really 
 gorgeous. Her head is pure white, and her body beauti- 
 fully coloured with greens and russets and white. 
 She screams, and does not say " whiz." Her mate is 
 much fonder of her than she is of him, for if she is 
 wounded he will come to see what is the matter, 
 whereas if Tie is hurt his base partner flies instantly off 
 and seeks new wedlock, affording a fresh example of 
 the superior fidelity of the male to the female sex. 
 When they have young, they feign lameness, like the 
 plover. I have several times been thus tricked by 
 them. One soon, however, becomes an old bird oneself, 
 and is not to be caught with such chaff any more. 
 We look about for the young ones, clip off the top joint 
 of one wing, and leave them ; thus, in a few months' 
 time, we can get prime young ducks for the running after 
 them. The old birds are very bad eating. I rather 
 believe they are aware of this, for they are very bold, 
 and come very close to us. There are two that con- 
 stantly come within ten yards of my hut, and I hope 
 mean to build in the neighbourhood, for the eggs are 
 excellent. Being geese, and not ducks, they eat grass. 
 The young birds are called flappers till they can fly, and 
 can be run down easily.
 
 Wood Hens 119 
 
 The hawk is simply a large hawk, and to the un- 
 scientific nothing more. There is a small sparrow- 
 hawk, too, which is very bold, and which will attack a 
 man if he goes near its nest. 
 
 The tern is a beautiful little bird about twice as 
 big as a swallow, and somewhat resembling it in its 
 flight, but much more graceful. It has a black satin 
 head, and lavender satin and white over the rest of its 
 body. It has an orange bill and feet ; and is not seen 
 in the back country during the winter. 
 
 The red-bill is, I believe, identical with the oyster- 
 catcher of the Cornish coast. It has a long orange bill, 
 and orange feet, and is black and white over the body. 
 
 The sand-piper is very like the lark in plumage. 
 
 The quail is nearly exterminated. It is exactly like 
 a small partridge, and is most excellent eating. Ten 
 years ago it was very abundant, but now it is very 
 rarely seen. The poor little thing is entirely defence- 
 less ; it cannot take more than three flights, and then it 
 is done up. Some say the fires have destroyed them ; 
 some say the sheep have trod on their eggs ; some that 
 they have all been hunted down : my own opinion is 
 that the wild cats, which have increased so as to be very 
 numerous, have driven the little creatures nearly off 
 the face of the earth. 
 
 There are wood hens also on the plains ; but, though 
 very abundant, they are not much seen. The wood hen 
 is a bird rather resembling the pheasant tribe in plum- 
 age, but not so handsome. It has a long, sharp bill 
 and long feet. It is about the size of a hen. It cannot 
 fly, ( but sticks its little bob-tail up and down whenever 
 it walks, and has a curious Paul-Pry-like gait, which 
 is rather amusing. It is exceedingly bold, and will
 
 I2O Canterbury Settlement 
 
 come sometimes right into a house. It is an arrant 
 thief, moreover, and will steal anything. I know of a 
 case in which one was seen to take up a gold watch, 
 and run off with it, and of another in which a number 
 of men, who were camping out, left their pannikins at 
 the camp, and on their return found them all gone, and 
 only recovered them by hearing the wood hens tapping 
 their bills against them. Anything bright excites their 
 greed ; anything red, their indignation. They are 
 reckoned good eating by some ; but most people think 
 them exceedingly rank and unpleasant. From fat wood 
 hens a good deal of oil can be got, and this oil is very 
 valuable for almost anything where oil is wanted. It is 
 sovereign for rheumatics, and wounds or bruises ; item 
 for softening one's boots, and so forth. The egg is 
 about the size of a guinea fowl's, dirtily streaked, and 
 spotted with a dusky purple ; it is one of the best 
 eating eggs I have ever tasted. 
 
 I must not omit to mention the white crane, a very 
 beautiful bird, with immense wings, of the purest white ; 
 and the swamp hen, with a tail which it is constantly 
 bobbing up and down like the wood hen ; it has a 
 good deal of bluish purple about it, and is very hand- 
 some. 
 
 There are other birds on the plains, especially about 
 the river-beds, but not many worthy of notice. 
 
 In the back country, however, we have a consider- 
 able variety. I have mentioned the kaka and the 
 parroquet. 
 
 The robin is a pretty little fellow, in build and 
 manners very like our English robin, but tamer. His 
 plumage, however, is different, for he has a dusky black 
 tail coat and a pale canary-coloured waistcoat. When
 
 Robin 121 
 
 one is camping out, no sooner has one lit one's fire 
 than several robins make their appearance, prying into 
 one's whole proceedings with true robin-like impudence. 
 They have never probably seen a fire before, and are 
 rather puzzled by it. I heard of one which first lighted 
 on the embers, which were covered with ashes ; finding 
 this unpleasant, he hopped on to a burning twig ; this 
 was worse, so the third time he lighted on a red-hot 
 coal ; whereat, much disgusted, he took himself off, I 
 hope escaping with nothing but a blistered toe. They 
 frequently come into my hut. I watched one hop in a 
 few mornings ago, when the breakfast things were set. 
 First he tried the bread that was good ; then he tried 
 the sugar that was good also ; then he tried the salt, 
 which he instantly rejected ; and, lastly, he tried a cup 
 of hot tea, on which he flew away. I have seen them 
 light on a candle (not a lighted one) and peck the tallow. 
 I fear, however, that these tame ones are too often 
 killed by the cats. 
 
 The tomtit is like its English namesake in shape, but 
 smaller, and with a glossy black head and bright yellow 
 breast. 
 
 The wren is a beautiful little bird, much smaller than 
 the English one, and with green about its plumage. 
 
 The tui or parson-bird is a starling, and has a small 
 tuft of white cravat-like feathers growing from his 
 throat. True to his starling nature, he has a delicious 
 voice. 
 
 We have a thrush, but it is rather rare. It is just 
 like the English, save that it has some red feathers in 
 its tail. 
 
 Our teal is, if not the same as the English teal, so 
 like it, that the difference is not noticeable.
 
 122 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 Our linnet is a little larger than the English, with a 
 clear, bell-like voice, as of a blacksmith's hammer on an 
 anvil. Indeed, we might call him the harmonious 
 blacksmith. 
 
 The pigeon is larger than the English, and far hand- 
 somer. He has much white and glossy green shot with 
 purple about him, and is one of the most beautiful birds 
 I ever saw. He is very foolish, and can be noosed with 
 ease. Tie a string with a noose at the end of it to a 
 long stick, and you may put it round his neck and catch 
 him. The kakas, too, will let you do this, and in a few 
 days become quite tame. 
 
 Besides these, there is an owl or two. These are 
 heard occasionally, but not seen. Often at night one 
 hears a solemn cry of " More pork ! more pork ! more 
 pork ! " I have heard people talk, too, of a laughing 
 jackass (not the Australian bird of that name), but no 
 one has ever seen it. 
 
 Occasionally we hear rumours of the footprint of a 
 moa, and the Nelson surveyors found fresh foot-tracks 
 of a bird, which were measured for fourteen inches. Of 
 this there can be little doubt ; but since a wood hen's 
 foot measures four inches, and a wood hen does not 
 stand higher than a hen, fourteen inches is hardly long 
 enough for the track of a moa, the largest kind of which 
 stood fifteen feet high. We often find some of their 
 bones lying in a heap upon the ground, but never a 
 perfect skeleton. Little heaps of their gizzard stones, 
 too, are constantly found. They consist of very smooth 
 and polished flints and cornelians, with sometimes 
 quartz. The bird generally chose rather pretty stones. 
 I do not remember finding a single sandstone specimen 
 of a moa gizzard stone. Those heaps are easily dis-
 
 Moa Egg 123 
 
 tinguished, and very common. Few people believe in 
 the existence of a moa. If one or two be yet living, 
 they will probably be found on the West Coast, that yet 
 unexplored region of forest which may contain sleeping 
 princesses and gold in ton blocks, and all sorts of good 
 things. A gentleman who lives at the Kiakoras 
 possesses a moa's egg ; it is ten inches by seven. It was 
 discovered in a Maori grave, and must have been 
 considered precious at the time it was buried, for the 
 Maoris were accustomed to bury a man's valuables 
 with him. 
 
 I really know of few other birds to tell you about. 
 There is a good sprinkling more, but they form no 
 feature in the country, and are only interesting to the 
 naturalist. There is the kiwi, or apteryx, which is 
 about as large as a turkey, but only found on the West 
 Coast. There is a green ground parrot too, called the 
 kakapo, a night bird, and hardly ever found on the 
 eastern side of the island. There is also a very rare and 
 as yet unnamed kind of kaka, much larger and hand- 
 somer than the kaka itself, of which I and another shot 
 one of the first, if not the very first, observed specimen. 
 Being hungry, far from home, and without meat, we 
 ate the interesting creature, but made a note of it for 
 the benefit of science. Since then it has found its way 
 into more worthy hands, and was, a few months ago, 
 sent home to be named. Altogether, I am acquainted 
 with about seventy species of birds belonging to the 
 Canterbury settlement, and I do not think that there 
 are many more. Two albatrosses came to my wool-shed 
 about seven months ago, and a dead one was found at 
 Mount Peel not long since. I did not see the former 
 myself, but my cook, who was a sailor, watched them
 
 124 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 for some time, and his word may be taken. I believe, 
 however, that their coming so far inland is a very rare 
 occurrence here. 
 
 As for the quadrupeds of New Zealand, they are 
 easily disposed of. There are but two, a kind of rat, 
 which is now banished by the Norway rat, and an 
 animal of either the otter or beaver species, which is 
 known rather by rumour than by actual certainty. 
 
 The fishes, too, will give us little trouble. There are 
 only a sort of minnow and an eel. This last grows to a 
 great size, and is abundant even in the clear, rapid, 
 snow-fed rivers. In every creek one may catch eels, 
 and they are excellent eating, if they be cooked in such 
 a manner as to get rid of the oil. 
 
 Try them spitchcocked or stewed, 
 They're too oily when fried, 
 
 as Barham says, with his usual good sense. I am told 
 that the other night a great noise was heard in the 
 kitchen of a gentleman with whom I have the honour 
 to be acquainted, and that the servants, getting up, 
 found an eel chasing a cat round about the room. I 
 believe this story. The eel was in a bucket of water, 
 and doomed to die upon the morrow. Doubtless the 
 cat had attempted to take liberties with him ; on which 
 a sudden thought struck the eel that he might as well 
 eat the cat as the cat eat him ; and he was preparing to 
 suit the action to the word when he was discovered. 
 
 The insects are insignificant and ugly, and, like the 
 plants, devoid of general interest. There is one rather 
 pretty butterfly, like our English tortoiseshell. There 
 is a sprinkling of beetles, a few ants, and a detestable 
 sandfly, that, on quiet, cloudy mornings, especially near
 
 Lizard 125 
 
 water, is more irritating than can be described. This 
 little beast is rather venomous ; and, for the first fort- 
 night or so that I was bitten by it, every bite swelled 
 up to a little hard button. Soon, however, one becomes 
 case-hardened, and only suffers the immediate annoy- 
 ance consequent upon its tickling and pricking. There 
 is also a large assortment of spiders. We have, too, one 
 of the ugliest-looking creatures that I have ever seen. 
 It is called " weta," and is of tawny scorpion-like colour 
 with long antennae and great eyes, and nasty squashy- 
 looking body, with (I think) six legs. It is a kind of 
 animal which no one would wish to touch : if touched, 
 it will bite sharply, some say venomously. It is very 
 common, but not often seen, and lives chiefly among 
 dead wood and under stones. In the North Island, 
 I am told that it grows to the length of three or four 
 inches. Here I never saw it longer than an inch and 
 a half. The principal reptile is an almost ubiquitous 
 lizard. 
 
 Summing up, then, the whole of the vegetable and 
 animal productions of this settlement, I think that it is 
 not too much to say that they are decidedly inferior in 
 beauty and interest to those of the old world. You will 
 think that I have a prejudice against the natural history 
 of Canterbury. I assure you I have no such thing ; and 
 I believe that anyone, on arriving here, would receive 
 a similar impression with myself.
 
 126 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 Chapter X 
 
 Choice of a Run Boundaries Maoris Wages Servants Drunk- 
 enness Cooking Wethers Choice of Homestead Watchful- 
 ness required Burning the Country Yards for Sheep Ewes and 
 Lambs Lambing Season Wool Sheds Sheep Washing Put- 
 ting up a Hut Gardens Farewell. 
 
 IN looking for a run, some distance must be tra- 
 versed ; the country near Christ Church is already 
 stocked. The waste lands are, indeed, said to be wholly 
 taken up throughout the colony, wherever they are 
 capable of supporting sheep. It may, however, be a 
 matter of some satisfaction to a new settler to examine 
 this point for himself, and to consider what he requires 
 in the probable event of having to purchase the good- 
 will of a run, with the improvements upon it, which can 
 hardly be obtained under 150 per 1000 acres. 
 
 A river boundary is most desirable ; the point above 
 or below the confluence of two rivers is still better, as 
 as there are then only two sides to guard. Stony ground 
 must not be considered as an impediment ; grass grows 
 between the stones, and a dray can travel upon it. 
 England must have been a most impracticable country 
 to traverse before metalled roads were made. Here the 
 surface is almost everywhere a compact mass of 
 shingle ; it is for the most part only near the sea that 
 the shingle is covered with soil. Forest and swamp are 
 much greater impediments to a journey than a far 
 greater distance of hard ground would prove. A river 
 such as the Cam or Ouse would be far more difficult to 
 cross without bridges than the Rakaia or Rangitata, 
 notwithstanding their volume and rapidity ; the former
 
 Wages 127 
 
 are deep in mud, and rarely have convenient places at 
 which to get in or out ; while the latter abound in them, 
 and have a stony bed on which the wheels of your dray 
 make no impression. The stony ground will carry a 
 sheep to each acre and a half or two acres. Such diseases 
 as foot-rot are unknown, owing probably to the 
 generally dry surface of the land. 
 
 There are few Maoris here ; they inhabit the north 
 island, and are only in small numbers, and degenerate 
 in this, so may be passed over unnoticed. The only 
 effectual policy in dealing with them is to show a bold 
 front, and, at the same time, do them a good turn when- 
 ever you can be quite certain that your kindness will 
 not be misunderstood as a symptom of fear. There are 
 no wild animals that will molest your sheep. In 
 Australia they have to watch the flocks night and day 
 because of the wild dogs. The yards, of course, are not 
 proof against dogs, and the Australian shepherd's hut 
 is built close against the yard ; here this is unnecessary. 
 
 Having settled that you will take up your country or 
 purchase the lease of it, you must consider next how to 
 get a dray on to it. Horses are not to be thought of 
 except for riding ; you must buy a dray and bullocks. 
 The rivers here are not navigable. 
 
 Wages are high. People do not leave England and 
 go to live at the antipodes to work for the same wages 
 which they had at home. They want to better them- 
 selves as well as you do, and, the supply being limited, 
 they will ask and get from i to 305. a week besides 
 their board and billet. 
 
 You must remember you will have a rough life at 
 first ; there will be a good deal of cold and exposure ; 
 a good deal of tent work ; possibly a fever or two ; to
 
 128 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 say nothing of the seeds of rheumatism which will give 
 you something to meditate upon hereafter. 
 
 You and your men will have to be on rather a 
 different footing from that on which you stood in 
 England. There, if your servant were in any respect 
 what you did not wish, you were certain of getting 
 plenty of others to take his place. Here, if a man does 
 not find you quite what he wishes, he is certain of get- 
 ting plenty of others to employ him. In fact, he is at a 
 premium, and soon finds this out. On really good men 
 this produces no other effect than a demand for high 
 wages. They will be respectful and civil, though there 
 will be a slight but quite unobjectionable difference in 
 their manner toward you. Bad men assume an air of 
 defiance which renders their immediate dismissal a 
 matter of necessity. When you have good men, how- 
 ever, you must recognise the different position in which 
 you stand toward them as compared with that which 
 subsisted at home. The fact is, they are more your 
 equals and more independent of you, and, this being 
 the case, you must treat them accordingly. I do not 
 advise you for one moment to submit to disrespect ; 
 this would be a fatal error. A man whose conduct does 
 not satisfy you must be sent about his business as 
 certainly as in England ; but when you have men who 
 do suit you, you must, besides paying them handsomely, 
 expect them to treat you rather as an English yeoman 
 would speak to the squire of his parish than as an 
 English labourer would speak to him. The labour 
 markets will not be so bad but that good men can be 
 had, and as long as you put up with bad men it serves 
 you right to be the loser by your weakness. 
 
 Some good hands are very improvident, and will for
 
 Cooking 129 
 
 the most part spend their money in drinking, a very 
 short time after they have earned it. They will come 
 back possibly with a dead horse to work off that is, a 
 debt at the accommodation house and will work hard 
 for another year to have another drinking bout at the 
 end of it. This is a thing fatally common here. Such 
 men are often first-rate hands and thoroughly good 
 fellows when away from drink ; but, on the whole, 
 saving men are perhaps the best. Commend yourself 
 to a good screw for a shepherd ; if he knows the value 
 of money he knows the value of lambs, and if he has 
 contracted the habit of being careful with his own 
 money he will be apt to be so with yours also. But in 
 justice to the improvident, it must be owned they are 
 often admirable men save in the one point of sobriety. 
 
 Their political knowledge is absolutely nil, and, 
 were the colony to give them political power, it might 
 as well give gunpowder to children. 
 
 How many hands shall you want ? 
 
 We will say a couple of good bush hands, who will 
 put up your hut and yards and wool-shed. If you 
 are in a hurry and have plenty of money you can 
 have more. Besides these you will want a bullock 
 driver and shepherd, unless you are shepherd your- 
 self. You must manage the cooking among you as 
 best you can, and must be content to wash up your- 
 self, taking your full part in the culinary processes, 
 or you will soon find disaffection in the camp ; but 
 if you can afford to have a cook, have one by all 
 means. It is a great nuisance to come in from a long 
 round after sheep and find the fire out and no hot 
 water to make tea, and to have to set to work imme- 
 diately to get your men's supper ; for they cannot earn
 
 130 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 their supper and cook it at the same time. The diffi- 
 culty is that good boys are hard to get, and a man that 
 is worth anything at all will hardly take to cooking as 
 a profession. Hence it comes to pass that the cooks 
 are generally indolent and dirty fellows, who don't like 
 hard work. Your college education, if you have had 
 one, will doubtless have made you familiar with the art 
 of making bread ; you will now proceed to discover the 
 mysteries of boiling potatoes. The uses of dripping 
 will begin to dawn upon you, and you will soon become 
 expert in the manufacture of tallow candles. You will 
 wash your own clothes, and will learn that you must 
 not boil flannel shirts, and experience will teach you 
 that you must eschew the promiscuous use of washing 
 soda, tempting though indeed it be if you are in a 
 hurry. If you use collars, I can inform you that Glen- 
 field starch is the only starch used in the laundries of 
 our most gracious Sovereign ; I tell you this in confi- 
 dence, as it is not generally advertised. 
 
 To return to the culinary department. Your natural 
 poetry of palate will teach you the proper treatment of 
 the onion, and you will ere long be able to handle that 
 inestimable vegetable with the breadth yet delicacy 
 which it requires. Many other things you will learn, 
 which for your sake as well as my own I will not 
 enumerate here. Let the above suffice for examples. 
 
 At first your wethers will run with your ewes, and 
 you will only want one shepherd ; but as soon as the 
 mob gets up to two or three thousand the wethers 
 should be kept separate ; you will then want another 
 shepherd. As soon as you have secured your run you 
 must buy sheep ; otherwise you lose time, as the run is 
 only valuable for the sheep it carries. Bring sheep,
 
 Sheep 131 
 
 shepherd, men, stores, all at one and the same time. 
 Some wethers must be included in your purchase, 
 otherwise you will run short of meat, as none of your 
 own breeding will be ready for the knife for a year and 
 a half, to say the least of it. No wether should be 
 killed till it is two years old, and then it is murder to 
 kill an animal which brings you in such good interest 
 by its wool, and would even be better if suffered to live 
 three years longer, when you will have had its value in 
 its successive fleeces. It will, however, pay you better 
 to invest nearly all your money in ewes, and to kill 
 your own young stock, than to sink more capital than 
 is absolutely necessary in wethers. 
 
 Start your dray, then, from town and join it with 
 your sheep on the way up. Your sheep will not travel 
 more than ten miles a day if you are to do them 
 justice ; so your dray must keep pace with them. 
 You will generally find plenty of firewood on the 
 track. You can camp under the dray at night. In 
 about a week you will get on to your run, and very 
 glad you will feel when you are safely come to the 
 end of your journey. See the horses properly looked 
 to at once ; then set up the tent, make a good fire, 
 put the kettle on, out with the frying-pan and get 
 your supper, smoke the calumet of peace, and go to 
 bed. 
 
 The first question is, Where shall you place your 
 homestead ? You must put it in such a situation as 
 will be most convenient for working the sheep. These 
 are the real masters of the place the run is theirs, not 
 yours : you cannot bear this in mind too diligently. 
 All considerations of pleasantness of site must succumb 
 to this. You must fix on such a situation as not to cut
 
 132 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 up the run, by splitting off a little corner too small to 
 give the sheep free scope and room. They will fight 
 rather shy of your homestead, you may be certain ; so 
 the homestead must be out of their way. You must, 
 however, have water and firewood at hand, which is a 
 great convenience, to say nothing of the saving of 
 labour and expense. Therefore, if you can find a bush 
 near a stream, make your homestead on the lee side of 
 it. A stream is a boundary, and your hut, if built in 
 such a position, will interfere with your sheep as little 
 as possible. 
 
 The sheep will make for rising ground and hill-side 
 to camp at night, and generally feed with their heads 
 up the wind, if it is not too violent. As your mob 
 increases, you can put an out-station on the other 
 side the run. 
 
 In order to prevent the sheep straying beyond your 
 boundaries, keep ever hovering at a distance round 
 them, so far off that they shall not be disturbed by your 
 presence, and even be ignorant that you are looking at 
 them. Sheep cannot be too closely watched, or too 
 much left to themselves. You must remember they are 
 your masters, and not you theirs ; you exist for them, 
 not they for you. If you bear this well in mind, you 
 will be able to turn the tables on them effectually at 
 shearing-time. But if you once begin to make the 
 sheep suit their feeding-hours to your convenience, you 
 may as well give up sheep-farming at once. You will 
 soon find the mob begin to look poor, your percentage 
 of lambs will fall off, and in fact you will have to pay 
 very heavily for saving your own trouble, as indeed 
 would be the case in every occupation or profession 
 you might adopt.
 
 Keeping the Boundaries 133 
 
 Of course you will have to turn your sheep back 
 when they approach the boundary of your neighbour. 
 Be ready, then, at the boundary. You have been 
 watching them creeping up in a large semicircle toward 
 the forbidden ground. As long as they are on their 
 own run let them alone, give them not a moment's 
 anxiety of mind ; but directly they reach the boundary, 
 show yourself with your dog in your most terrific 
 aspect. Startle them, frighten them, disturb their 
 peace ; do so again and again, at the same spot, from 
 the very first day. Let them always have peace on 
 their own run, and none anywhere off it. In a month 
 or two you will find the sheep begin to understand 
 your meaning, and it will then be very easy work to 
 keep them within bounds. If, however, you suffer 
 them to have half an hour now and then on the for- 
 bidden territory, they will be constantly making for 
 it. The chances are that the feed is good on or about 
 the boundary, and they will be seduced by this to 
 cross, and go on and on till they are quite beyond your 
 control. 
 
 You will have burnt a large patch of feed on the 
 outset. Burn it in early spring, on a day when rain 
 appears to be at hand. It is dangerous to burn too 
 much at once : a large fire may run farther than you 
 wish, and, being no respecter of imaginary boundaries, 
 will cross on to your neighbour's run without com- 
 punction and without regard to his sheep, and then 
 heavy damages will be brought against you. Burn, 
 however, you must ; so do it carefully. Light one 
 strip first, and keep putting it out by beating it with 
 leafy branches. This will form a fireproof boundary 
 between you and your neighbour.
 
 134 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 Burnt feed means contented and well-conditioned 
 sheep. The delicately green and juicy grass which 
 springs up after burning is far better for sheep than 
 the rank and dry growth of summer after it has been 
 withered by the winter's frosts. Your sheep will not 
 ramble, for if they have plenty of burnt pasture they 
 are contented where they are. They feed in the morn- 
 ing, bunch themselves together in clusters during the 
 heat of the day, and feed again at night. 
 
 Moreover, on burnt pasture, no fire can come down 
 upon you from your neighbour so as to hurt your 
 sheep. 
 
 The day will come when you will have no more occa- 
 sion for burning, when your run will be fully stocked, 
 and the sheep will keep your feed so closely cropped 
 that it will do without it. It is certainly a mortifica- 
 tion to see volumes of smoke rising into the air, and to 
 know that all that smoke might have been wool, and 
 might have been sold by you for 2s. a pound in Eng- 
 land. You will think it great waste, and regret that 
 you have not more sheep to eat it. However, that will 
 come to pass in time ; and meanwhile, if you have not 
 mouths enough upon your run to make wool of it, you 
 must burn it off and make smoke of it instead. There 
 is sure to be a good deal of rough scrub and brushwood 
 on the run, which is better destroyed, and which sheep 
 would hot touch ; therefore, for the ultimate value of 
 your run, it is as well or better that it should be fired 
 than fed off. 
 
 The very first work to be done after your arrival will 
 be to make a yard for your sheep. Make this large 
 enough to hold five or six times as many sheep as you 
 possess at first. It may be square in shape. Place two
 
 Yards for Sheep 
 
 good large gates at the middle of either of the two oppo- 
 site sides. This will be sufficient at first, but, as your 
 flocks increase, a somewhat more complicated arrange- 
 ment will be desirable. 
 
 The sheep, we will suppose, are to be thoroughly 
 overhauled. You wish, for some reason, to inspect their 
 case fully yourself, or you must tail your lambs, in 
 which case every lamb has to be caught, and you will 
 cut its tail off, and ear-mark it with your own ear- 
 mark ; or, again, you will see fit to draft out all the 
 lambs that are ready for weaning ; or you may wish to 
 cull the mob, and sell off the worst-woolled sheep ; or 
 your neighbour's sheep may have joined with yours ; 
 or for many other reasons it is necessary that your 
 flock should be closely examined. Without good yards 
 it is impossible to do this well they are an essential 
 of the highest importance. 
 
 Select, then, a site as dry and stony as possible (for 
 your sheep will have to be put into the yard over 
 night), and at daylight in the morning set to work. 
 
 GATE 
 
 M 
 
 H 
 
 D 
 
 
 o 
 
 ^t^"^ 
 
 
 F GATE ~Q 
 
 GATE B 
 
 GATE A 
 
 M 
 h 
 
 ""-- 
 
 
 o 
 
 E 
 
 
 GATE 
 
 Fill the yard B with sheep from the big yard A. The 
 yard B we will suppose to hold about 600. Fill c from 
 B : c shall hold about 100. When the sheep are in 
 that small yard c (which is called the drafting-yard),
 
 136 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 you can overhaul them, and your men can catch the 
 lambs and hold them up to you over the rail of the yard 
 to ear-mark and tail. There being but 100 sheep in the 
 yard, you can easily run your eye over them. Should 
 you be drafting out sheep or taking your rams out, let 
 the sheep which you are taking out be let into the 
 yards D and E. Or, it may be, you are drafting two 
 different sorts of sheep at once ; then there will be two 
 yards in which to put them. When you have done with 
 the small mob, let it out into the yard F, taking the 
 tally of the sheep as they pass through the gate. This 
 gate, therefore, must be a small one, so as not to admit 
 more than one or two at a time. It would be tedious 
 work filling the small yard c from the big one A ; for 
 in that large space the sheep will run about, and it will 
 take you some few minutes every time. From the 
 smaller yard B, however, c will easily be filled. Among 
 the other great advantages of good yards, there is none 
 greater than the time saved. This is of the highest im- 
 portance, for the ewes will be hungry, and their lambs 
 will have sucked them dry ; and then, as soon as they 
 are turned out of the yards, the mothers will race off 
 after feed, and the lambs, being weak, will lag behind ; 
 and the Merino ewe being a bad mother, the two may 
 never meet again, and the lamb will die. Therefore it 
 is essential to begin work of this sort early in the 
 morning, and to have yards so constructed as to cause 
 as little loss of time as possible. I will not say that the 
 plan given above is the very best that could be devised, 
 but it is common out here, and answers all practical 
 purposes. The weakest point is in the approach to 
 B from A. 
 
 As soon as you have done with the mob, let them
 
 Lambing Season 137 
 
 out. They will race off helter-skelter to feed, and 
 soon be spread out in an ever-widening fan-like shape. 
 Therefore have someone stationed a good way off to 
 check their first burst, and stay them from going too 
 far and leaving their lambs ; after a while, as you sit, 
 telescope in hand, you will see the ewes come bleating 
 back to the yards for their lambs. They have satisfied 
 the first cravings of their hunger, and their motherly 
 feelings are beginning to return. Now, if the sheep 
 have not been kept a little together, the lambs may 
 have gone off after the ewes, and some few will then 
 be pretty certain never to find their mothers again. 
 It is rather a pretty sight to sit on a bank and watch 
 the ewes coming back. There is sure to be a mob of a 
 good many lambs sticking near the yards, and ewe 
 after ewe will come back and rush up affectionately 
 to one lamb after another. A good few will try to 
 palm themselves off upon her. If she is young and 
 foolish, she will be for a short time in doubt ; if she 
 is older and wiser, she will butt away the little im- 
 postors with her head ; but they are very importunate, 
 and will stick to her for a long while. At last, how- 
 ever, she finds her true child, and is comforted. She 
 kisses its nose and tail with the most affectionate 
 fondness, and soon the lost lamb is seen helping him- 
 self lustily, and frolicking with his tail in the height 
 of his contentment. I have known, however, many 
 cunning lambs make a practice of thieving from the 
 more inexperienced ewes, though they have mothers 
 of their own ; and I remember one very beautiful 
 and favourite lamb of mine, who, to my great sor- 
 row, lost its mother, but kept itself alive in this 
 manner, and throve and grew up to be a splendid
 
 138 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 sheep by mere roguery. Such a case is an exception, 
 not a rule. 
 
 You may perhaps wonder how you are to know that 
 your sheep are all right, and that none get away. You 
 cannot be quite certain of this. You may be pretty 
 sure, however, for you will soon have a large number 
 of sheep with whom you are personally acquainted, and 
 who have, from time to time, forced themselves upon 
 your attention either by peculiar beauty or peculiar 
 ugliness, or by having certain marks upon them. You 
 will have a black sheep or two, and probably a long- 
 tailed one or two, and a sheep with only one eye, and 
 another with a wart on its nose, and so forth. These 
 will be your marked sheep, and if you find all of them 
 you may be satisfied that the rest are safe also. Your 
 eye will soon become very accurate in telling you the 
 number of a mob of sheep. 
 
 When the sheep are lambing they should not be dis- 
 turbed. You cannot meddle with a mob of lambing 
 ewes without doing them mischief. Some one or two 
 lambs, or perhaps many more, will be lost every time 
 you disturb the flock. The young sheep, until they have 
 had their lambs a few days, and learnt their value, will 
 leave them upon the slightest provocation. Then there 
 is a serious moral injury inflicted upon the ewe : she 
 becomes familiar with the crime of infanticide, and will 
 be apt to leave her next lamb as carelessly as her first. 
 If, however, she has once reared a lamb, she will be fond 
 of the next, and, when old, will face anything, even a 
 dog, for the sake of her child. 
 
 When, therefore, the sheep are lambing, you must 
 ride or walk farther round, and notice any tracks you 
 may see : anything rather than disturb the sheep.
 
 Shearing 139 
 
 They must always lamb on burnt or green feed, and 
 against the best boundary you have, and then there 
 will be the less occasion to touch them. 
 
 Besides the yards above described, you will want one 
 or two smaller ones for getting the sheep into the wool- 
 shed at shearing-time, and you will also want a small 
 yard for branding. The wool-shed is a roomy covered 
 building, with a large central space, and an aisle-like 
 partition on each side. These last will be for holding 
 the sheep during the night. The shearers will want to 
 begin with daylight, and the dew will not yet be off the 
 wool if the sheep are exposed. If wool is packed damp 
 it will heat and spoil ; therefore a sufficient number of 
 sheep must be left under cover through the night to last 
 the shearers till the dew is off. In a wool-shed the 
 aisles would be called skilions (whence the name is 
 derived I know not, nor whether it has two I's in it or 
 one) . All the sheep go into the skilions. The shearers 
 shear in the centre, which is large enough to leave 
 room for the wool to be stowed away at one end. The 
 shearers pull the sheep out of the skilions as they want 
 them. Each picks the worst sheep, i.e. that with the 
 least wool upon it, that happens to be at hand at the 
 time, trying to put the best-woolled sheep, which are 
 consequently the hardest to shear, upon someone 
 else ; and so the heaviest-woolled and largest sheep 
 get shorn the last. 
 
 A good man will shear 100 sheep in a day, some even 
 more ; but 100 is reckoned good work. I have known 
 195 sheep to be shorn by one man in a day ; but I fancy 
 these must have been from an old and bare mob, and 
 that this number of well-woolled sheep would be quite 
 beyond one man's power. Sheep are not shorn so
 
 140 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 neatly as at home. But supposing a man has a mob of 
 20,000, he must get the wool off their backs as best he 
 can without carping at an occasional snip from a 
 sheep's carcass. If the wool is taken close off, and 
 only now and then a sheep snipped, there will be no 
 cause to complain. 
 
 Then follows the draying of the wool to port, and the 
 bullocks come in for their full share of work. It is a 
 pleasant sight to see the first load of wool start down, 
 but a far pleasanter to see the dray returning from its 
 last trip. 
 
 Shearing well over will be a weight off your mind. 
 This is your most especially busy and anxious time 
 of year, and when the wool is safely down you will be 
 glad indeed. 
 
 It may have been a matter of question with you, 
 Shall I wash my sheep before shearing or not ? If 
 you wash them at all, you should do it thoroughly, 
 and take considerable pains to have them clean ; 
 otherwise you had better shear in the grease, i.e. not 
 wash. Wool in the grease weighs about one-third 
 heavier, and consequently fetches a lower price in the 
 market. When wool falls, moreover, the fall tells first 
 upon greasy wool. Still many shear in the grease, 
 and some consider it pays them better to do so. It 
 is a mooted point, but the general opinion is in favour 
 of washing. 
 
 As soon as you have put up one yard, you may set to 
 work upon a hut for yourself and men. This you will 
 make of split wooden slabs set upright in the ground, 
 and nailed on to a wall-plate. You will first plant 
 large posts at each of the corners, and one at either side 
 every door, and four for the chimney. At the top of
 
 Increasing Comforts 141 
 
 these you will set your wall-plates ; to the wall-plates 
 you will nail your slabs ; on the inside of the slabs you 
 will nail light rods of wood, and plaster them over with 
 mud, having first, however, put up the roof and 
 thatched it. Three or four men will have split the 
 stuff and put up the hut in a fortnight. We will 
 suppose it to be about 18 feet by 12. 
 
 By and by, as you grow richer, you may burn bricks 
 at your leisure, and eventually build a brick house. At 
 first, however, you must rough it. 
 
 You will set about a garden at once. You will bring 
 up fowls at once. Pigs may wait till you have time to 
 put up a regular stye, and to have grown potatoes 
 enough to feed them. Two fat and well-tended pigs 
 are worth half a dozen half-starved wretches. Such 
 neglected brutes make a place look very untidy, and 
 their existence will be a burden to themselves, and an 
 eyesore to you. 
 
 In a year or two you will find yourself very comfort- 
 able. You will get a little fruit from your garden in 
 summer, and will have a prospect of much more. You 
 will have cows, and plenty of butter and milk and eggs ; 
 you will have pigs, and, if you choose it, bees, plenty of 
 vegetables, and, in fact, may live upon the fat of the 
 land, with very little trouble, and almost as little ex- 
 pense. If you grudge this, your fare will be rather 
 unvaried, and will consist solely of tea, mutton, bread, 
 and possibly potatoes. For the first year, these are all 
 you must expect ; the second will improve matters ; 
 and the third should see you surrounded with luxuries. 
 
 If you are your own shepherd, which at first is more 
 than probable, you will find that shepherding is one of 
 the most prosaic professions you could have adopted.
 
 142 Canterbury Settlement 
 
 Sheep will be the one idea in your mind ; and as for 
 poetry, nothing will be farther from your thoughts. 
 Your eye will ever be straining after a distant sheep 
 your ears listening for a bleat in fact, your whole 
 attention will be directed, the whole day long, to 
 nothing but your flock. Were you to shepherd too 
 long your wits would certainly go wool-gathering, 
 even if you were not tempted to bleat. It is, however, 
 a gloriously healthy employment. 
 
 And now, gentle reader, I wish you luck with your 
 run. If you have tolerably good fortune, in a very 
 short time you will be a rich man. Hoping that this 
 may be the case, there remains nothing for me but to 
 wish you heartily farewell.
 
 Crossing the Rangitata 
 
 OUPPOSE you were to ask your way from Mr. 
 v_3 Phillips's station to mine, I should direct you 
 thus : " Work your way towards yonder mountain ; 
 pass underneath it between it and the lake, having the 
 mountain on your right hand and the lake on your left ; 
 if you come upon any swamps, go round them or, if 
 you think you can, go through them ; if you get stuck 
 up by any creeks a creek is the colonial term for a 
 stream you'll very likely see cattle marks, by following 
 the creek up and down ; but there is nothing there 
 that ought to stick you up if you keep out of the big 
 swamp at the bottom of the valley ; after passing that 
 mountain follow the lake till it ends, keeping well on 
 the hill-side above it, and make the end of the valley, 
 where you will come upon a high terrace above a large 
 gully, with a very strong creek at the bottom of it ; 
 get down the terrace, where you'll see a patch of 
 burnt ground, and follow the river-bed till it opens on 
 to a flat ; turn to your left and keep down the mountain 
 sides that run along the Rangitata ; keep well near 
 them and so avoid the swamps ; cross the Rangitata 
 opposite where you see a large river-bed coming into it 
 from the other side, and follow this river-bed till you 
 see my hut some eight miles up it." Perhaps I have 
 thus been better able to describe the nature of the 
 travelling than by any other. If one can get anything 
 
 '43
 
 144 Crossing the Rangitata 
 
 that can be manufactured into a feature and be digni- 
 fied with a name once in five or six miles, one is very 
 lucky. 
 
 Well, we had followed these directions for some way, 
 as far in fact as the terrace, when, the river coming 
 into full view, I saw that the Rangitata was very high. 
 Worse than that, I saw Mr. Phillips and a party of men 
 who were taking a dray over to a run just on the other 
 side of the river, and who had been prevented from 
 crossing for ten days by the state of the water. Among 
 them, to my horror, I recognised my cadet, whom I 
 had left behind me with beef which he was to have taken 
 over to my place a week and more back ; whereon my 
 mind misgave me that a poor Irishman who had been 
 left alone at my place might be in a sore plight, having 
 been left with no meat and no human being within 
 reach for a period of ten days. I don't think I should 
 have attempted crossing the river but for this. Under 
 the circumstances, however, I determined at once on 
 making a push for it, and accordingly taking my two 
 cadets with me and the unfortunate beef that was 
 already putrescent it had lain on the ground in a sack 
 all the time we started along under the hills and got 
 opposite the place where I intended crossing by about 
 three o'clock. I had climbed the mountain side and 
 surveyed the river from thence before approaching the 
 river itself. At last we were by the water's edge. 
 Of course, I led the way, being as it were patronus of 
 the expedition, and having been out some four months 
 longer than either of my companions ; still, having 
 never crossed any of the rivers on horseback in a fresh, 
 having never seen the Rangitata in a fresh, and 
 being utterly unable to guess how deep any stream
 
 Crossing the Rangitata 145 
 
 would take me, it may be imagined that I felt a certain 
 amount of caution to be necessary, and accordingly, 
 folding my watch in my pocket-handkerchief and tying 
 it round my neck in case of having to swim for it 
 unexpectedly, I strictly forbade the other two to stir 
 from the bank until they saw me safely on the other 
 side. Not that I intended to let my horse swim, in 
 fact I had made up my mind to let my old Irishman 
 wait a little longer rather than deliberately swim for 
 it. My two companions were worse mounted than I 
 was, and the rushing water might only too probably 
 affect their heads. Mine had already become quite 
 indifferent to it, though it had not been so at first. 
 These two men, however, had been only a week in the 
 settlement, and I should have deemed myself highly 
 culpable had I allowed them to swim a river on horse- 
 back, though I am sure both would have been ready 
 enough to do so if occasion required. 
 
 As I said before, at last we were on the water's edge ; 
 a rushing stream some sixty yards wide was the first 
 instalment of our passage. It was about the colour and 
 consistency of cream and soot, and how deep ? I had 
 not the remotest idea ; the only thing for it was to go 
 in and see. So choosing a spot just above a spit and a 
 rapid at such spots there is sure to be a ford, if there 
 is a ford anywhere I walked my mare quickly into it, 
 having perfect confidence in her, and, I believe, she 
 having more confidence in me than some who have 
 known me in England might suppose. In we went ; 
 in the middle of the stream the water was only a little 
 over her belly (she is sixteen hands high) ; a little 
 farther, by sitting back on my saddle and lifting my feet 
 up I might have avoided getting them wet, had I cared
 
 146 Crossing the Rangitata 
 
 to do so, but I was more intent on having the mare well 
 in hand, and on studying the appearance of the 
 remainder of the stream than on thinking of my own 
 feet just then ; after that the water grew shallower 
 rapidly, and I soon had the felicity of landing my 
 mare on the shelving shingle of the opposite bank. 
 So far so good ; I beckoned to my companions, who 
 speedily followed, and we all then proceeded down the 
 spit in search of a good crossing place over the next 
 stream. We were soon beside it, and very ugly it 
 looked. It must have been at least a hundred yards 
 broad I think more, but water is so deceptive that 
 I dare not affix any certain width. I was soon in it, 
 advancing very slowly above a slightly darker line in 
 the water, which assured me of its being shallow for 
 some little way ; this failing, I soon found myself 
 descending into deeper water, first over my boots for 
 some yards, then over the top of my gaiters for some 
 yards more. This continued so long that I was in hopes 
 of being able to get entirely over, when suddenly the 
 knee against which the stream came was entirely wet, 
 and the water was rushing so furiously past me that 
 my poor mare was leaning over tremendously. Already 
 she had begun to snort, as horses do when they are 
 swimming, and I knew well that my companions would 
 have to swim for it even though I myself might have 
 got through. So I very gently turned her head round 
 down stream and quietly made back again for the bank 
 which I had left. She had got nearly to the shore, and 
 I could again detect a darker line in the water, which 
 was now not over her knees, when all of a sudden 
 down she went up to her belly in a quicksand, in which 
 she began floundering about in fine style. I was off her
 
 Crossing the Rangitata 147 
 
 back and into the water that she had left in less time 
 than it takes to write this. I should not have thought 
 of leaving her back unless sure of my ground, for it is 
 a canon in river crossing to stick to your horse. I 
 pulled her gently out, and followed up the dark line 
 to the shore where my two friends were only too glad 
 to receive me. By the way, all this time I had had a 
 companion in the shape of a cat in a bag, which I was 
 taking over to my place as an antidote to the rats, 
 which were most unpleasantly abundant there. I 
 nursed her on the pommel of my saddle all through this 
 last stream, and save in the episode of the quicksand 
 she had not been in the least wet. Then, however, 
 she did drop in for a sousing, and mewed in a manner 
 that went to my heart. I am very fond of cats, and 
 this one is a particularly favourable specimen. It 
 was with great pleasure that I heard her purring 
 through the bag, as soon as I was again mounted and 
 had her in front of me as before. 
 
 So I failed to cross this stream there, but, determined 
 if possible to get across the river and see whether the 
 Irishman was alive or dead, we turned higher up the 
 the stream and by and by found a place where it 
 divided. By carefully selecting a spot I was able to 
 cross the first stream without the waters getting higher 
 than my saddle-flaps, and the second scarcely over the 
 horse's belly. After that there were two streams some- 
 what similar to the first, and then the dangers of the 
 passage of the river might be considered as accom- 
 plished the dangers, but not the difficulties. These 
 consisted in the sluggish creeks and swampy ground 
 thickly overgrown with Irishman, snow-grass, and 
 Spaniard, which extend on either side the river for
 
 148 Crossing the Rangitata 
 
 half a mile and more. But to cut a long story short 
 we got over these too, and then we were on the shingly 
 river-bed which leads up to the spot on which my hut 
 is made and my house making. This river was now a 
 brawling torrent, hardly less dangerous to cross than 
 the Rangitata itself, though containing not a tithe of 
 the water, the boulders are so large and the water so 
 powerful. In its ordinary condition it is little more than 
 a large brook ; now, though not absolutely fresh, it was 
 as unpleasant a place to put a horse into as one need 
 wish. There was nothing for it, however, and we 
 crossed and recrossed it four times without misadven- 
 ture, and finally with great pleasure I perceived a 
 twinkling light on the terrace where the hut was, 
 which assured me at once that the old Irishman was 
 still in the land of the living. Two or three vigorous 
 " coo-eys " brought him down to the side of the creek 
 which bounds my run upon one side.
 
 Darwin on the Origin of Species 
 
 Prefatory Note 
 
 S the following dialogue embodies the earliest fruits 
 of Butler's study of the works of Charles Darwin, 
 with whose name his own was destined in later years 
 to be so closely connected, and thus possesses an 
 interest apart from its intrinsic merit, a few words as 
 to the circumstances in which it was published will not 
 be out of place. 
 
 Butler arrived in New Zealand in October, 1859, an ^ 
 about the same time Charles Darwin's ORIGIN OF 
 SPECIES was published. Shortly afterwards the book 
 came into Butler's hands. He seems to have read it 
 carefully, and meditated upon it. The result of his 
 meditations took the shape of the following dialogue, 
 which was published on 20 December, 1862, in the 
 PRESS which had been started in the town of Christ 
 Church in May, 1861. The dialogue did not by any 
 means pass unnoticed. On the ijth of January, 1863, 
 a leading article (of course unsigned) appeared in the 
 PRESS, under the title " Barrel-Organs," discussing 
 Darwin's theories, and incidentally referring to Butler's 
 dialogue. A reply to this article, signed A.M., appeared 
 on the 2ist of February, and the correspondence was 
 continued until the 22nd of June, 1863. The dialogue 
 itself, which was unearthed from the early files of the 
 L 149
 
 150 Darwin on the Origin of Species 
 
 PRESS, mainly owing to the exertions of Mr. Henry 
 Festing Jones, was reprinted, together with the corre- 
 spondence that followed its publication, in the PRESS of 
 June 8 and 15, 1912. Soon after the original appearance 
 of Butler's dialogue a copy of it fell into the hands of 
 Charles Darwin, possibly sent to him by a friend in 
 New Zealand. Darwin was sufficiently struck by it to 
 forward it to the editor of some magazine, which has not 
 been identified, with the following letter : 
 
 Down, Bromley, Kent, S.E. 
 March 24 [1863]. 
 
 (Private) . 
 
 Mr. Darwin takes the liberty to send by this post to 
 the Editor a New Zealand newspaper for the very im- 
 probable chance of the Editor having some spare space 
 to reprint a Dialogue on Species. This Dialogue, 
 written by some [sic] quite unknown to Mr. Darwin, is 
 remarkable from its spirit and from giving so clear and 
 accurate a view of Mr. D. [sic] theory. It is also remark- 
 able from being published in a colony exactly 12 years 
 old, in which it might have [sic] thought only material 
 interests would have been regarded. 
 
 The autograph of this letter was purchased from Mr. 
 Tregaskis by Mr. Festing Jones, and subsequently 
 presented by him to the Museum at Christ Church. 
 The letter cannot be dated with certainty, but since 
 Butler's dialogue was published in December, 1862, 
 and it is at least probable that the copy of the PRESS 
 which contained it was sent to Darwin shortly after it 
 appeared, we may conclude with tolerable certainty that
 
 Darwin on the Origin of Species 151 
 
 the letter was written in March, 1863. Further light is 
 thrown on the controversy by a correspondence which 
 took place between Butler and Darwin in 1865, shortly 
 after Butler's return to England. During that year 
 Butler had published a pamphlet entitled THE EVIDENCE 
 FOR THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST AS GIVEN 
 BY THE FOUR EVANGELISTS CRITICALLY EXAMINED, 
 of which he afterwards incorporated the substance into 
 THE FAIR HAVEN. Butler sent a copy of this pamphlet to 
 Darwin, and in due course received the following reply : 
 
 Down, Bromley, Kent. 
 September 30 [1865]. 
 
 My dear Sir, / am much obliged to you for so 
 kindly sending me your Evidences, etc. We have read 
 it with much interest. It seems to me written with much 
 force, vigour, and clearness ; and the main argument to 
 me is quite new. I particularly agree with all you say 
 in your preface. 
 
 I do not know whether you intend to return to New 
 Zealand, and, if you are inclined to write, I should much 
 like to know what your future plans are. 
 
 My health has been so bad during the last five months 
 that I have been confined to my bedroom. Had it been 
 otherwise I would have asked you if you could have 
 spared the time to have paid us a visit ; but this at 
 present is impossible, and I fear will be so for some time 
 With my best thanks for your present, 
 I remain, 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 Charles Darwin.
 
 152 Darwin on the Origin of Species 
 
 To this letter Butler replied as follows : 
 
 15 Clifford's Inn, E.C. 
 October ist, 1865. 
 
 Dear Sir, / knew you were ill and I never meant to 
 give you the fatigue of writing to me. Please do not 
 trouble yourself to do so again. As you kindly ask my 
 plans I may say that, though I very probably may return 
 to New Zealand in three or four years, I have no inten- 
 tion of doing so before that time. My study is art, and 
 anything else I may indulge in is only by-play ; it may 
 cause you some little wonder that at my age I should have 
 started as an art student, and I may perhaps be permitted 
 to explain that this was always my wish for years, that 
 I had begun six years ago, as soon as ever I found that I 
 could not conscientiously take orders ; my father so 
 strongly disapproved of the idea that I gave it up and 
 went out to New Zealand, stayed there for five years, 
 worked like a common servant, though on a run of my 
 own, and sold out little more than a year ago, thinking 
 that prices were going to fall which they have since 
 done. Being then rather at a loss what to do and my 
 capital being all locked up, I took the opportunity to 
 return to my old plan, and have been studying for the 
 last ten years unremittingly. I hope that in three or 
 four years more I shall be able to go on very well by 
 myself, and then I may go back to New Zealand or no 
 as circumstances shall seem to render advisable. I 
 must apologise for so much detail, but hardly knew how 
 to explain myself without it. 
 
 I always delighted in your ORIGIN OF SPECIES as 
 soon as I saw it out in New Zealand not as knowing 
 anything whatsoever of natural history, but it enters into
 
 Darwin on the Origin of Species 153 
 
 so many deeply interesting questions, or rather it suggests 
 so many, that it thoroughly fascinated me. I therefore 
 feel all the greater pleasure that my pamphlet should 
 please you, however full of errors. 
 
 The first dialogue on the ORIGIN which I wrote in 
 the PRESS catted forth a contemptuous rejoinder from 
 (I believe] the Bishop of Wellington (please do not 
 mention the name, though I think that at this distance of 
 space and time I might mention it to yourself] I answered 
 it with the enclosed, which, may amuse you. I assumed 
 another character because my dialogue was in my hearing 
 very severely criticised by two or three whose opinion I 
 thought worth having, and I deferred to their judgment 
 in my next. I do not think I should do so now. I fear 
 you will be shocked at an appeal to the periodicals 
 mentioned in my letter, but they form a very staple 
 article of bush diet, and we used to get a good deal of 
 superficial knowledge out of them. I feared to go in too 
 heavy on the side of the ORIGIN, because I thought that, 
 having said my say as well as I could, I had better now 
 take a less impassioned tone ; but I was really exceed- 
 ingly angry. 
 
 Please do not trouble yourself to answer this, and 
 believe me, 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 S. Butler. 
 
 This elicited a second letter from Darwin : 
 
 Down, Bromley, Kent. 
 October 6. 
 
 My dear Sir, / thank you sincerely for your kind 
 and frank letter, which has interested me greatly. What
 
 154 Darwin on the Origin of Species 
 
 a singular and varied career you have already run. Did 
 you keep any journal or notes in New Zealand ? For it 
 strikes me that with your rare powers of writing you 
 might make a very interesting work descriptive of a 
 colonist's life in New Zealand. 
 
 I return your printed letter, which you might like to 
 keep. It has amused me, especially the part in which 
 you criticise yourself. To appreciate the letter fully I 
 ought to have read the bishop's letter, which seems to have 
 been very rich. 
 
 You tell me not to answer your note, but I could not 
 resist the wish to thank you for your letter. 
 
 With every good wish, believe me, my dear Sir, 
 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Ch. Darwin. 
 
 It is curious that in this correspondence Darwin 
 makes no reference to the fact that he had already had in 
 his possession a copy of Butler's dialogue and had 
 endeavoured to induce the editor of an English periodical 
 to reprint it. It is possible that we have not here the 
 whole of the correspondence which passed between Darwin 
 and Butler at this period, and this theory is supported 
 by the fact that Butler seems to take for granted that 
 Darwin knew all about the appearance of the original 
 dialogue on the ORIGIN OF SPECIES in the PRESS. 
 Enough, however, has been given to explain the corre- 
 spondence which the publication of the dialogue occa- 
 sioned. I do not know what authority Butler had for 
 supposing that Charles John Abraham, Bishop of 
 Wellington, was the author of the article entitled " Ban el- 
 Organs," and the " Savoyard " of the subsequent contro- 
 versy. However, at that time Butler was deep in the
 
 Darwin on the Origin of Species 155 
 
 counsels of the PRESS, and he may have received private 
 information on the subject. Butler's own reappearance 
 over the initials A.M. is sufficiently explained in his 
 letter to Darwin. 
 
 It is worth observing that Butler appears in the dialogue 
 and ensuing correspondence in a character very different 
 from that which he was later to assume. Here we have 
 him as an ardent supporter of Charles Darwin, and 
 adopting a contemptuous tone with regard to the claims 
 of Erasmus Darwin to have sown the seed which was 
 afterwards raised to maturity by his grandson. It would 
 be interesting to know if it was this correspondence that 
 first turned Butler's attention seriously to the works of the 
 older evolutionists and ultimately led to the production of 
 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW, in which the indebtedness 
 of Charles Darwin to Erasmus Darwin, Buffon and 
 Lamarck is demonstrated with such compelling force. 
 
 Darwin on the Origin of Species 
 
 A Dialogue 
 [From the Press, 20 December, 1862.] 
 
 F. So you have finished Darwin ? Well, how did 
 you like him ? 
 
 C. You cannot expect me to like him. He is so 
 hard and logical, and he treats his subject with such 
 an intensity of dry reasoning without giving himself 
 the loose rein for a single moment from one end of 
 the book to the other, that I must confess I have 
 found it a great effort to read him through. 
 
 F. But I fancy that, if you are to be candid, you
 
 156 Darwin on the Origin of Species 
 
 will admit that the fault lies rather with yourself than 
 with the book. Your knowledge of natural history is 
 so superficial that you are constantly baffled by terms 
 of which you do not understand the meaning, and in 
 which you consequently lose all interest. I admit, 
 however, that the book is hard and laborious reading ; 
 and, moreover, that the writer appears to have pre- 
 determined from the commencement to reject all 
 ornament, and simply to argue from beginning to 
 end, from point to point, till he conceived that he had 
 made his case sufficiently clear. 
 
 C. I agree with you, and I do not like his book 
 partly on that very account. He seems to have no 
 eye but for the single point at which he is aiming. 
 
 F. But is not that a great virtue in a writer ? 
 
 C. A great virtue, but a cold and hard one. 
 
 F. In my opinion it is a grave and wise one. More- 
 over, I conceive that the judicial calmness which so 
 strongly characterises the whole book, the absence of 
 all passion, the air of extreme and anxious caution 
 which pervades it throughout, are rather the result of 
 training and artificially acquired self-restraint than 
 symptoms of a cold and unimpassioned nature ; at 
 any rate, whether the lawyer-like faculty of swearing 
 both sides of a question and attaching the full value 
 to both is acquired or natural in Darwin's case, you 
 will admit that such a habit of mind is essential for 
 any really valuable and scientific investigation. 
 
 C. I admit it. Science is all head she has no heart 
 at all. 
 
 F. You are right. But a man of science may be a 
 man of other things besides science, and though he 
 may have, and ought to have no heart during a
 
 Darwin on the Origin of Species 157 
 
 scientific investigation, yet when he has once come to 
 a conclusion he may be hearty enough in support of it, 
 and in his other capacities may be of as warm a 
 temperament as even you can desire. 
 
 C. I tell you I do not like the book. 
 
 F. May I catechise you a little upon it ? 
 
 C. To your heart's content. 
 
 F. Firstly, then, I will ask you what is the one 
 great impression that you have derived from reading 
 it ; or, rather, what do you think to be the main im- 
 pression that Darwin wanted you to derive ? 
 
 C. Why, I should say some such thing as the 
 following that men are descended from monkeys, 
 and monkeys from something else, and so on back to 
 dogs and horses and hedge-sparrows and pigeons and 
 cinipedes (what is a cinipede ?) and cheesemites, and 
 then through the plants down to duckweed. 
 
 F. You express the prevalent idea concerning the 
 book, which as you express it appears nonsensical 
 enough. 
 
 C. How, then, should you express it yourself ? 
 
 F. Hand me the book and I will read it to you 
 through from beginning to end, for to express it more 
 briefly than Darwin himself has done is almost im- 
 possible. 
 
 C. That is nonsense ; as you asked me what im- 
 pression I derived from the book, so now I ask you, 
 and I charge you to answer me. 
 
 F. Well, I assent to the justice of your demand, 
 but I shall comply with it by requiring your assent 
 to a few principal statements deducible from the 
 work. 
 
 C. So be it.
 
 158 Darwin on the Origin of Species 
 
 F. You will grant then, firstly, that all plants and 
 animals increase very rapidly, and that unless they 
 were in some manner checked, the world would soon 
 be overstocked. Take cats, for instance ; see with 
 what rapidity they breed on the different runs in this 
 province where there is little or nothing to check 
 them ; or even take the more slowly breeding sheep, 
 and see how soon 500 ewes become 5000 sheep under 
 favourable circumstances. Suppose this sort of thing 
 to go on for a hundred million years or so, and where 
 would be the standing room for all the different 
 plants and animals that would be now existing, did 
 they not materially check each other's increase, or 
 were they not liable in some way to be checked by 
 other causes ? Remember the quail ; how plentiful 
 they were until the cats came with the settlers from 
 Europe. Why were they so abundant ? Simply 
 because they had plenty to eat, and could get sufficient 
 shelter from the hawks to multiply freely. The cats 
 came, and tussocks stood the poor little creatures in 
 but poor stead. The cats increased and multiplied 
 because they had plenty of food and no natural enemy 
 to check them. Let them wait a year or two, till they 
 have materially reduced the larks also, as they have 
 long since reduced the quail, and let them have to 
 depend solely upon occasional dead lambs and sheep, 
 and they will find a certain rather formidable natural 
 enemy called Famine rise slowly but inexorably 
 against them and slaughter them wholesale. The first 
 proposition then to which I demand your assent is 
 that all plants and animals tend to increase in a high 
 geometrical ratio ; that they all endeavour to get 
 that which is necessary for their own welfare ; that, as
 
 Darwin on the Origin of Species 159 
 
 unfortunately there are conflicting interests in Nature, 
 collisions constantly occur between different animals 
 and plants, whereby the rate of increase of each species 
 is very materially checked. Do you admit this ? 
 
 C. Of course ; it is obvious. 
 
 F. You admit then that there is in Nature a per- 
 petual warfare of plant, of bird, of beast, of fish, of 
 reptile ; that each is striving selfishly for its own 
 advantage, and will get what it wants if it can. 
 
 C. If what ? 
 
 F. If it can. How comes it then that sometimes 
 it cannot ? Simply because all are not of equal 
 strength, and the weaker must go to the wall. 
 
 C. You seem to gloat over your devilish statement. 
 
 F. Gloat or no gloat, is it true or no ? I am not 
 one of those 
 
 " Who would unnaturally better Nature 
 By making out that that which is, is not." 
 
 If the law of Nature is " struggle," it is better to look 
 the matter in the face and adapt yourself to the 
 conditions of your existence. Nature will not bow to 
 you, neither will you mend matters by patting her on 
 the back and telling her that she is not so black as 
 she is painted. My dear fellow, my dear sentimental 
 friend, do you eat roast beef or roast mutton ? 
 
 C. Drop that chaff and go back to the matter in 
 hand. 
 
 F. To continue then with the cats. Famine conies 
 and tests them, so to speak ; the weaker, the less 
 active, the less cunning, and the less enduring cats 
 get killed off, and only the strongest and smartest 
 cats survive ; there will be no favouritism shown to
 
 160 Darwin on the Origin of Species 
 
 animals in a state of Nature ; they will be weighed 
 in the balance, and the weight of a hair will sometimes 
 decide whether they shall be found wanting or no. 
 This being the case, the cats having been thus naturally 
 culled and the stronger having been preserved, there 
 will be a gradual tendency to improve manifested 
 among the cats, even as among our own mobs of 
 sheep careful culling tends to improve the flock. 
 
 C. This, too, is obvious. 
 
 F. Extend this to all animals and plants, and the 
 same thing will hold good concerning them all. I shall 
 now change the ground and demand assent to another 
 statement. You know that though the offspring of 
 all plants and animals is in the main like the parent, 
 yet that in almost every instance slight deviations 
 occur, and that sometimes there is even considerable 
 divergence from the parent type. It must also be 
 admitted that these slight variations are often, or at 
 least sometimes, capable of being perpetuated by 
 inheritance. Indeed, it is only in consequence of this 
 fact that our sheep and cattle have been capable of so 
 much improvement. 
 
 C. I admit this. 
 
 F. Then the whole matter lies in a nutshell. Suppose 
 that hundreds of millions of years ago there existed 
 upon this earth a single primordial form of the very 
 lowest life, or suppose that three or four such primor- 
 dial forms existed. Change of climate, of food, of any 
 of the circumstances which surrounded any member 
 of this first and lowest class of life would tend to alter 
 it in some slight manner, and the alteration would 
 have a tendency to perpetuate itself by inheritance. 
 Many failures would doubtless occur, but with the
 
 Darwin on the Origin of Species 1 6 1 
 
 lapse of time slight deviations would undoubtedly 
 become permanent and inheritable, those alone being 
 perpetuated which were beneficial to individuals in 
 whom they appeared. Repeat the process with each 
 deviation and we shall again obtain divergences (in 
 the course of ages) differing more strongly from the 
 ancestral form, and again those that enable their 
 possessor to struggle for existence most efficiently will 
 be preserved. Repeat this process for millions and 
 millions of years, and, as it is impossible to assign any 
 limit to variability, it would seem as though the 
 present diversities of species must certainly have 
 come about sooner or later, and that other divergences 
 will continue to come about to the end of time. The 
 great agent in this development of life has been com- 
 petition. This has culled species after species, and 
 secured that those alone should survive which were best 
 fitted for the conditions by which they found them- 
 selves surrounded. Endeavour to take a bird's-eye 
 view of the whole matter. See battle after battle, 
 first in one part of the world, then in another, some- 
 times raging more fiercely and sometimes less ; even 
 as in human affairs war has always existed in some 
 part of the world from the earliest known periods, 
 and probably always will exist. While a species is 
 conquering in one part of the world it is being subdued 
 in another, and while its conquerors are indulging in 
 their triumph down comes the fiat for their being 
 culled and drafted out, some to life and some to death, 
 and so forth ad infinitum. 
 
 C. It is very horrid. 
 
 F. No more horrid than that you should eat roast 
 mutton or boiled beef.
 
 1 6 2 Darwin on the Origin of Species 
 
 C. But it is utterly subversive of Christianity ; for 
 if this theory is true the fall of man is entirely fabulous ; 
 and if the fall, then the redemption, these two being 
 inseparably bound together. 
 
 F. My dear friend, there I am not bound to follow 
 you. I believe in Christianity, and I believe in 
 Darwin. The two appear irreconcilable. My answer 
 to those who accuse me of inconsistency is, that both 
 being undoubtedly true, the one must be reconcilable 
 with the other, and that the impossibility of recon- 
 ciling them must be only apparent and temporary, 
 not real. The reconciliation will never be effected by 
 planing a little off the one and a little off the other 
 and then gluing them together with glue. People 
 will not stand this sort of dealing, and the rejection 
 of the one truth or of the other is sure to follow upon 
 any such attempt being persisted in. The true course 
 is to use the freest candour in the acknowledgment of 
 the difficulty ; to estimate precisely its real value, 
 and obtain a correct knowledge of its precise form. 
 Then and then only is there a chance of any satisfactory 
 result being obtained. For unless the exact nature of 
 the difficulty be known first, who can attempt to 
 remove it ? Let me re-state the matter once again. 
 All animals and plants in a state of Nature are under- 
 going constant competition for the necessaries of life. 
 Those that can hold their ground hold it ; those that 
 cannot hold it are destroyed. But as it also happens 
 that slight changes of food, of habit, of climate, of 
 circumjacent accident, and so forth, produce a slight 
 tendency to vary in the offspring of any plant or 
 animal, it follows that among these slight variations 
 some may be favourable to the individual in whom
 
 Darwin \>n the Origin of Species 163 
 
 they appear, and may place him in a better position 
 than his fellows as regards the enemies with whom 
 his interests come into collision. In this case he will 
 have a better chance of surviving than his fellows ; 
 he will thus stand also a better chance of continuing 
 the species, and in his offspring his own slight diver- 
 gence from the parent type will be apt to appear. 
 However slight the divergence, if it be beneficial to the 
 individual it is likely to preserve the individual and 
 to reappear in his offspring, and this process may be 
 repeated ad infintium. Once grant these two things, 
 and the rest is a mere matter of time and degree. 
 That the immense differences between the camel and 
 the pig should have come about in six thousand years 
 is not believable ; but in six hundred million years 
 it is not incredible, more especially when we consider 
 that by the assistance of geology a very perfect chain 
 has been formed between the two. Let this instance 
 suffice. Once grant the principles, once grant that 
 competition is a great power in Nature, and that 
 changes of circumstances and habits produce a ten- 
 dency to variation in the offspring (no matter how 
 slight such variation may be), and unless you can 
 define the possible limit of such variation during an 
 infinite series of generations, unless you can show 
 that there is a limit, and that Darwin's theory over- 
 steps it, you have no right to reject his conclusions. 
 As for the objections to the theory, Darwin has 
 treated them with admirable candour, and our time 
 is too brief to enter into them here. My recommenda- 
 tion to you is that you should read the book again. 
 
 C. Thank you, but for my own part I confess to 
 caring very little whether my millionth ancestor was
 
 1 64 Barrel-Organs 
 
 a gorilla or no ; and as Darwin's book does not please 
 me, I shall not trouble myself further about the matter. 
 
 Barrel-Organs 
 
 [From the Press, 17 January, 1863.] 
 
 Dugald Stewart in his Dissertation on the Progress of 
 Metaphysics says : " On reflecting on the repeated 
 reproduction of ancient paradoxes by modern authors 
 one is almost tempted to suppose that human inven- 
 tion is limited, like a barrel-organ, to a specific number 
 of tunes." 
 
 It would be a very amusing and instructive task 
 for a man of reading and reflection to note down the 
 instances he meets with of these old tunes coming up 
 again and again in regular succession with hardly any 
 change of note, and with all the old hitches and in- 
 voluntary squeaks that the barrel-organ had played 
 in days gone by. It is most amusing to see the old 
 quotations repeated year after year and volume after 
 volume, till at last some more careful enquirer turns 
 to the passage referred to and finds that they have 
 all been taken in and have followed the lead of the 
 first daring inventor of the mis-statement. Hallam 
 has had the courage, in the supplement to his History 
 of the Middle Ages, p. 398, to acknowledge an error of 
 this sort that he has been led into. 
 
 But the particular instance of barrel-organism that 
 is present to our minds just now is the Darwinian 
 theory of the development of species by natural 
 selection, of which we hear so much. This is nothing 
 new, but a rechauffee of the old story that his name-
 
 Barrel-Organs 165 
 
 sake, Dr. Darwin, served up in the end of the last 
 century to Priestley and his admirers, and Lord 
 Monboddo had cooked in the beginning of the same 
 century. We have all heard of his theory that man 
 was developed directly from the monkey, and that we 
 all lost our tails by sitting too much upon that appen- 
 dage. 
 
 We learn from that same great and cautious writer 
 Hallam in his History of Literature that there are 
 traces of this theory and of other popular theories of 
 the present day in the works of Giordano Bruno, the 
 Neapolitan who was burnt at Rome by the Inquisition 
 in 1600. It is curious to read the titles of his works 
 and to think of Dugald Stewart's remark about barrel- 
 organs. For instance he wrote on " The Plurality of 
 Worlds, ' ' and on the universal ' ' Monad, ' ' a name familiar 
 enough to the readers of Vestiges of Creation. He was 
 a Pantheist, and, as Hallam says, borrowed all his 
 theories from the eclectic philosophers, from Plotinus 
 and the Neo-Platonists, and ultimately they were no 
 doubt of Oriental origin. This is just what has been 
 shown again and again to be the history of German 
 Pantheism ; it is a mere barrel-organ repetition of the 
 Brahman metaphysics found in Hindu cosmogonies. 
 Bruno's theory regarding development of species was 
 in Hallam's words : " There is nothing so small or so 
 unimportant but that a portion of spirit dwells in it ; 
 and this spiritual substance requires a proper subject 
 to become a plant or an animal " ; and Hallam in a 
 note on this passage observes how the modern theories 
 of equivocal generation correspond with Bruno's. 
 
 No doubt Hallam is right in saying that they are all 
 of Oriental origin. Pythagoras borrowed from thence 
 
 M
 
 1 66 Barrel- Organs 
 
 his kindred theory of the metempsychosis, or trans- 
 migration of souls. But he was more consistent than 
 modern philosophers ; he recognised a downward 
 development as well as an upward, and made morality 
 and immorality the crisis and turning-point of change 
 a bold lion developed into a brave warrior, a drunken 
 sot developed into a wallowing pig, and Darwin's 
 slave-making ants, p. 219, would have been formerly 
 Virginian cotton and tobacco growers. 
 
 Perhaps Prometheus was the first Darwin of 
 antiquity, for he is said to have begun his creation 
 from below, and after passing from the invertebrate 
 to the sub-vertebrate, from thence to the backbone, 
 from the backbone to the mammalia, and from the 
 mammalia to the manco-cerebral, he compounded 
 man of each and all : 
 
 Fertur Prometheus addere principi 
 Limo coactus particulam undique 
 Desectam et insani leonis 
 Vim stomacho apposuisse nostro. 
 
 One word more about barrel-organs. We have 
 heard on the undoubted authority of ear and eye- 
 witnesses, that in a neighbouring province there is a 
 church where the psalms are sung to a barrel-organ, 
 but unfortunately the psalm tunes come in the middle 
 of the set, and the jigs and waltzes have to be played 
 through before the psalm can start. Just so is it with 
 Darwinism and all similar theories. All his fantasias, 
 as we saw in a late article, are made to come round at 
 last to religious questions, with which really and truly 
 they have nothing to do, but were it not for their 
 supposed effect upon religion, no one would waste
 
 Darwin on Species 167 
 
 his time in reading about the possibility of Polar 
 bears swimming about and catching flies so long that 
 they at last get the fins they wish for. 
 
 Darwin on Species 
 
 [From the Press, 21 February, 1863.] 
 
 To the Editor of the Press. 
 
 Sir In two of your numbers you have already 
 taken notice of Darwin's theory of the origin of 
 species ; I would venture to trespass upon your space 
 in order to criticise briefly both your notices. 
 
 The first is evidently the composition of a warm 
 adherent of the theory in question ; the writer over- 
 looks all the real difficulties in the way of accepting 
 it, and, caught by the obvious truth of much that 
 Darwin says, has rushed to the conclusion that all is 
 equally true. He writes with the tone of a partisan, 
 of one deficient in scientific caution, and from the 
 frequent repetition of the same ideas manifest in his 
 dialogue one would be led to suspect that he was but 
 little versed in habits of literary composition and 
 philosophical argument. Yet he may fairly claim the 
 merit of having written in earnest. He has treated a 
 serious subject seriously according to his lights ; and 
 though his lights are not brilliant ones, yet he has 
 apparently done his best to show the theory on which 
 he is writing in its most favourable aspect. He is 
 rash, evidently well satisfied with himself, very 
 possibly mistaken, and just one of those persons who 
 (without intending it) are more apt to mislead than
 
 1 68 Darwin on Species 
 
 to lead the few people that put their trust in them. 
 A few will always follow them, for a strong faith is 
 always more or less impressive upon persons who are 
 too weak to have any definite and original faith of 
 their own. The second writer, however, assumes a 
 very different tone. His arguments to all practical 
 intents and purposes run as follows : 
 
 Old fallacies are constantly recurring. Therefore 
 Darwin's theory is a fallacy. 
 
 They come again and again, like tunes in a barrel- 
 organ. Therefore Darwin's theory is a fallacy. 
 
 Hallam made a mistake, and in his History of the 
 Middle Ages, p. 398, he corrects himself. Therefore 
 Darwin's theory is wrong. 
 
 Dr. Darwin in the last century said the same thing 
 as his son or grandson says now will the writer of 
 the article refer to anything bearing on natural 
 selection and the struggle for existence in Dr. Darwin's 
 work ? and a foolish nobleman said something 
 foolish about monkey's tails. Therefore Darwin's 
 theory is wrong. 
 
 Giordano Bruno was burnt in the year 1600 A.D. ; 
 he was a Pantheist ; therefore Darwin's theory is 
 wrong. 
 
 And finally, as a clinching argument, in one of the 
 neighbouring settlements there is a barrel-organ 
 which plays its psalm tunes in the middle of its jigs 
 and waltzes. After this all lingering doubts con- 
 cerning the falsehood of Darwin's theory must be at 
 an end, and any person of ordinary common sense 
 must admit that the theory of development by 
 natural selection is unwarranted by experience and 
 reason.
 
 Darwin on Species 169 
 
 The articles conclude with an implied statement 
 that Darwin supposes the Polar bear to swim about 
 catching flies for so long a period that at last it gets 
 the fins it wishes for. 
 
 Now, however sceptical I may yet feel about the 
 truth of all Darwin's theory, I cannot sit quietly by 
 and see him misrepresented in such a scandalously 
 slovenly manner. What Darwin does say is that 
 sometimes diversified and changed habits may be 
 observed in individuals of the same species ; that is 
 that there are eccentric animals just as there are 
 eccentric men. He adduces a few instances and 
 winds up by saying that " in North America the black 
 bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with 
 widely open mouth, thus catching almost like a 
 whale insects in the water." This and nothing 
 more. (See pp. 201 and 202.) 
 
 Because Darwin says that a bear of rather eccentric 
 habits happened to be seen by Hearne swimming for 
 hours and catching insects almost like a whale, your 
 writer (with a carelessness hardly to be reprehended 
 in sufficiently strong terms) asserts by implication 
 that Darwin supposes the whale to be developed 
 from the bear by the latter having had a strong 
 desire to possess fins. This is disgraceful. 
 
 I can hardly be mistaken in supposing that I have 
 quoted the passage your writer alludes to. Should I 
 be in error, I trust he will give the reference to the 
 place in which Darwin is guilty of the nonsense that 
 is fathered upon him in your article. 
 
 It must be remembered that there have been few 
 great inventions in physics or discoveries in science 
 which have not been foreshadowed to a certain extent
 
 170 Darwin on Species 
 
 by speculators who were indeed mistaken, but were 
 yet more or less on the right scent. Day is heralded 
 by dawn, Apollo by Aurora, and thus it often happens 
 that a real discovery may wear to the careless observer 
 much the same appearance as an exploded fallacy, 
 whereas in fact it is widely different. As much 
 caution is due in the rejection of a theory as in the 
 acceptation of it. The first of your writers is too hasty 
 in accepting, the second in refusing even a candid 
 examination. 
 
 Now, when the Saturday Review, the Cornhill 
 Magazine, Once a Week, and Macmillan's Magazine, 
 not to mention other periodicals, have either actually 
 and completely as in the case of the first two, pro- 
 visionally as in the last mentioned, given their ad- 
 herence to the theory in question, it may be taken 
 for granted that the arguments in its favour are suffi- 
 ciently specious to have attracted the attention and 
 approbation of a considerable number of well-educated 
 men in England. Three months ago the theory of 
 development by natural selection was openly sup- 
 ported by Professor Huxley before the British Asso- 
 ciation at Cambridge. I am not adducing Professor 
 Huxley's advocacy as a proof that Darwin is right 
 (indeed, Owen opposed him tooth and nail), but as a 
 proof that there is sufficient to be said on Darwin's 
 side to demand more respectful attention than your 
 last writer has thought it worth while to give it. A 
 theory which the British Association is discussing with 
 great care in England is not to be set down by off- 
 hand nicknames in Canterbury. 
 
 To those, however, who do feel an interest in the 
 question, I would venture to give a word or two of
 
 Darwin on Species 171 
 
 advice. I would strongly deprecate forming a hurried 
 opinion for or against the theory. Naturalists in 
 Europe are canvassing the matter with the utmost 
 diligence, and a few years must show whether they 
 will accept the theory or no. It is plausible ; that 
 can be decided by no one. Whether it is true or no 
 can be decided only among naturalists themselves. 
 We are outsiders, and most of us must be content 
 to sit on the stairs till the great men come forth and 
 give us the benefit of their opinion. 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 A. M. 
 
 Darwin on Species 
 
 [From the Press, March i4th, 1863.] 
 
 To the Editor of the Press. 
 
 Sir A correspondent signing himself " A. M." in 
 the issue of February 2ist says : " Will the writer 
 (of an article on barrel-organs) refer to anything 
 bearing upon natural selection and the struggle for 
 existence in Dr. Darwin's work ? " This is one of the 
 trade forms by which writers imply that there is no 
 such passage, and yet leave a loophole if they are 
 proved wrong. I will, however, furnish him with a 
 passage from the notes of Darwin's Botanic Garden : 
 
 " I am acquainted with a philosopher who, contem- 
 plating this subject, thinks it not impossible that the 
 first insects were anthers or stigmas of flowers, which 
 had by some means loosed themselves from their 
 parent plant ; and that many insects have gradually
 
 172 Darwin on Species 
 
 in long process of time been formed from these, some 
 acquiring wings, others fins, and others claws, from 
 their ceaseless efforts to procure their food or to 
 secure themselves from injury. The anthers or 
 stigmas are therefore separate beings." 
 
 This passage contains the germ of Mr. Charles 
 Darwin's theory of the origin of species by natural 
 selection : 
 
 " Analogy would lead me to the belief that all 
 animals and plants have descended from one proto- 
 type." 
 
 Here are a few specimens, his illustrations of the 
 theory : 
 
 " There seems to me no great difficulty in believing 
 that natural selection has actually converted a swim- 
 bladder into a lung or organ used exclusively for 
 respiration." " A swim-bladder has apparently been 
 converted into an air-breathing lung." " We must be 
 cautious in concluding that a bat could not have been 
 formed by natural selection from an animal which at 
 first could only glide through the air." " I can see no 
 insuperable difficulty in further believing it possible 
 that the membrane-connected fingers and forearm of 
 the galeopithecus might be greatly lengthened by 
 natural selection, and this, as far as the organs of 
 flight are concerned, would convert it into a bat." 
 " The framework of bones being the same in the 
 hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of a porpoise, and 
 leg of a horse, the same number of vertebrae forming 
 the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant, and in- 
 numerable other such facts, at once explain them- 
 selves on the theory of descent with slow and slight 
 successive modifications."
 
 Darwin on Species 173 
 
 I do not mean to go through your correspondent's 
 letter, otherwise " I could hardly reprehend in suffi- 
 ciently strong terms " (and all that sort of thing) the 
 perversion of what I said about Giordano Bruno. 
 But " ex uno disce omnes " I am, etc., 
 
 " THE SAVOYARD." 
 
 Darwin on Species 
 
 [From the Press, 18 March, 1863.] 
 
 To the Editor of the Press. 
 
 Sir The " Savoyard " of last Saturday has shown 
 that he has perused Darwin's Botanic Garden with 
 greater attention than myself. I am obliged to him 
 for his correction of my carelessness, and have not 
 the smallest desire to make use of any loopholes 
 to avoid being " proved wrong." Let, then, the 
 " Savoyard's " assertion that Dr. Darwin had to a 
 certain extent forestalled Mr. C. Darwin stand, and 
 let my implied denial that in the older Darwin's 
 works passages bearing on natural selection, or the 
 struggle for existence, could be found, go for nought, 
 or rather let it be set down against me. 
 
 What follows ? Has the " Savoyard " (supposing 
 him to be the author of the article on barrel-organs) 
 adduced one particle of real argument the more to 
 show that the real Darwin's theory is wrong ? 
 
 The elder Darwin writes in a note that "he is 
 acquainted with a philosopher who thinks it not im- 
 possible that the first insects were the anthers or 
 stigmas of flowers, which by some means, etc. etc."
 
 174 Darwin on Species 
 
 This is mere speculation, not a definite theory, and 
 though the passage above as quoted by the " Savoyard" 
 certainly does contain the germ of Darwin's theory, 
 what is it more than the crudest and most unshapen 
 germ ? And in what conceivable way does this 
 discovery of the egg invalidate the excellence of the 
 chicken ? 
 
 Was there ever a great theory yet which was not 
 more or less developed from previous speculations 
 which were all to a certain extent wrong, and all 
 ridiculed, perhaps not undeservedly, at the time of 
 their appearance ? There is a wide difference between 
 a speculation and a theory. A speculation involves the 
 notion of a man climbing into a lofty position, and 
 descrying a somewhat remote object which he cannot 
 fully make out. A theory implies that the theorist has 
 looked long and steadfastly till he is clear in his own 
 mind concerning the nature of the thing which he is 
 beholding. I submit that the " Savoyard " has un- 
 fairly made use of the failure of certain speculations 
 in order to show that a distinct theory is untenable. 
 
 Let it be granted that Darwin's theory has been 
 foreshadowed by numerous previous writers. Grant 
 the " Savoyard " his Giordano Bruno, and give full 
 weight to the barrel-organ in a neighbouring settle- 
 ment, I would still ask, has the theory of natural 
 development of species ever been placed in anything 
 approaching its present clear and connected form 
 before the appearance of Mr. Darwin's book ? Has it 
 ever received the full attention of the scientific world 
 as a duly organised theory, one presented in a tangible 
 shape and demanding investigation, as the conclusion 
 arrived at by a man of known scientific attainments
 
 Darwin on Species 175 
 
 after years of patient toil ? The upshot of the barrel- 
 organs article was to answer this question in the 
 affirmative and to pooh-pooh all further discussion. 
 
 It would be mere presumption on my part either to 
 attack or defend Darwin, but my indignation was 
 roused at seeing him misrepresented and treated dis- 
 dainfully. I would wish, too, that the " Savoyard " 
 would have condescended to notice that little matter 
 of the bear. I have searched my copy of Darwin 
 again and again to find anything relating to the subject 
 except what I have quoted in my previous letter. 
 I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 A. M. 
 
 Darwin on Species 
 
 [From the Press, April nth, 1863.] 
 
 To the Editor of the Press. 
 
 Sir Your correspondent " A. M." is pertinacious 
 on the subject of the bear being changed into a whale, 
 which I said Darwin contemplated as not impossible. 
 I did not take the trouble in any former letter to 
 answer him on that point, as his language was so 
 intemperate. He has modified his tone in his last 
 letter, and really seems open to the conviction that he 
 may be the " careless " writer after all ; and so on 
 reflection I have determined to give him the oppor- 
 tunity of doing me justice. 
 
 In his letter of February 21 he says : "I cannot 
 sit by and see Darwin misrepresented in such a 
 scandalously slovenly manner. What Darwin does 
 say is ' that SOMETIMES diversified and changed habits
 
 ij6 Darwin on Species 
 
 may be observed in individuals of the same species ; 
 that is, that there are certain eccentric animals as 
 there are certain eccentric men. He adduces a few 
 instances, and winds up by saying that in North 
 America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming 
 for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, 
 ALMOST LIKE A WHALE, insects in the water.' THIS, 
 
 AND NOTHING MORE, pp. 201, 202." 
 
 Then follows a passage about my carelessness, 
 which (he says) is hardly to be reprehended in suffi- 
 ciently strong terms, and he ends with saying : " This 
 is disgraceful." 
 
 Now you may well suppose that I was a little puzzled 
 at the seeming audacity of a writer who should adopt 
 this style, when the words which follow his quotation 
 from Darwin are (in the edition from which I quoted) 
 as follows : " Even in so extreme a case as this, if 
 the supply of insects were constant, and if better 
 adapted competitors did not already exist in the 
 country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being 
 rendered by natural selection more and more aquatic 
 in their structure and habits, with larger and larger 
 mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as 
 a whale." 
 
 Now this passage was a remarkable instance of the 
 idea that I was illustrating in the article on " Barrel- 
 organs," because Buff on in his Histoire Naturelle had 
 conceived a theory of degeneracy (the exact converse 
 of Darwin's theory of ascension) by which the bear 
 might pass into a seal, and that into a whale. Trusting 
 now to the fairness of " A. M." I leave to him to say 
 whether he has quoted from the same edition as I 
 have, and whether the additional words I have
 
 Darwin on Species 177 
 
 quoted are in his edition, and if so whether he has 
 not been guilty of a great injustice to me ; and if 
 they are not in his edition, whether he has not been 
 guilty of great haste and " carelessness " in taking for 
 granted that I have acted in so " disgraceful " a 
 manner. 
 
 I am, Sir, etc., 
 
 " The Savoyard," or player 
 
 on Barrel-organs. 
 
 (The paragraph in question has been the occasion 
 of much discussion. The only edition in our hands 
 is the third, seventh thousand, which contains the 
 paragraph as quoted by "A. M." We have heard 
 that it is different in earlier editions, but have not 
 been able to find one. The difference between " A. M." 
 and "The Savoyard" is clearly one of different editions. 
 Darwin appears to have been ashamed of the incon- 
 sequent inference suggested, and to have withdrawn 
 it. Ed. the Press.) 
 
 Darwin on Species 
 
 [From the Press, 22nd June, 1863.] 
 
 To the Editor of the Press. 
 
 Sir I extract the following from an article in the 
 Saturday Review of January 10, 1863, on the verte- 
 brated animals of the Zoological Gardens. 
 
 " As regards the ducks, for example, inter-breeding 
 goes on to a very great extent among nearly all the 
 genera, which are well represented in the collection.
 
 178 Darwin on Species 
 
 We think it unfortunate that the details of these 
 crosses have not hitherto been made public. The 
 Zoological Society has existed about thirty-five years, 
 and we imagine that evidence must have been accumu- 
 lated almost enough to make or mar that part of Mr. 
 Darwin's well-known argument which rests on what is 
 known of the phenomena of hybridism. The present 
 list reveals only one fact bearing on the subject, but 
 that is a noteworthy one, for it completely overthrows 
 the commonly accepted theory that the mixed off- 
 spring of different species are infertile inter se. At 
 page 15 (of the list of vertebrated animals living in 
 the gardens of the Zoological Society of London, 
 Longman and Co., 1862) we find enumerated three 
 examples of hybrids between two perfectly distinct 
 species, and even, according to modern classification, 
 between two distinct genera of ducks, for three or four 
 generations. There can be little doubt that a series of 
 researches in this branch of experimental physiology, 
 which might be carried on at no great loss, would 
 place zoologists in a far better position with regard 
 to a subject which is one of the most interesting if not 
 one of the most important in natural history." 
 
 I fear that both you and your readers will be dead 
 sick of Darwin, but the above is worthy of notice. 
 My compliments to the " Savoyard." 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 May i7th. A. M.
 
 Darwin Among the Machines 
 
 " Darwin Among the Machines " originally appeared in 
 the Christ Church PRESS, 13 June, 1863. It was reprinted 
 by Mr. Festing Jones in his edition of THE NOTE- 
 BOOKS OF SAMUEL BUTLER (Fifield, London, 1912, 
 Kennerley, New York], with a prefatory note pointing 
 out its connection with the genesis of EREWHON, to which 
 readers desirous of further information may be referred. 
 
 Darwin Among the Machines 
 
 [To the Editor of the Press, Christchurch, New Zealand, 
 13 June, 1863.] 
 
 SIR There are few things of which the present 
 generation is more justly proud than of the won- 
 derful improvements which are daily taking place in all 
 sorts of mechanical appliances. And indeed it is matter 
 for great congratulation on many grounds. It is un- 
 necessary to mention these here, for they are sufficiently 
 obvious ; our present business lies with considerations 
 which may somewhat tend to humble our pride and to 
 make us think seriously of the future prospects of the 
 human race. If we revert to the earliest primordial 
 types of mechanical life, to the lever, the wedge, the 
 inclined plane, the screw and the pulley, or (for analogy 
 would lead us one step further) to that one primordial 
 type from which all the mechanical kingdom has been 
 
 179
 
 180 Darwin Among the Machines 
 
 developed, we mean to the lever itself, and if we then 
 examine the machinery of the Great Eastern, we find 
 ourselves almost awestruck at the vast development of 
 the mechanical world, at the gigantic strides with 
 which it has advanced in comparison with the slow 
 progress of the animal and vegetable kingdom. We 
 shall find it impossible to ref rain from asking ourselves 
 what the end of this mighty movement is to be. In 
 what direction is it tending ? What will be its upshot ? 
 To give a few imperfect hints towards a solution of 
 these questions is the object of the present letter. 
 
 We have used the words " mechanical life," " the 
 mechanical kingdom," " the mechanical world " and 
 so forth, and we have done so advisedly, for as the 
 vegetable kingdom was slowly developed from the 
 mineral, and as in like manner the animal supervened 
 upon the vegetable, so now in these last few ages an 
 entirely new kingdom has sprung up, of which we as 
 yet have only seen what will one day be considered the 
 antediluvian prototypes of the race. 
 
 We regret deeply that our knowledge both of natural 
 history and of machinery is too small to enable us to 
 undertake the gigantic task of classifying machines into 
 the genera and sub-genera, species, varieties and sub- 
 varieties, and so forth, of tracing the connecting links 
 between machines of widely different characters, of 
 pointing out how subservience to the use of man has 
 played that part among machines which natural selec- 
 tion has performed in the animal and vegetable king- 
 doms, of pointing out rudimentary organs* which exist 
 
 * We were asked by a learned brother philosopher who saw this 
 article in MS. what we meant by alluding to rudimentary organs in 
 machines. Could we, he asked, give any example of such organs ? 
 We pointed to the little protuberance at the bottom of the bowl of
 
 Darwin Among the Machines 1 8 1 
 
 in some few machines, feebly developed and perfectly 
 useless, yet serving to mark descent from some 
 ancestral type which has either perished or been 
 modified into some new phase of mechanical existence. 
 We can only point out this field for investigation ; it 
 must be followed by others whose education and talents 
 have been of a much higher order than any which we 
 can lay claim to. 
 
 Some few hints we have determined to venture 
 upon, though we do so with the profoundest diffidence. 
 Firstly, we would remark that as some of the lowest 
 of the vertebrata attained a far greater size than has 
 descended to their more highly organised living repre- 
 sentatives, so a diminution in the size of machines has 
 often attended their development and progress. Take 
 the watch for instance. Examine the beautiful 
 structure of the little animal, watch the intelligent 
 play of the minute members which compose it ; yet 
 this little creature is but a development of the cum- 
 brous clocks of the thirteenth century it is no 
 deterioration from them. The day may come when 
 clocks, which certainly at the present day are not 
 
 our tobacco pipe. This organ was originally designed for the same 
 purpose as the rim at the bottom of a tea-cup, which is but another 
 form of the same function. Its purpose was to keep the heat of the 
 pipe from marking the table on which it rested. Originally, as we 
 have seen in very early tobacco pipes, this protuberance was of a 
 very different shape to what it is now. It was broad at the bottom 
 and flat, so that while the pipe was being smoked the bowl might 
 rest upon the table. Use and disuse have here come into play and 
 served to reduce the function to its present rudimentary condition. 
 That these rudimentary organs are rarer in machinery than in 
 animal life is owing to the more prompt action of the human selec- 
 tion as compared with the slower but even surer operation of natural 
 selection. Man may make mistakes ; in the long run nature never 
 does so. We have only given an imperfect example, but the intelli- 
 gent reader will supply himself with illustrations.
 
 1 82 Darwin Among the Machines 
 
 diminishing in bulk, may be entirely superseded by 
 the universal use of watches, in which case clocks will 
 become extinct like the earlier saurians, while the 
 watch (whose tendency has for some years been 
 rather to decrease in size than the contrary) will 
 remain the only existing type of an extinct race. 
 
 The views of machinery which we are thus feebly 
 indicating will suggest the solution of one of the 
 greatest and most mysterious questions of the day. We 
 refer to the question : What sort of creature man's 
 next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likely 
 to be. We have often heard this debated ; but it 
 appears to us that we are ourselves creating our own 
 successors ; we are daily adding to the beauty and 
 delicacy of their physical organisation ; we are daily 
 giving them greater power and supplying by all sorts 
 of ingenious contrivances that self-regulating, self- 
 acting power which will be to them what intellect has 
 been to the human race. In the course of ages we 
 shall find ourselves the inferior race. Inferior in power, 
 inferior in that moral quality of self-control, we shall 
 look up to them as the acme of all that the best and 
 wisest man can ever dare to aim at. No evil passions, 
 no jealousy, no avarice, no impure desires will disturb 
 the serene might of those glorious creatures. Sin, 
 shame, and sorrow will have no place among them. 
 Their minds will be in a state of perpetual calm, the 
 contentment of a spirit that knows no wants, is dis- 
 turbed by no regrets. Ambition will never torture 
 them. Ingratitude will never cause them the uneasi- 
 ness of a moment. The guilty conscience, the hope 
 deferred, the pains of exile, the insolence of office, and 
 the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes
 
 Darwin Among the Machines 183 
 
 these will be entirely unknown to them. If they 
 want " feeding " (by the use of which very word we 
 betray our recognition of them as living organism) 
 they will be attended by patient slaves whose business 
 and interest it will be to see that they shall want for 
 nothing. If they are out of order they will be promptly 
 attended to by physicians who are thoroughly ac- 
 quainted with their constitutions ; if they die, for 
 even these glorious animals will not be exempt from 
 that necessary and universal consummation, they will 
 immediately enter into a new phase of existence, for 
 what machine dies entirely in every part at one and 
 the same instant ? 
 
 We take it that when the state of things shall 
 have arrived which we have been above attempting to 
 describe, man will have become to the machine what 
 the horse and the dog are to man. He will continue 
 to exist, nay even to improve, and will be probably 
 better off in his state of domestication under the 
 beneficent rule of the machines than he is in his 
 present wild state. We treat our horses, dogs, cattle, 
 and sheep, on the whole, with great kindness ; we give 
 them whatever experience teaches us to be best for 
 them, and there can be no doubt that our use of meat 
 has added to the happiness of the lower animals far 
 more than it has detracted from it ; in like manner it 
 is reasonable to suppose that the machines will treat 
 us kindly, for their existence is as dependent upon 
 ours as ours is upon the lower animals. They cannot 
 kill us and eat us as we do sheep ; they will not only 
 require our services in the parturition of their young 
 (which branch of their economy will remain always 
 in our hands), but also in feeding them, in setting
 
 184 Darwin Among the Machines 
 
 them right when they are sick, and burying their 
 dead or working up their corpses into new machines. 
 It is obvious that if all the animals in Great Britain 
 save man alone were to die, and if at the same time 
 all intercourse with foreign countries were by some 
 sudden catastrophe to be rendered perfectly im- 
 possible, it is obvious that under such circumstances 
 the loss of human life would be something fearful to 
 contemplate in like manner were mankind to cease, 
 the machines would be as badly off or even worse. 
 The fact is that our interests are inseparable from 
 theirs, and theirs from ours. Each race is dependent 
 upon the other for innumerable benefits, and, until the 
 reproductive organs of the machines have been 
 developed in a manner which we are hardly yet able 
 to conceive, they are entirely dependent upon man 
 for even the continuance of their species. It is true 
 that these organs may be ultimately developed, inas- 
 much as man's interest lies in that direction ; there is 
 nothing which our infatuated race would desire more 
 than to see a fertile union between two steam engines ; 
 it is true that machinery is even at this present time 
 employed in begetting machinery, in becoming the 
 parent of machines often after its own kind, but the 
 days of flirtation, courtship, and matrimony appear 
 to be very remote, and indeed can hardly be realised 
 by our feeble and imperfect imagination. 
 
 Day by day, however, the machines are gaining 
 ground upon us ; day by day we are becoming more 
 subservient to them ; more men are daily bound 
 down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily 
 devoting the energies of their whole lives to the 
 development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply
 
 Darwin Among the Machines 185 
 
 a question of time, but that the time will come when 
 the machines will hold the real supremacy over the 
 world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly 
 philosophic mind can for a moment question. 
 
 Our opinion is that war to the death should be 
 instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of 
 every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of 
 his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no 
 quarter shown ; let us at once go back to the primeval 
 condition of the race. If it be urged that this is 
 impossible under the present condition of human 
 affairs, this at once proves that the mischief is already 
 done, that our servitude has commenced in good 
 earnest, that we have raised a race of beings whom it 
 is beyond our power to destroy, and that we are not 
 only enslaved but are absolutely acquiescent in our 
 bondage. 
 
 For the present we shall leave this subject, which 
 we present gratis to the members of the Philosophical 
 Society. Should they consent to avail themselves of 
 the vast field which we have pointed out, we shall 
 endeavour to labour in it ourselves at some future and 
 indefinite period. 
 
 I am, Sir, etc., 
 
 CELLARIUS
 
 Lucubratio Ebria 
 
 " Lucubratio Ebria," like " Darwin Among the 
 Machines," has already appeared in THE NOTE-BOOKS 
 OF SAMUEL BUTLER with a prefatory note by Mr. 
 Festing Jones, explaining its connection with EREWHON 
 and LIFE AND HABIT. / need therefore only repeat 
 that it was written by Butler after his return to England 
 and sent to New Zealand, where it was published in the 
 PRESS on July 29, 1865. 
 
 Lucubratio Ebria 
 [From the Press, 29 July, 1865.] 
 
 r I A HERE is a period in the evening, or more 
 JL generally towards the still small hours of the 
 morning, in which we so far unbend as to take a single 
 glass of hot whisky and water. We will neither 
 defend the practice nor excuse it. We state it as a 
 fact which must be borne in mind by the readers of 
 this article ; for we know not how, whether it be the 
 inspiration of the drink or the relief from the harassing 
 work with which the day has been occupied or from 
 whatever other cause, yet we are certainly liable 
 about this time to such a prophetic influence as we 
 seldom else experience. We are rapt in a dream such 
 as we ourselves know to be a dream, and which, like 
 other dreams, we can hardly embody in a distinct 
 
 1 86
 
 Lucubratio Ebria 187 
 
 utterance. We know that what we see is but a sort 
 of intellectual Siamese twins, of which one is substance 
 and the other shadow, but we cannot set either free with- 
 out killing both. We are unable to rudely tear away 
 the veil of phantasy in which the truth is shrouded, 
 so we present the reader with a draped figure, and his 
 own judgment must discriminate between the clothes 
 and the body. A truth's prosperity is like a jest's, 
 it lies in the ear of him that hears it. Some may see 
 our lucubration as we saw it, and others may see 
 nothing but a drunken dream or the nightmare of a 
 distempered imagination. To ourselves it is the 
 speaking with unknown tongues to the early Corin- 
 thians ; we cannot fully understand our own speech, 
 and we fear lest there be not a sufficient number of 
 interpreters present to make our utterance edify. 
 But there ! (Go on straight to the body of the 
 article.) 
 
 The limbs of the lower animals have never been 
 modified by any act of deliberation and forethought 
 on their own part. Recent researches have thrown 
 absolutely no light upon the origin of life upon the 
 initial force which introduced a sense of identity and 
 a deliberate faculty into the world ; but they do 
 certainly appear to show very clearly that each 
 species of the animal and vegetable kingdom has been 
 moulded into its present shape by chances and changes 
 of many millions of years, by chances and changes 
 over which the creature modified had no control what- 
 ever, and concerning whose aim it was alike uncon- 
 scious and indifferent, by forces which seem insensate 
 to the pain which they inflict, but by whose in- 
 exorably beneficent cruelty the brave and strong keep
 
 Lucubratio Ebria 
 
 coming to the fore, while the weak and bad drop 
 behind and perish. There was a moral government 
 of this world before man came near it a moral 
 government suited to the capacities of the governed, 
 and which unperceived by them has laid fast the 
 ioundations of courage, endurance, and cunning. It 
 laid them so fast that they became more and more 
 hereditary. Horace says well fortes creantur fortibus 
 et bonis, good men beget good children ; the rule held 
 even in the geological period ; good ichthyosauri 
 begot good ichthyosauri, and would to our discomfort 
 have gone on doing so to the present time had not 
 better creatures been begetting better things than 
 ichthyosauri, or famine or fire or convulsion put an 
 end to them. Good apes begot good apes, and at last 
 when human intelligence stole like a late spring upon 
 the mimicry of our semi-simious ancestry, the creature 
 learnt how he could of his own forethought add extra- 
 corporaneous limbs to the members of his own body, 
 and become not only a vertebrate mammal, but a 
 vertebrate machinate mammal into the bargain. 
 
 It was a wise monkey that first learned to carry a 
 stick, and a useful monkey that mimicked him. For 
 the race of man has learned to walk uprightly much 
 as a child learns the same thing. At first he crawls 
 on all fours, then he clambers, laying hold of whatever 
 he can ; and lastly he stands upright alone and walks, 
 but for a long time with an unsteady step. So when 
 the human race was in its gorilla-hood it generally 
 carried a stick ; from carrying a stick for many 
 million years it became accustomed and modified to 
 an upright position. The stick wherewith it had 
 learned to walk would now serve to beat its younger
 
 Lucubratio Ebria 189 
 
 brothers, and then it found out its service as a lever. 
 Man would thus learn that the limbs of his body were 
 not the only limbs that he could command. His body 
 was already the most versatile in existence, but he 
 could render it more versatile still. With the im- 
 provement in his body his mind improved also. He 
 learnt to perceive the moral government under which 
 he held the feudal tenure of his life perceiving it he 
 symbolised it, and to this day our poets and prophets 
 still strive to symbolise it more and more completely. 
 The mind grew because the body grew ; more 
 things were perceived, more things were handled, 
 and being handled became familiar. But this came 
 about chiefly because there was a hand to handle 
 with ; without the hand there would be no handling, 
 and no method of holding and examining is com- 
 parable to the human hand. The tail of an opossum 
 is a prehensile thing, but it is too far from his eyes ; 
 the elephant's trunk is better, and it is probably to 
 their trunks that the elephants owe their sagacity. It 
 is here that the bee, in spite of her wings, has failed. 
 She has a high civilisation, but it is one whose 
 equilibrium appears to have been already attained ; 
 the appearance is a false one, for the bee changes, 
 though more slowly than man can watch her ; but the 
 reason of the very gradual nature of the change is 
 chiefly because the physical organisation of the insect 
 changes, but slowly also. She is poorly off for hands, 
 and has never fairly grasped the notion of tacking on 
 other limbs to the limbs of her own body, and so 
 being short lived to boot she remains from century to 
 century to human eyes in statu quo. Her body never 
 becomes machinate, whereas this new phase of organism
 
 190 Lucubratio Ebria 
 
 which has been introduced with man into the mundane 
 economy, has made him a very quicksand for the 
 foundation of an unchanging civilisation ; certain 
 fundamental principles will always remain, but every 
 century the change in man's physical status, as com- 
 pared with the elements around him, is greater and 
 greater. He is a shifting basis on which no equilibrium 
 of habit and civilisation can be established. Were it 
 not for this constant change in our physical powers, 
 which our mechanical limbs have brought about, man 
 would have long since apparently attained his limit of 
 possibility ; he would be a creature of as much fixity 
 as the ants and bees ; he would still have advanced, 
 but no faster than other animals advance. 
 
 If there were a race of men without any mechanical 
 appliances we should see this clearly. There are 
 none, nor have there been, so far as we can tell, for 
 millions and millions of years. The lowest Australian 
 savage carries weapons for the fight or the chase, 
 and has his cooking and drinking utensils at home ; 
 a race without these things would be completely 
 fevce. natures and not men at all. We are unable to 
 point to any example of a race absolutely devoid of 
 extra-corporaneous limbs, but we can see among the 
 Chinese that with the failure to invent new limbs a 
 civilisation becomes as much fixed as that of the ants ; 
 and among savage tribes we observe that few imple- 
 ments involve a state of things scarcely human at all. 
 Such tribes only advance pan fiassu with the creatures 
 upon which they feed. 
 
 It is a mistake, then, to take the view adopted by a 
 previous correspondent of this paper, to consider the 
 machines as identities, to animalise them and to
 
 Lucubratio Ebria 191 
 
 anticipate their final triumph over mankind. They 
 are to be regarded as the mode of development by 
 which human organism is most especially advancing, 
 and every fresh invention is to be considered as an 
 additional member of the resources of the human body. 
 Herein lies the fundamental difference between man 
 and his inferiors. As regard his flesh and blood, his 
 senses, appetites, and affections, the difference is one 
 of degree rather than of kind, but in the deliberate 
 invention of such unity of limbs as is exemplified by 
 the railway train that seven-leagued foot which five 
 hundred may own at once he stands quite alone. 
 
 In confirmation of the views concerning mechanism 
 which we have been advocating above, it must be 
 remembered that men are not merely the children 
 of their parents, but they are begotten of the institu- 
 tions of the state of the mechanical sciences under 
 which they are born and bred. These things have 
 made us what we are. We are children of the plough, 
 the spade, and the ship ; we are children of the 
 extended liberty and knowledge which the printing 
 press has diffused. Our ancestors added these things 
 to their previously existing members ; the new limbs 
 were preserved by natural selection and incorporated 
 into human society ; they descended with modifica- 
 tions, and hence proceeds the difference between our 
 ancestors and ourselves. By the institutions and state 
 of science under which a man is born it is determined 
 whether he shall have the limbs of an Australian 
 savage or those of a nineteenth-century Englishman. 
 The former is supplemented with little save a rug 
 and a javelin ; the latter varies his physique with the 
 changes of the season, with age and with advancing
 
 192 Lucubratio Ebria 
 
 or decreasing wealth. If it is wet he is furnished with 
 an organ which is called an umbrella and which seems 
 designed for the purpose of protecting either his 
 clothes or his lungs from the injurious effects of rain. 
 His watch is of more importance to him than a good 
 deal of his hair, at any rate than of his whiskers ; 
 besides this he carries a knife and generally a pencil 
 case. His memory goes in a pocket-book. He grows 
 more complex as he becomes older and he will then 
 be seen with a pair of spectacles, perhaps also with 
 false teeth and a wig ; but, if he be a really well- 
 developed specimen of the race, he will be furnished 
 with a large box upon wheels, two horses, and a coach- 
 man. 
 
 Let the reader ponder over these last remarks and 
 he will see that the principal varieties and sub- 
 varieties of the human race are not now to be looked 
 for among the negroes, the Circassians, the Malays, or 
 the American aborigines, but among the rich and 
 the poor. The difference in physical organisation 
 between these two species of man is far greater than 
 that between the so-called types of humanity. The 
 rich man can go from here to England whenever he 
 feels inclined, the legs of the other are by an invisible 
 fatality prevented from carrying him beyond certain 
 narrow limits. Neither rich nor poor as yet see the 
 philosophy of the thing, or admit that he who can 
 tack a portion of one of the P. and O. boats on to his 
 identity is a much more highly organised being than 
 one who cannot. Yet the fact is patent enough, if 
 we once think it over, from the mere consideration 
 of the respect with which we so often treat those who 
 are richer than ourselves. We observe men for the
 
 Lucubratio Ebria 193 
 
 most part (admitting, however, some few abnormal 
 exceptions) to be deeply impressed by the superior 
 organisation of those who have money. It is wrong 
 to attribute this respect to any unworthy motive, for 
 the feeling is strictly legitimate and springs from 
 some of the very highest impulses of our nature. It is 
 the same sort of affectionate reverence which a dog 
 feels for man, and is not infrequently manifested in a 
 similar manner. 
 
 We admit that these last sentences are open to 
 question, and we should hardly like to commit our- 
 selves irrecoverably to the sentiments they express ; 
 but we will say this much for certain, namely, that 
 the rich man is the true hundred-handed Gyges of the 
 poets. He alone possesses the full complement of 
 limbs who stands at the summit of opulence, and we 
 may assert with strictly scientific accuracy that the 
 Rothschilds are the most astonishing organisms that 
 the world has ever yet seen. For to the nerves or 
 tissues, or whatever it be that answers to the helm of 
 a rich man's desires, there is a whole army of limbs 
 seen and unseen attachable ; he may be reckoned by 
 his horse-power, by the number of foot-pounds which 
 he has money enough to set in motion. Who, then, 
 will deny that a man whose will represents the motive 
 power of a thousand horses is a being very different 
 from the one who is equivalent but to the power of a 
 single one ? 
 
 Henceforward, then, instead of saying that a man 
 is hard up, let us say that his organisation is at a low 
 ebb, or, if we wish him well, let us hope that he will 
 grow plenty of limbs. It must be remembered that we 
 are dealing with physical organisations only. We do
 
 194 Lucubratio Ebria 
 
 not say that the thousand-horse man is better than a 
 one-horse man, we only say that he is more highly 
 organised and should be recognised as being so by 
 the scientific leaders of the period. A man's will, 
 truth, endurance, are part of him also, and may, as in 
 the case of the late Mr. Cobden, have in themselves a 
 power equivalent to all the horse-power which they 
 can influence ; but were we to go into this part of 
 the question we should never have done, and we are 
 compelled reluctantly to leave our dream in its 
 present fragmentary condition.
 
 A Note on "The Tempest" 
 Act HI, Scene I 
 
 The following brief essay was contributed by Butler 
 to a small miscellany entitled LITERARY FOUNDLINGS : 
 VERSE AND PROSE, COLLECTED IN CANTERBURY, N.Z., 
 which was published at Christ Church on the occasion of a 
 bazaar held there in March, 1864, in aid of the funds of 
 the Christ Church Orphan Asylum, and offered for sale 
 during the progress of the bazaar. The miscellany 
 consisted entirely of the productions of Canterbury 
 writers, and among the contributors were Dean Jacobs, 
 Canon Cottrell, and James Edward FitzGerald, the 
 founder of the PRESS. 
 
 A Note on "The Tempest," Act III, Scene I 
 
 WHEN Prince Ferdinand was wrecked on the 
 island Miranda was fifteen years old. We 
 can hardly suppose that she had ever seen Ariel, and 
 Caliban was a detestable object whom her father took 
 good care to keep as much out of her way as possible. 
 Caliban was like the man cook on a back-country run. 
 " Tis a villain, sir," says Miranda. " I do not love to 
 look on." " But as 'tis," returns Prospero, " we 
 cannot miss him ; he does make our fire, fetch in our 
 wood, and serve in offices that profit us." Hands 
 were scarce, and Prospero was obliged to put up with
 
 196 A Note on "The Tempest" 
 
 Caliban in spite of the many drawbacks with which 
 his services were attended ; in fact, no one on the 
 island could have liked him, for Ariel owed him a 
 grudge on the score of the cruelty with which he had 
 been treated by Sycorax, and we have already heard 
 what Miranda and Prospero had to say about him. 
 He may therefore pass for nobody. Prospero was an 
 old man, or at any rate in all probability some forty 
 years of age ; therefore it is no wonder that when 
 Miranda saw Prince Ferdinand she should have fallen 
 violently in love with him. " Nothing ill," according 
 to her view, " could dwell hi such a temple if the ill 
 Spirit have so fair an house, good things will strive to 
 dwell with 't." A very natural sentiment for a girl 
 in Miranda's circumstances, but nevertheless one 
 which betrayed a charming inexperience of the ways 
 of the world and of the real value of good looks. 
 What surprises us, however, is this, namely the 
 remarkable celerity with which Miranda hi a few 
 hours became so thoroughly wide awake to the 
 exigencies of the occasion in consequence of her love 
 for the Prince. Prospero has set Ferdinand to hump 
 firewood out of the bush, and to pile it up for the use 
 of the cave. Ferdinand is for the present a sort of 
 cadet, a youth of good family, without cash and un- 
 accustomed to manual labour ; his unlucky stars 
 have landed him on the island, and now it seems that 
 he " must remove some thousands of these logs and 
 pile them up, upon a sore injunction." Poor fellow ! 
 Miranda's heart bleeds for him. Her " affections were 
 most humble " ; she had been content to take Fer- 
 dinand on speculation. On first seeing him she had 
 exclaimed, " I have no ambition to see a goodlier
 
 A Note on " The Tempest" 197 
 
 man " ; and it makes her blood boil to see this divine 
 creature compelled to such an ignominious and 
 painful labour. What is the family consumption of 
 firewood to her ? Let Caliban do it ; let Prospero do 
 it ; or make Ariel do it ; let her do it herself ; or let 
 the lightning come down and " burn up those logs 
 you are enjoined to pile " ; the logs themselves, 
 while burning, would weep for having wearied him. 
 Come what would, it was a shame to make Ferdinand 
 work so hard, so she winds up thus : " My father is 
 hard at study ; pray now rest yourself he's safe for 
 these three hours." Safe if she had only said that 
 " papa was safe," the sentence would have been 
 purely modern, and have suited Thackeray as well as 
 Shakspeare. See how quickly she has learnt to regard 
 her father as one to be watched and probably kept in 
 a good humour for the sake of Ferdinand. We suppose 
 that the secret of the modern character of this particular 
 passage lies simply in the fact that young people 
 make love pretty much hi the same way now that 
 they did three hundred years ago ; and possibly, 
 with the exception that " the governor " may be 
 substituted for the words " my father " by the young 
 ladies of three hundred years hence, the passage will 
 sound as fresh and modern then as it does now. Let 
 the Prosperos of that age take a lesson, and either not 
 allow the Ferdinands to pile up firewood, or so to 
 arrange their studies as not to be " safe " for any 
 three consecutive hours. It is true that Prospero's 
 objection to the match was only feigned, but Miranda 
 thought otherwise, and for all purposes of argument 
 we are justified in supposing that he was in earnest.
 
 The English Cricketers 
 
 o 
 
 The following lines were written by Buffer in February, 
 1864, and appeared in the PRESS. They refer to a visit 
 paid to New Zealand by a team of English cricketers, 
 and have kindly been copied and sent to me by Miss 
 Colbome-Veel, whose father was editor of the PRESS at 
 the time that Butler was writing for it. Miss Colborne- 
 Veel has further permitted to me to make use of the 
 following explanatory note : " The coming of the All 
 England team was naturally a glorious event in a 
 province only fourteen years old. The Mayor and 
 Councillors had ' a car of state ' otherwise a brake 
 'with postilions in the English style.' Cobb and Co. 
 supplied a six-horse coach for the English eleven, the 
 yellow paint upon which suggested the ' glittering chariot 
 of pure gold.' So they drove in triumph from the station 
 and through the town. Tinleyfor England and Tennant 
 for Canterbury were the heroes of the match. At the 
 Wednesday dinner referred to they exchanged compli- 
 ments and cricket balls across the table. This early 
 esteem for cricket may be explained by a remark made by 
 the All England captain, that ' on no cricket ground in 
 any colony had he met so many public school men, 
 especially men from old Rugby, as at Canterbury.' ' 
 
 198
 
 The English Cricketers 199 
 
 The English Cricketers 
 [To the Editor, the Press, February I5th, 1864.] 
 
 SIR The following lines, which profess to have been 
 written by a friend of mine at three o'clock in the 
 morning after the dinner of Wednesday last, have 
 been presented to myself with a request that I should 
 forward them to you. I would suggest to the writer 
 of them the following quotation from " Love's Labour's 
 Lost." 
 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 
 S. B. 
 
 " You find not the apostrophes, and so miss the 
 accent ; let me supervise the canzonet. Here are only 
 numbers ratified ; but for the elegancy, facility, and 
 golden cadence of poesy, caret. . . . Imitari is nothing. 
 So doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the 
 tired horse his rider." 
 
 Love's Labour's Lost, Act IV, S. 2. 
 
 HORATIO. . . . 
 . . . The whole town rose 
 Eyes out to meet them ; hi a car of state 
 The Mayor and all the Councillors rode down 
 To give them greeting, while the blue-eyed team 
 Drawn in Cobb's glittering chariot of pure gold 
 Careered it from the station. But the Mayor 
 Thou shouldst have seen the blandness of the man, 
 And watched the effulgent and unspeakable smiles 
 With which he beamed upon them. 
 His beard, by nature tawny, was suffused
 
 2OO The English Cricketers 
 
 With just so much of a most reverend grizzle 
 That youth and age should kiss in't. I assure you 
 He was a Southern Palmerston, so old 
 In understanding, yet jocund and jaunty 
 As though his twentieth summer were as yet 
 But in the very June o' the year, and winter 
 Was never to be dreamt of. Those who heard 
 His words stood ravished. It was all as one 
 As though Minerva, hid in Mercury's jaws, 
 Had counselled some divinest utterance 
 Of honeyed wisdom. So profound, so true, 
 So meet for the occasion, and so short. 
 The king sat studying rhetoric as he spoke, 
 While the lord Abbot heaved half-envious sighs 
 And hung suspended on his accents. 
 
 CLAUD. But will it pay, Horatio ? 
 
 HOR. Let Shylock see to that, but yet I trust 
 He's no great loser. 
 
 CLAUD. Which side went in first ? 
 
 HOR. We did, 
 
 And scored a paltry thirty runs in all. 
 The lissom Lockyer gambolled round the stumps 
 With many a crafty curvet : you had thought 
 An Indian rubber monkey were endued 
 With wicket-keeping instincts ; teazing Tinley 
 Issued his treacherous notices to quit, 
 Ruthlessly truthful to his fame, and who 
 Shall speak of Jackson ? Oh ! 'twas sad indeed 
 To watch the downcast faces of our men 
 Returning from the wickets ; one by one, 
 Like patients at the gratis consultation 
 Of some skilled leech, they took their turn at physic. 
 And each came sadly homeward with a face
 
 The English Cricketers 201 
 
 Awry through inward anguish ; they were pale 
 As ghosts of some dead but deep mourned love, 
 Grim with a great despair, but forced to smile. 
 
 CLAUD. Poor souls ! Th' unkindest heart had bled 
 
 for them. 
 But what came after ? 
 
 HOR. Fortune turned her wheel, 
 
 And Grace, disgraced for the nonce, was bowled 
 First ball, and all the welkin roared applause ! 
 As for the rest, they scored a goodly score 
 And showed some splendid cricket, but their deeds 
 Were not colossal, and our own brave Tennant 
 Proved himself all as good a man as they. 
 
 Through them we greet our Mother. In their coming, 
 
 We shake our dear old England by the hand 
 
 And watch space dwindling, while the shrinking world 
 
 Collapses into nothing. Mark me well, 
 
 Matter as swift as swiftest thought shall fly, 
 
 And space itself be nowhere. Future Tinleys 
 
 Shall bowl from London to our Christ Church Tennants, 
 
 And all the runs for all the stumps be made 
 
 In flying baskets which shall come and go 
 
 And do the circuit round about the globe 
 
 Within ten seconds. Do not check me with 
 
 The roundness of the intervening world, 
 
 The winds, the mountain ranges, and the seas 
 
 These hinder nothing ; for the leathern sphere, 
 
 Like to a planetary satellite, 
 
 Shall wheel its faithful orb and strike the bails 
 
 Clean from the centre of the middle stump.
 
 2O2 The English Cricketers 
 
 Mirrors shall hang suspended in the air, 
 Fixed by a chain between two chosen stars, 
 And every eye shall be a telescope 
 To read the passing shadows from the world. 
 Such games shall be hereafter, but as yet 
 We lay foundations only. 
 
 CLAUD. Thou must be drunk, Horatio. 
 
 HOR. So I am.
 
 PART II 
 CAMBRIDGE
 
 On English Composition and Other 
 Matters 
 
 This essay is believed to be the first composition by 
 Samuel Butler that appeared in print. It was published 
 in the first number of the EAGLE, a magazine written 
 and edited by members of St. John's College, Cambridge, 
 in the Lent Term, 1858, when Butler was in his fourth 
 and last year of residence. 
 
 On English Composition and Other Matters 
 [From the Eagle, Vol. I, No. i, Lent Term, 1858, p. 41.] 
 
 I SIT down scarcely knowing how to grasp my own 
 meaning, and give it a tangible shape in words ; 
 and yet it is concerning this very expression of our 
 thoughts in words that I wish to speak. As I muse 
 things fall more into their proper places, and, little fit 
 for the task as my confession pronounces me to be, I 
 will try to make clear that which is in my mind. 
 
 I think, then, that the style of our authors of a 
 couple of hundred years ago was more terse and 
 masculine than that of those of the present day, 
 possessing both more of the graphic element, and more 
 vigour, straightforwardness, and conciseness. Most 
 readers will have anticipated me in admitting that a 
 man should be clear of his meaning before he en- 
 deavours to give to it any kind of utterance, and that 
 
 205
 
 206 On English Composition 
 
 having made up his mind what to say, the less thought 
 he takes how to say it, more than briefly, pointedly, 
 and plainly, the better ; for instance, Bacon tells us, 
 " Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark " ; 
 he does not say, what I can imagine a last century 
 writer to have said, " A feeling somewhat analogous 
 to the dread with which children are affected upon 
 entering a dark room, is that which most men entertain 
 at the contemplation of death." Jeremy Taylor says, 
 " Tell them it is as much intemperance to weep too 
 much as to laugh too much " ; he does not say, " All 
 men will acknowledge that laughing admits of intemper- 
 ance, but some men may at first sight hesitate to allow 
 that a similar imputation may be at times attached to 
 weeping." 
 
 I incline to believe that as irons support the rickety 
 child, whilst they impede the healthy one, so rules, 
 for the most part, are but useful to the weaker among 
 us. Our greatest masters in language, whether prose 
 or verse, in painting, music, architecture, or the like, 
 have been those who preceded the rule and whose 
 excellence gave rise thereto ; men who preceded, I 
 should rather say, not the rule, but the discovery of the 
 rule, men whose intuitive perception led them to the 
 right practice. We cannot imagine Homer to have 
 studied rules, and the infant genius of those giants of 
 their art, Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven, who com- 
 posed at the ages of seven, five, and ten, must certainly 
 have been unfettered by them : to the less brilliantly 
 endowed, however, they have a use as being com- 
 pendious safeguards against error. Let me then lay 
 down as the best of all rules for writing, " forget- 
 fulness of self, and carefulness of the matter in hand."
 
 On English Composition 207 
 
 No simile is out of place that illustrates the subject ; 
 in fact a simile as showing the symmetry of this 
 world's arrangement, is always, if a fair one, interest- 
 ing ; every simile is amiss that leads the mind from 
 the contemplation of its object to the contemplation 
 of its author. This will apply equally to the heaping 
 up of unnecessary illustrations : it is as great a fault 
 to supply the reader with too many as with too few ; 
 having given him at most two, it is better to let him 
 read slowly and think out the rest for himself than to 
 surfeit him with an abundance of explanation. Hood 
 says well, 
 
 And thus upon the public mind intrude it ; 
 As if I thought, like Otaheitan cooks, 
 No food was fit to eat till I had chewed it. 
 
 A book that is worth reading will be worth reading 
 thoughtfully, and there are but few good books, save 
 certain novels, that it is well to read in an arm-chair. 
 Most will bear standing to. At the present time we 
 seem to lack the impassiveness and impartiality which 
 was so marked among the writings of our forefathers, 
 we are seldom content with the simple 'narration of 
 fact, but must rush off into an almost declamatory 
 description of them ; my meaning will be plain to all 
 who have studied Thucydides. The dignity of his 
 simplicity is, I think, marred by those who put in the 
 accessories which seem thought necessary in all present 
 histories. How few writers of the present day would 
 not, instead of vug yap eVeyeVero ru> epyv, rather 
 write, " Night fell upon this horrid scene of blood- 
 shed."* This is somewhat a matter of taste, but I 
 
 * This was called to my attention by a distinguished Greek 
 scholar a of this University.
 
 2o8 On English Composition 
 
 think I shall find some to agree with me in preferring 
 for plain narration (of course I exclude oratory) the 
 unadorned gravity of Thucydides. There are, indeed, 
 some writers of the present day who seem returning 
 to the statement of facts rather than their adornment, 
 but these are not the most generally admired. This 
 simplicity, however, to be truly effective must be un- 
 studied ; it will not do to write with affected terse- 
 ness, a charge which, I think, may be fairly preferred 
 against Tacitus ; such a style if ever effective must be 
 so from excess of artifice and not from that artlessness 
 of simplicity which I should wish to see prevalent 
 among us. 
 
 Neither again is it well to write and go over the 
 ground again with the pruning knife, though this 
 fault is better than the other ; to take care of the 
 matter, and let the words take care of themselves, is 
 the best safeguard. 
 
 To this I shall be answered, " Yes, but is not a 
 diamond cut and polished a more beautiful object 
 than when rough ? " I grant it, and more valuable, 
 inasmuch as it has run chance of spoliation in the 
 cutting, but I maintain that the thinking man, the 
 man whose thoughts are great and worth the con- 
 sideration of others, will " deal in proprieties," and 
 will from the mine of his thoughts produce ready-cut 
 diamonds, or rather will cut them there spontaneously, 
 ere ever they see the light of day. 
 
 There are a few points still which it were well we 
 should consider. We are all too apt when we sit 
 down to study a subject to have already formed our 
 opinion, and to weave all matter to the warp of our 
 preconceived judgment, to fall in with the received
 
 On English Composition 209 
 
 idea, and, with biassed minds, unconsciously to follow 
 in the wake of public opinion, while professing to lead 
 it. To the best of my belief half the dogmatism of 
 those we daily meet is in consequence of the un- 
 witting practices of this self-deception. Simply let us 
 not talk about what we do not understand, save as 
 learners, and we shall not by writing mislead others. 
 
 There is no shame in being obliged to others for 
 opinions, the shame is not being honest enough to 
 acknowledge it : I would have no one omit to put 
 down a useful thought because it was not his own, 
 provided it tended to the better expression of his 
 matter, and he did not conceal its source ; let him, 
 however, set out the borrowed capital to interest. 
 One word more and I have done. With regard to our 
 subject, the best rule is not to write concerning that 
 about which we cannot at our present age know 
 anything save by a process which is commonly called 
 cram : on all such matters there are abler writers 
 than ourselves ; the men, in fact, from whom we 
 cram. Never let us hunt after a subject, unless we 
 have something which we feel urged on to say, it is 
 better to say nothing ; who are so ridiculous as those 
 who talk for the sake of talking, save only those who 
 write for the sake of writing ? but there are subjects 
 which all young men think about. Who can take a 
 walk in our streets and not think ? the most trivial 
 incident has ramifications, to whose guidance if we 
 surrender our thoughts, we are oft-times led upon a 
 gold mine unawares, and no man whether old or young 
 is worse for reading the ingenuous and unaffected 
 statement of a young man's thoughts. There are some 
 things in which experience blunts the mental vision,
 
 2io On English Composition 
 
 as well as others in which it sharpens it. The former 
 are best described by younger men, our province is not 
 to lead public opinion, is not in fact to ape our seniors, 
 and transport ourselves from our proper sphere, it is 
 rather to show ourselves as we are, to throw our 
 thoughts before the public as they rise, without 
 requiring it to imagine that we are right and others 
 wrong, but hoping for the forbearance which I must 
 beg the reader to concede to myself, and trusting to 
 the genuineness and vigour of our design to attract it 
 may be more than a passing attention. 
 
 I am aware that I have digressed from the original 
 purpose of my essay, but I hope for pardon, if, believing 
 the digression to be of more value than the original 
 matter, I have not checked my pen, but let it run on 
 even as my heart directed it. 
 
 CELLARIUS.
 
 Our Tour 
 
 This essay was published in the EAGLE, Vol. I, No. 5, 
 in the Easter Term, 1859. It describes a holiday trip 
 made by Butler in June, 1857, * w company with a 
 friend whose name, which was Joseph Green, Butler 
 Italianised as Giuseppe Verdi. I am permitted by 
 Professor Bonney to quote a few words from a private 
 letter of his referring to Butler's tour : "It was remark- 
 able in the amount of ground covered and the small sum 
 spent, but still more in the direction taken in the first 
 part of the tour. Dauphine was then almost a TERRA 
 INCOGNITA to English or any other travellers." 
 
 Our Tour 
 
 [From the Eagle, Vol. I, No. 5. Easter Term, 1859, 
 
 p. 241.] 
 
 AS the vacation is near, and many may find them- 
 selves with three weeks' time on their hand, 
 five-and-twenty pounds in their pockets, and the 
 map of Europe before them, perhaps the following 
 sketch of what can be effected with such money and 
 in such time, may not come amiss to those, who, like 
 ourselves a couple of years ago, are in doubt how to 
 enjoy themselves most effectually after a term's hard 
 reading. 
 
 211
 
 212 Our Tour 
 
 To some, probably, the tour we decided upon may 
 seem too hurried, and the fatigue too great for too 
 little profit ; still even to these it may happen that a 
 portion of the following pages may be useful. Indeed, 
 the tour was scarcely conceived at first in its full 
 extent, originally we had intended devoting ourselves 
 entirely to the French architecture of Normandy and 
 Brittany. Then we grew ambitious, and stretched 
 our imaginations to Paris. Then the longing for a 
 snowy mountain waxed, and the love of French 
 Gothic waned, and we determined to explore the French 
 Alps. Then we thought that we must just step over 
 them and take a peep into Italy, and so, disdaining to 
 return by the road we had already travelled, we would 
 cut off the north-west corner of Italy, and cross the 
 Alps again into Switzerland, where, of course, we 
 must see the cream of what was to be seen ; and then 
 thinking it possible that our three weeks and our five- 
 and-twenty pounds might be looking foolish, we would 
 return, via Strasburg to Paris, and so to Cambridge. 
 This plan we eventually carried into execution, 
 spending not a penny more money, nor an hour's 
 more time ; and, despite the declarations which met us 
 on all sides that we could never achieve anything like 
 all we had intended, I hope to be able to show how we 
 did achieve it, and how anyone else may do the like 
 if he has a mind. A person with a good deal of energy 
 might do much more than this ; we ourselves had 
 at one time entertained thoughts of going to Rome 
 for two days, and thence to Naples, walking over 
 the Monte St. Angelo from Castellamare to Amalfi 
 (which for my own part I cherish with fond affection, 
 as being far the most lovely thing that I have ever
 
 Our Tour 213 
 
 seen), and then returning as with a Nunc Dimittis, 
 and I still think it would have been very possible ; 
 but, on the whole, such a journey would not have been 
 so well, for the long tedious road between Marseilles 
 and Paris would have twice been traversed by us, to 
 say nothing of the sea journey between Marseilles and 
 Civita Vecchia. However, no more of what might 
 have been, let us proceed to what was. 
 
 If on Tuesday, June 9 [i.e. 1857], you leave London 
 Bridge at six o'clock in the morning, you will get (via 
 Newhaven) to Dieppe at fifteen minutes past three. 
 If on landing you go to the Hotel Victoria, you will 
 find good accommodation and a table d'hote at five 
 o'clock ; you can then go and admire the town, which 
 will not be worth admiring, but which "will fill you with 
 pleasure on account of the novelty and freshness of 
 everything you meet ; whether it is the old bonnet- 
 less, short-petticoated women walking arm and arm 
 with their grandsons, whether the church with its 
 quaint sculpture of the Entombment of our Lord, and 
 the sad votive candles ever guttering in front of it, or 
 whether the plain evidence that meets one at every 
 touch and turn, that one is among people who live out 
 of doors very much more than ourselves, or what not 
 all will be charming, and if you are yourself in high 
 spirits and health, full of anticipation and well inclined 
 to be pleased with all you see, Dieppe will appear a 
 very charming place, and one which a year or two 
 hence you will fancy that you would like to revisit. 
 But now we must leave it at forty-five minutes past 
 seven, and at twelve o'clock on Tuesday night we shall 
 find ourselves in Paris. We drive off to the Hotel de 
 Normandie in the Rue St. Honore, 290 (I think),
 
 214 Our Tour 
 
 stroll out and get a cup of coffee, and return to bed at 
 one o'clock. 
 
 The next day we spent in Paris, and of it no account 
 need be given, save perhaps the reader may be advised 
 to ascend the Arc de Triomphe, and not to waste his 
 time in looking at Napoleon's hats and coats and 
 shoes in the Louvre ; to eschew all the picture rooms 
 save the one with the Murillos, and the great gallery, 
 and to dine at the Diners de Paris. If he asks leave 
 to wash his hands before dining there, he will observe 
 a little astonishment among the waiters at the bar- 
 barian cleanliness of the English, and be shown into 
 a little room, where a diminutive bowl will be proffered 
 to him, of which more anon ; let him first (as we did) 
 wash or rather sprinkle his face as best he can, and 
 then we will tell him after dinner what we generally 
 do with the bowls in question. I forget how many 
 things they gave us, but I am sure many more than 
 would be pleasant to read, nor do I remember any 
 circumstance connected with the dinner, save that on 
 occasion of one of the courses, the waiter perceiving a 
 little perplexity on my part as to how I should manage 
 an artichoke served a la franfaise, feelingly removed 
 my knife and fork from my hand and cut it up him- 
 self into six mouthfuls, returning me the whole with 
 a sigh of gratitude for the escape of the artichoke 
 from a barbarous and unnatural end ; and then after 
 dinner they brought us little tumblers of warm 
 lavender scent and water to wash our mouths out, 
 and the little bowls to spit into ; but enough of eating, 
 we must have some more coffee at a cafe on the 
 Boulevards, watch the carriages and the people and 
 the dresses and the sunshine and all the pomps and
 
 Our Tour 215 
 
 vanities which the Boulevards have not yet renounced ; 
 return to the inn, fetch our knapsacks, and be off to 
 the Chemin de Fer de Lyon by forty-five minutes past 
 seven ; our train leaves at five minutes past eight, and 
 we are booked to Grenoble. All night long the train 
 speeds towards the south. We leave Sens with its 
 grey cathedral solemnly towering in the moonlight 
 a mile on the left. (How few remember, that to the 
 architect William of Sens we owe Canterbury Cathe- 
 dral.) Fontainebleau is on the right, station after 
 station wakes up our dozing senses, while ever in our 
 ears are ringing as through the dim light we gaze on 
 the surrounding country, " the pastures of Switzerland 
 and the poplar valleys of France." 
 
 It is still dark as dark, that is, as the midsummer 
 night will allow it to be, when we are aware that we 
 have entered on a tunnel ; a long tunnel, very long I 
 fancy there must be high hills above it ; for I re- 
 member that some few years ago when I was travelling 
 up from Marseilles to Paris in midwinter, all the way 
 from Avignon (between which place and Chalon the 
 railway was not completed), there had been a dense 
 frozen fog ; on neither hand could anything beyond 
 the road be descried, while every bush and tree was 
 coated with a thick and steadily increasing fringe of 
 silver hoar-frost, for the night and day, and half-day 
 that it took us to reach this tunnel, all was the same 
 bitter cold dense fog and ever silently increasing hoar- 
 frost : but on emerging from it, the whole scene was 
 completely changed ; the air was clear, the sun 
 shining brightly, no hoar-frost and only a few patches 
 of fast melting snow, everything in fact betokening a 
 thaw of some days' duration. Another thing I know
 
 2i6 Our Tour 
 
 about this tunnel which makes me regard it with 
 veneration as a boundary line in countries, namely, 
 that on every high ground after this tunnel on clear 
 days Mont Blanc may be seen. True, it is only very 
 rarely seen, but I have known those who have seen 
 it ; and accordingly touch my companion on the side, 
 and say, " We are within sight of the Alps " ; a few 
 miles farther on and we are at Dijon. It is still very 
 early morning, I think about three o'clock, but we 
 feel as if we were already at the Alps, and keep looking 
 anxiously out for them, though we well know that it 
 is a moral impossibility that we should see them for 
 some hours at the least. Indian corn comes in after 
 Dijon ; the oleanders begin to come out of their tubs ; 
 the peach trees, apricots, and nectarines unnail them- 
 selves from the walls, and stand alone in the open 
 fields. The vineyards are still scrubby, but the 
 practised eye readily detects with each hour some 
 slight token that we are nearer the sun than we were, 
 or, at any rate, farther from the North Pole. We don't 
 stay long at Dijon nor at Chalon, at Lyons we have 
 an hour to wait ; breakfast off a basin of cafe au lait 
 and a huge hunch of bread, get a miserable wash, 
 compared with which the spittoons of the Diners de 
 Paris were luxurious, and return in time to proceed 
 to St. Rambert, whence the railroad branches off to 
 Grenoble. It is very beautiful between Lyons and St. 
 Rambert. The mulberry trees show the silkworm to 
 be a denizen of the country, while the fields are 
 dazzlingly brilliant with poppies and salvias ; on 
 the other side of the Rhone rise high cloud-capped 
 hills, but towards the Alps we strain our eyes in vain. 
 At St. Rambert the railroad to Grenoble branches
 
 Our Tour 217 
 
 off at right angles to the main line, it was then only 
 complete as far as Rives, now it is continued the whole 
 way to Grenoble ; by which the reader will save some 
 two or three hours, but miss a beautiful ride from 
 Rives to Grenoble by the road. The valley bears the 
 name of Gresivaudan. It is very rich and luxuriant, 
 the vineyards are more Italian, the fig trees larger than 
 we have yet seen them, patches of snow whiten the 
 higher hills, and we feel that we are at last indeed 
 among the outskirts of the Alps themselves. I am 
 told that we should have stayed at Voreppe, seen the 
 Grande Chartreuse (for which see Murray), and then 
 gone on to Grenoble, but we were pressed for time and 
 could not do everything. At Grenoble we arrived 
 about two o'clock, washed comfortably at last and 
 then dined ; during dinner a caleche was preparing to 
 drive us on to Bourg d'Oisans, a place some six or 
 seven and thirty miles farther on, and by thirty 
 minutes past three we find ourselves reclining easily 
 within it, and digesting dinner with the assistance of 
 a little packet, for which we paid one-and-fourpence 
 at the well-known shop of Mr. Bacon, Market-square, 
 Cambridge. It is very charming. The air is sweet, 
 warm, and sunny, there has been bad weather for some 
 days here, but it is clearing up ; the clouds are lifting 
 themselves hour by hour, we are evidently going to 
 have a pleasant spell of fine weather. The caleche 
 jolts a little, and the horse is decidedly shabby, both 
 qua horse and qua harness, but our moustaches are 
 growing, and our general appearance is in keeping. 
 The wine was very pleasant at Grenoble, and we have 
 a pound of ripe cherries between us ; so, on the whole, 
 we would not change with his Royal Highness Prince
 
 218 Our Tour 
 
 Albert or all the Royal Family, and jolt on through 
 the long straight poplar avenue that colonnades the 
 road above the level swamp and beneath the hills, 
 and turning a sharp angle enter Vizille, a wretched 
 place, only memorable because from this point we 
 begin definitely, though slowly, to enter the hills and 
 ascend by the side of the Romanche through the valley, 
 which that river either made or found who knows or 
 cares ? But we do know very well that we are driving 
 up a very exquisitely beautiful valley, that the 
 Romanche takes longer leaps from rock to rock than 
 she did, that the hills have closed in upon us, that we 
 see more snow each time the valley opens, that the 
 villages get scantier, and that at last a great giant ice- 
 berg walls up the way in front, and we feast our eyes 
 on the long-desired sight till after that the setting sun 
 has tinged it purple (a sure sign of a fine day), its 
 ghastly pallor shows us that the night is upon us. It 
 is cold, and we are not sorry at half-past nine to find 
 ourselves at Bourg d'Oisans, where there is a very fair 
 inn kept by one Martin ; we get a comfortable supper 
 of eggs and go to bed fairly tired. 
 
 This we must remind the reader is Thursday night, 
 on Tuesday morning we left London, spent one day 
 in Paris, and are now sleeping among the Alps, 
 sharpish work, but very satisfactory, and a prelude to 
 better things by and by. The next day we made 
 rather a mistake, instead of going straight on to 
 Briangon we went up a valley towards Mont Pelvoux 
 (a mountain nearly 14,000 feet high), intending to 
 cross a high pass above La Berarde down to Briangon, 
 but when we got to St. Christophe we were told the 
 pass would not be open till August, so returned and
 
 Our Tour 219 
 
 slept a second night at Bourg d'Oisans. The valley, 
 however, was all that could be desired, mingled sun 
 and shadow, tumbling river, rich wood, and mountain 
 pastures, precipices all around, and snow-clad summits 
 continually unfolding themselves ; Murray is right in 
 calling the valley above Venose a scene of savage 
 sterility. At Venose, in the poorest of hostelries was 
 a tuneless cracked old instrument, half piano, half 
 harpsichord how it ever found its way there we were 
 at a loss to conceive and an irrelevant clock that 
 struck seven times by fits and starts at its own con- 
 venience during our one o'clock dinner ; we returned 
 to Bourg d'Oisans at seven, and were in bed by nine. 
 
 Saturday, June 13. 
 
 Having found that a conveyance to Brianon was 
 beyond our finances, and that they would not take 
 us any distance at a reasonable charge, we deter- 
 mined to walk the whole fifty miles in the day, and 
 accordingly left Bourg d'Oisans at a few minutes 
 before five in the morning. The clouds were floating 
 half-way down the mountains, sauntering listlessly 
 over the uplands, but they soon began to rise, and 
 before seven o'clock the sky was cloudless ; along the 
 road were passing hundreds of people (though it was 
 only five in the morning) in detachments of from two 
 to nine, with cattle, sheep, pigs, and goats, picturesque 
 enough but miserably lean and gaunt : we leave them 
 to proceed to the fair, and after a three miles' level 
 walk through a straight poplar avenue, commence 
 ascending far above the Romanche ; all day long we 
 slowly ascend, stopping occasionally to refresh our- 
 selves with vin ordinaire and water, but making 
 steady way in the main, though heavily weighted and
 
 22O Our Tour 
 
 under a broiling sun, at one we reach La Grave, which 
 is opposite the Mont de Lans, a most superb mountain. 
 The whole scene equal to anything in Switzerland, as 
 far as the mountains go. The Mont de Lans is opposite 
 the windows, seeming little more than a stone's throw 
 off, and causing my companion (whose name I will, 
 with his permission, Italianise into that of the famous 
 composer Giuseppe Verdi) to think it a mere nothing 
 to mount to the top of those sugared pinnacles which 
 he will not believe are many miles distant in reality. 
 After dinner we trudge on, the scenery constantly 
 improving, the snow drawing down to us, and the 
 Romanche dwindling hourly ; we reach the top of 
 the Col du Lautaret, which Murray must describe ; 
 I can only say that it is first-class scenery. The 
 flowers are splendid, acres and acres of wild narcissus, 
 the Alpine cowslip, gentians, large purple and yellow 
 anemones, soldanellas, and the whole kith and kin of 
 the high Alpine pasture flowers ; great banks of snow 
 lie on each side of the road, and probably will continue 
 to do so till the middle of July, while all around are 
 glaciers and precipices innumerable. 
 
 We only got as far as Monetier after all, for, reaching 
 that town at half-past eight, and finding that Briancon 
 was still eight miles further on, we preferred resting 
 there at the miserable but cheap and honest Hotel de 
 1' Europe ; had we gone on a little farther we should 
 have found a much better one, but we were tired with 
 our forty-two miles' walk, and, after a hasty supper 
 and a quiet pipe, over which we watch the last twilight 
 on the Alps above Briangon, we turn in very tired 
 but very much charmed. 
 
 Sunday morning was the clearest and freshest
 
 Our Tour 22 1 
 
 morning that ever tourists could wish for, the grass 
 crisply frozen (for we are some three or four thousand 
 feet above the sea), the glaciers descending to a level 
 but little higher than the road ; a fine range of Alps in 
 front over Brian9on, and the road winding down past a 
 new river (for we have long lost the Romanche) towards 
 the town, which is some six or seven miles distant. 
 
 It was a fete the Fete du bon Dieu, celebrated 
 annually on this day throughout all this part of the 
 country ; in all the villages there were little shrines 
 erected, adorned with strings of blue corncockle, 
 narcissus heads, and poppies, bunches of green, pink, 
 and white calico, moss and fir-tree branches, and in 
 the midst of these tastefully arranged bowers was an 
 image of the Virgin and her Son, with whatever other 
 saints the place was possessed of. 
 
 At Brian9on, which we reached (in a trap) at eight 
 o'clock, these demonstrations were more imposing, 
 but less pleasing ; the soldiers, too, were being drilled 
 and exercised, and the whole scene was one of the 
 greatest animation, such as Frenchmen know how to 
 exhibit on the morning of a gala day. 
 
 Leaving our trap at Briangon and making a hasty 
 breakfast at the Hotel de la Paix, we walked up a 
 very lonely valley towards Cervieres. I dare not say 
 how many hours we wended our way up the brawling 
 torrent without meeting a soul or seeing a human 
 habitation ; it was fearfully hot too, and we longed for 
 mn ordinaire ; Cervieres seemed as though it never 
 would come still the same rugged precipices, snow- 
 clad heights, brawling torrent, and stony road, butter- 
 flies beautiful and innumerable, flowers to match, sky 
 cloudless. At last we are there; through the town,
 
 222 Our Tour 
 
 or rather village, the river rushes furiously, the dis- 
 mantled houses and gaping walls affording palpable 
 traces of the fearful inundations of the previous year, 
 not a house near the river was sound, many quite 
 uninhabitable, and more such as I am sure few of us 
 would like to inhabit. However, it is Cervieres such 
 as it is, and we hope for our vin ordinaire ; but, alas ! 
 not a human being, man, woman or child, is to be 
 seen, the houses are all closed, the noonday quiet 
 holds the hill with a vengeance, unbroken, save by 
 the ceaseless roar of the river. 
 
 While we were pondering what this loneliness could 
 mean, and wherefore we were unable to make an 
 entrance even into the little auberge that professed to 
 loger a 'pied, et a cheval, a kind of low wail or chaunt 
 began to make itself heard from the other side of the 
 river ; wild and strange, yet full of a music of its own, 
 it took my friend and myself so much by surprise that 
 we almost thought for the moment that we had tres- 
 passed on to the forbidden ground of some fairy 
 people who lived alone here, high amid the sequestered 
 valleys where mortal steps were rare, but on going to 
 the corner of the street we were undeceived indeed, 
 but most pleasurably surprised by the pretty spectacle 
 that presented itself. 
 
 For from the church opposite first were pouring 
 forth a string of young girls clad in their Sunday's 
 best, then followed the youths, as in duty bound, then 
 came a few monks or friars or some such folk, carrying 
 the Virgin, then the men of the place, then the women 
 and lesser children, all singing after their own rough 
 fashion ; the effect was electrical, for in a few minutes 
 the procession reached us, and dispersing itself far and
 
 Our Tour 223 
 
 wide, filled the town with as much life as it had before 
 been lonely. It was like a sudden introduction of the 
 whole company on to the theatre after the stage has 
 been left empty for a minute, and to us was doubly 
 welcome as affording us some hope of our wine. 
 
 " Vous etes Piedmontais, monsieur," said one to 
 me. I denied the accusation. " Alors vous etes 
 Allemands." I again denied and said we were English, 
 whereon they opened their eyes wide and said, 
 " Anglais, mais c'est une autre chose," and seemed 
 much pleased, for the alliance was then still in full 
 favour. It caused them a little disappointment that 
 we were Protestants, but they were pleased at being 
 able to tell us that there was a Protestant minister 
 higher up the valley which we said would "do us a 
 great deal of pleasure." 
 
 The vin ordinaire was execrable they only, however, 
 charged us nine sous for it, and on our giving half a 
 franc and thinking ourselves exceedingly stingy for 
 not giving a whole one, they shouted out " Voila les 
 Anglais, voila la generosite des Anglais," with evident 
 sincerity. I thought to myself that the less we 
 English corrupted the primitive simplicity of these 
 good folks the better ; it was really refreshing to find 
 several people protesting about one's generosity for 
 having paid a halfpenny more for a bottle of wine 
 than was expected ; at Monetier we asked whether 
 many English came there, and they told us yes, a great 
 many, there had been fifteen there last year, but I 
 should imagine that scarcely fifteen could travel up 
 past Cervieres, and yet the English character be so 
 little known as to be still evidently popular. 
 
 I don't know what o'clock it was when we left
 
 224 Our Tour 
 
 Cervieres midday I should imagine ; we left the 
 river on our left and began to ascend a mountain pass 
 called Izouard, as far as I could make out, but will 
 not pledge myself to have caught the name correctly ; 
 it was more lonely than ever, very high, much more 
 snow on the top than on the previous day over the Col 
 du Lautaret, the path scarcely distinguishable, indeed 
 quite lost in many places, very beautiful but not so 
 much so as the Col du Lautaret, and better on descend- 
 ing towards Queyras than on ascending ; from the 
 summit of the pass the view of the several Alpine 
 chains about is very fine, but from the entire absence 
 of trees of any kind it is more rugged and barren than 
 I altogether liked ; going down towards Queyras we 
 found the letters S.I.C. marked on a rock, evidently 
 with the spike of an alpine-stock, we wondered 
 whether they stood for St. John's College. 
 
 We reached Queyras at about four very tired, for 
 yesterday's work was heavy, and refresh ourselves 
 with a huge omelette and some good Provence wine. 
 
 Reader, don't go into that auberge, carry up 
 provision from Briancon, or at any rate carry the 
 means of eating it : they have only two knives in the 
 place, one for the landlord and one for the landlady ; 
 these are clasp knives, and they carry them in their 
 pockets ; I used the landlady's, my companion had 
 the other ; the room was very like a cow-house 
 dark, wooden, and smelling strongly of manure ; 
 outside I saw that one of the beams supporting a 
 huge projecting balcony that ran round the house 
 was resting on a capital of white marble a Lombard 
 capital that had evidently seen better days, they could 
 not tell us whence it came. Meat they have none, so
 
 Our Tour 225 
 
 we gorge ourselves with omelette, and at half-past 
 five trudge on, for we have a long way to go yet, and 
 no alternative but to proceed. 
 
 Abries is the name of the place we stopped at that 
 night ; it was pitch-dark when we reached it, and the 
 whole town was gone to bed, but by great good luck 
 we found a cafe still open (the inn was shut up for the 
 night), and there we lodged. I dare not say how 
 many miles we had walked, but we were still plucky, 
 and having prevailed at last on the landlord to allow 
 us clean sheets on our beds instead of the dirty ones 
 he and his wife had been sleeping on since Christmas, 
 and making the best of the solitary decanter and pie 
 dish which was all the washing implements we were 
 allowed (not a toothmug even extra), we had coffee 
 and bread and brandy for supper, and retired at 
 about eleven to the soundest sleep in spite of our 
 somewhat humble accommodation. If nasty, at any 
 rate it was cheap ; they charged us a franc a piece for 
 our suppers, beds, and two cigars ; we went to the inn 
 to breakfast, where, though the accommodation was 
 somewhat better, the charge was most extortionate. 
 Murray is quite right in saying the travellers should 
 bargain beforehand at this inn (chez Richard) ; I 
 think they charged us five francs for the most ordinary 
 breakfast. From this place we started at about nine, 
 and took a guide as far as the top of the Col de la Croix 
 Haute, having too nearly lost our way yesterday ; the 
 paths have not been traversed much yet, and the 
 mule and sheep droppings are but scanty indicators 
 of the direction of paths of which the winds and rain 
 have obliterated all other traces. 
 
 The Col de la Croix Haute is rightly named, it was
 
 226 OUT Tour 
 
 very high, but not so hard to ascend until we reached 
 the snow. On the Italian side it is terribly steep, from 
 the French side, however, the slope is more gradual. 
 The snow was deeper at the top of this pass than on 
 either of the two previous days ; in many places we 
 sank deep in, but had no real difficulty in crossing ; on 
 the Italian side the snow was gone and the path soon 
 became clear enough, so we sent our guide to the right 
 about and trudged on alone. 
 
 A sad disappointment, however, awaited us, for 
 instead of the clear air that we had heretofore enjoyed, 
 the clouds were rolling up from the valley, and we 
 entirely lost the magnificent view of the plains of 
 Lombardy which we ought to have seen ; this was our 
 first mishap, and we bore it heroically. A lunch may 
 be had at Prali, and there the Italian tongue will be 
 heard for the first time. 
 
 We must have both looked very questionable person- 
 ages, for I remember that a man present asked me for 
 a cigar ; I gave him two, and he proffered a sou in 
 return as a matter of course. 
 
 Shortly below Prali the clouds drew off, or rather 
 we reached a lower level, so that they were above us, 
 and now the walnut and the chestnut, the oak and 
 the beech have driven away the pines of the other 
 side, not that there were many of them ; soon, too, the 
 vineyards come in, the Indian corn again flourishes 
 everywhere, the cherries grow ripe as we descend, and 
 in an hour or two we felt to our great joy that we were 
 fairly in Italy. 
 
 The descent is steep beyond compare, for La Tour, 
 which we reached by four o'clock, is quite on the 
 plain, very much on a level with Turin I do not
 
 Our Tour 227 
 
 remember any descent between the two and the pass 
 cannot be much under eight thousand feet. 
 
 Passports are asked at Bobbio, but the very sight 
 of the English name was at that time sufficient to 
 cause the passport to be returned unscrutinised. 
 
 La Tour is a Protestant place, or at any rate chiefly 
 so, indeed all the way from Cervieres we have been 
 among people half Protestant and half Romanist ; 
 these were the Waldenses of the Middle Ages, they are 
 handsome, particularly the young women, and I 
 should fancy an honest simple race enough, but not 
 over clean. 
 
 As a proof that we were in Italy we happened while 
 waiting for table d'hote to be leaning over the balcony 
 that ran round the house and passed our bedroom 
 door, when a man and a girl came out with two large 
 pails in their hands, and we watched them proceed 
 to a cart with a barrel in it, which was in a corner of 
 the yard ; we had been wondering what was in the 
 barrel and were glad to see them commence tapping 
 it, when lo ! out spouted the blood-red wine with which 
 they actually half filled their pails before they left the 
 spot. This was as Italy should be. After dinner, too, 
 as we stroll in the showy Italian sort of piazza near 
 the inn, the florid music which fills the whole square, 
 accompanied by a female voice of some pretensions, 
 again thoroughly Italianises the scene, and when she 
 struck up our English national anthem (with such a 
 bass accompaniment !) nothing could be imagined 
 more incongruous. 
 
 Sleeping at La Tour at the hotel kept by M. Gai 
 (which is very good, clean, and cheap), we left next 
 morning, i.e. Tuesday, June 16, at four by diligence
 
 228 Our Tour 
 
 for Pinerolo, thence by rail to Turin where we spent 
 the day. It was wet and we saw no vestiges of the Alps. 
 
 Turin is a very handsome city, very regularly built, 
 the streets running nearly all parallel to and at right 
 angles with each other ; there are no suburbs, and 
 the consequence is that at the end of every street one 
 sees the country ; the Alps surround the city like a 
 horseshoe, and hence many of the streets seem actually 
 walled in with a snowy mountain. Nowhere are the 
 Alps seen to greater advantage than from Turin. I 
 speak from the experience, not of the journey I am 
 describing, but of a previous one. From the Superga 
 the view is magnificent, but from the hospital for 
 soldiers just above the Po on the eastern side of the 
 city the view is very similar, and the city seen to 
 greater advantage. The Po is a fine river, but very 
 muddy, not like the Ticino which has the advantage 
 of getting washed in the Lago Maggiore. On the whole 
 Turin is well worth seeing. Leaving it, however, on 
 Wednesday morning we arrived at Arona about half- 
 past eleven : the country between the two places is 
 flat, but rich and well cultivated : much rice is grown, 
 and in consequence the whole country easily capable 
 of being laid under water, a thing which I should 
 imagine the Piedmontese would not be slow to avail 
 themselves of ; we ought to have had the Alps as a 
 background to the view, but they were still veiled. It 
 was here that a countryman, seeing me with one or 
 two funny little pipes which I had bought in Turin, 
 asked me if I was a fabricante di pipi a pipe-maker. 
 
 By the time that we were at Arona the sun had 
 appeared, and the clouds were gone ; here, too, we 
 determined to halt for half a day, neither of us being
 
 Our Tour 229 
 
 quite the thing, so after a visit to the colossal statue 
 of San Carlo, which is very fine and imposing, we laid 
 ourselves down under the shade of some chestnut 
 trees above the lake, and enjoyed the extreme beauty 
 of everything around us, until we fell fast asleep, and 
 yet even in sleep we seemed to retain a consciousness 
 of the unsurpassable beauty of the scene. After dinner 
 (we were stopping at the Hotel de la Poste, a very 
 nice inn indeed) we took a boat and went across the 
 lake to Angera, a little town just opposite ; it was in 
 the Austrian territory, but they made no delay about 
 admitting us ; the reason of our excursion was, that 
 we might go and explore the old castle there, which 
 is seated on an inconsiderable eminence above the 
 lake. It affords an excellent example of Italian 
 domestic Gothic of the Middle Ages ; San Carlo was 
 born and resided here, and, indeed, if saintliness were 
 to depend upon beauty of natural scenery, no wonder 
 at his having been a saint. 
 
 The castle is only tenanted by an old man who 
 keeps the place ; we found him cooking his supper 
 over a small crackling fire of sticks, which he had 
 lighted in the main hall ; his feeble old voice chirps 
 about San Carlo this and San Carlo that as we go 
 from room to room. We have no carpets here plain 
 honest brick floors the chairs, indeed, have once 
 been covered with velvet, but they are now so worn 
 that one can scarcely detect that they have been so, 
 the tables warped and worm-eaten, the few, that is, 
 that remained there, the shutters cracked and dry 
 with the sun and summer of so many hundred years 
 no Renaissance work here, yet for all that there was 
 something about it which made it to me the only 
 
 Q
 
 230 Our Tour 
 
 really pleasurable nobleman's mansion that I have 
 ever been over ; the view from the top is superb, and 
 then the row home to Arona, the twinkling lights 
 softly gleaming in the lake, the bells jangling from the 
 tall and gaudy campaniles, the stillness of the summer 
 night so warm and yet so refreshing on the water ; 
 hush, there are some people singing how sweetly 
 their voices are borne to us upon the slight breath of 
 wind that alone is stirring ; oh, it is a cruel thing to 
 think of war in connection with such a spot as this, 
 and yet from this very Angera to this very Arona it is 
 that the Austrians have been crossing to commence 
 their attack on Sardinia. I fear these next summer 
 nights will not be broken with the voice of much 
 singing and that we shall have to hush for the roaring 
 of cannon. 
 
 I never knew before how melodiously frogs can 
 croak there is a sweet guttural about some of these 
 that I never heard in England : before going to bed, 
 I remember particularly one amorous batrachian 
 courting malgre sa maman regaled us with a lusciously 
 deep rich croak, that served as a good accompaniment 
 for the shrill whizzing sound of the cigales. 
 
 My space is getting short, but fortunately we are 
 getting on to ground better known ; I will therefore 
 content myself with sketching out the remainder of 
 our tour and leaving the reader to Murray for descrip- 
 tions. 
 
 We left Arona with regret on Thursday morning 
 (June 18), took steamer to the Isola Bella, which is an 
 example of how far human extravagance and folly 
 can spoil a rock, which had it been left alone would 
 have been very beautiful, and thence by a little boat
 
 Our Tour 231 
 
 went to Baveno ; thence we took diligence for Domo 
 d'Ossola ; the weather clouded towards evening and 
 big raindrops beginning to descend we thought it 
 better to proceed at once by the same diligence over 
 the Simplon ; we did not care to walk the pass in wet, 
 therefore leaving Domo d'Ossola at ten o'clock that 
 night we arrived at Iselle about two ; the weather 
 clearing we saw the gorge of Gondo and walked a 
 good way up the pass in the early morning by the 
 diligence ; breakfasted at Simplon at four o'clock in 
 the morning, and without waiting a moment as soon 
 as we got out at Brieg set off for Visp, which we 
 reached at twelve on foot ; we washed and dressed 
 there, dined and advanced to Leuk, and thence up 
 the most exquisitely beautiful road to Leukerbad, 
 which we reached at about eight o'clock after a very 
 fatiguing day. The Hotel de la France is clean and 
 cheap. Next morning we left at half-past five and, 
 crossing the Gemmi, got to Frutigen at half-past one, 
 took an open trap after dinner and drove to Interlaken, 
 which we reached on the Saturday night at eight 
 o'clock, the weather first rate ; Sunday we rested at 
 Interlaken ; on Monday we assailed the Wengern Alp, 
 but the weather being pouring wet we halted on the 
 top and spent the night there, being rewarded by the 
 most transcendent evening view of the Jungfrau, 
 Eiger, and Monch in the clear cold air seen through a 
 thin veil of semi-transparent cloud that was continually 
 scudding across them. 
 
 Next morning early we descended to Grindelwald, 
 thence past the upper glacier under the Wetterhorn 
 over the Scheidegg to Rosenlaui, where we dined and 
 saw the glacier, after dinner, descending the valley
 
 232 Our Tour 
 
 we visited the falls of Reichenbach (which the reader 
 need not do if he means to see those of the Aar at 
 Handegg), and leaving Meyringen on our left we 
 recommenced an ascent of the valley of the Aar, 
 sleeping at Guttannen, about ten miles farther on. 
 
 Next day, i.e. Wednesday, June 24, leaving Guttan- 
 nen very early, passing the falls of Handegg, which 
 are first rate, we reached the hospice at nine ; had 
 some wine there, and crawled on through the snow 
 and up the rocks to the summit of the pass here we 
 met an old lady, in a blue ugly, with a pair of green 
 spectacles, carried in a chaise a porteur ; she had 
 taken it into her head in her old age that she would 
 like to see a little of the world, and here she was. We 
 had seen her lady's maid at the hospice, concerning 
 whom we were told that she was " bien sage," and 
 did not scream at the precipices. On the top of the 
 Gemmi, too, at half -past seven in the morning, we had 
 met a somewhat similar lady walking alone with a 
 blue parasol over the snow ; about half an hour after 
 we met some porters carrying her luggage, and found 
 that she was an invalid lady of Berne, who was walking 
 over to the baths at Leukerbad for the benefit of her 
 health we scarcely thought there could be much 
 occasion leaving these two good ladies then, let us 
 descend the Grimsel to the bottom of the glacier of the 
 Rhone, and then ascend the Furka a stiff pull ; we 
 got there by two o'clock, dined (Italian is spoken here 
 again), and finally reached Hospenthal at half-past 
 five after a very long day. 
 
 On Thursday walking down to Amstegg and taking 
 a trap to Fliielen, we then embarked on board a steamer 
 and had a most enjoyable ride to Lucerne, where we
 
 Our Tour 233 
 
 slept ; Friday to Basle by rail, walking over the 
 Hauenstein,* and getting a magnificent panorama 
 (alas ! a final one) of the Alps, and from Basle to 
 Strasburg, where we ascended the cathedral as far as 
 they would let us without special permission from a 
 power they called Mary, and then by the night train 
 to Paris, where we arrived Saturday morning at ten. 
 
 Left Paris on Sunday afternoon, slept at Dieppe ; 
 left Dieppe Monday morning, got to London at three 
 o'clock or thereabouts, and might have reached 
 Cambridge that night had we been so disposed ; next 
 day came safely home to dear old St. John's, cash in 
 hand yd. 
 
 From my window f in the cool of the summer 
 twilight I look on the umbrageous chestnuts that 
 droop into the river ; Trinity library rears its stately 
 proportions on the left ; opposite is the bridge ; over 
 that, on the right, the thick dark foliage is blackening 
 almost into sombreness as the night draws on. Immedi* 
 ately beneath are the arched cloisters resounding with 
 the solitary footfall of meditative students, and 
 suggesting grateful retirement. I say to myself then, 
 as I sit in my open window, that for a continuance I 
 would rather have this than any scene I have visited 
 during the whole of our most enjoyed tour, and fetch 
 down a Thucydides, for I must go to Shilleto at nine 
 o'clock to-morrow. 
 
 * The Hauenstein tunnel was nut completed until later. Its 
 construction was delayed by a fall of earth which occurred in 1857 
 and buried sixty- three workmen. R. A. S. V&J >ii ; , \ 
 
 f Mr. J. F. Harris has identified Butler's rooms in the ttur4 court ^ t? ) 
 of St. John's College. R. A. S.
 
 Translation from an Unpublished Work 
 of Herodotus 
 
 This piece and the ten that follow it date from Butler's 
 undergraduate days. They were preserved by the late 
 Canon Joseph McCormick, who was Butler's con- 
 temporary at Cambridge and knew him well. 
 
 In a letter to THE TIMES, published 27 June, 1902, 
 shortly after Butler's death, Canon McCormick gave 
 some interesting details of Butler's Cambridge days. 
 " I have in my possession," he wrote, " some of the 
 skits with which he amused himself and some of his 
 personal friends. Perhaps the skit professed to be a 
 translation from Thucydides, inimitable in its way, 
 applied to Johnians in their successes or defeats on the 
 river, or it was the ' Prospectus of the Great Split Society,' 
 attacking those who wished to form narrow or domineering 
 parties in the College, or it was a very striking poem on 
 Napoleon in St. Helena, or it was a play dealing with 
 a visit to the Paris Exhibition, which he sent to PUNCH, 
 and which, strange to say, the editor never inserted, or 
 it was an examination paper set to a gyp of a most 
 amusing and clever character." One at least of the 
 pieces mentioned by Canon McCormick has unfortunately 
 disappeared. Those that have survived are here published 
 for what they are worth. There is no necessity to apologise 
 for their faults and deficiencies, which do not, I think, 
 obscure their value as documents illustrating the develop- 
 
 234
 
 Unpublished Work of Herodotus 235 
 
 ment of that gift of irony which Butter was afterwards 
 to wield with such brilliant mastery. ' Napoleon at St. 
 Helena ' and ' The Shield of Achilles ' have already 
 appeared in THE EAGLE, December, 1902 ; the " Trans- 
 lation from Herodotus," " The Shield of Achilles," 
 " The Two Deans II," and " On the Italian Priest- 
 hood," in THE NOTE-BOOKS OF SAMUEL BUTLER ; 
 the " Prospectus of the Great Split Society " and " A 
 Skit on Examinations " in THE EAGLE, June, 1913. 
 
 Translation from an Unpublished Work 
 of Herodotus 
 
 AND the Johnians practise their tub in the follow- 
 ing manner : They select eight of the most 
 serviceable freshmen and put these into a boat, and 
 to each one of them they give an oar ; and having 
 told them to look at the backs of the men before them 
 they make them bend forward as far as they can and 
 at the same moment, and having put the end of the 
 oar into the water pull it back again in to them about 
 the bottom of the ribs ; and if any of them does not 
 do this or looks about him away from the back of the 
 man before him they curse him in the most terrible 
 manner, but if he does what he is bidden they im- 
 mediately cry out : 
 
 " Well pulled, number so-and-so." 
 
 For they do not call them by their names but by 
 certain numbers, each man of them having a number 
 allotted to him in accordance with his place in the 
 boat, and the first man they call stroke, but the last 
 man bow ; and when they have done this for about 
 fifty miles they come home again, and the rate they
 
 236 Unpublished Work of Herodotus 
 
 travel at is about twenty-five miles an hour ; and let 
 no one think that this is too great a rate, for I could 
 say many other wonderful things in addition con- 
 cerning the rowing of the Johnians, but if a man 
 wishes to know these things he must go and examine 
 them himself. But when they have done they con- 
 trive some such a device as this, for they make them 
 run many miles along the side of the river in order 
 that they may accustom them to great fatigue, and 
 many of them being distressed in this way fall down 
 and die, but those who survive become very strong, 
 and receive gifts of cups from the others ; and after 
 the revolution of a year they have great races with 
 their boats against those of the surrounding islanders, 
 but the Johnians, both owing to the carefulness of the 
 training and a natural disposition for rowing, are 
 always victorious. In this way then the Johnians, I 
 say, practise their tub.
 
 The Shield of Achilles, with Variations 
 
 AND in it he placed the Fitzwilliam and King's 
 College Chapel and the lofty towered church of 
 the Great Saint Mary, which looketh toward the 
 Senate House, and King's Parade and Trumpington 
 Road and the Pitt Press and the divine opening of the 
 Market Square and the beautiful flowing fountain 
 which formerly Hobson laboured to make with skilful 
 art ; him did his father beget in the many-public- 
 housed Trumpington from a slavey mother, and taught 
 him blameless works ; and he, on the other hand, 
 sprang up like a young shoot, and many beautifully 
 matched horses did he nourish in his stable, which 
 used to convey his rich possessions to London and 
 the various cities of the world ; but oftentimes did 
 he let them out to others and whensoever anyone 
 was desirous of hiring one of the long-tailed horses, 
 he took them in order so that the labour was equal 
 to all, wherefore do men now speak of the choice of 
 the renowned Hobson. And in it he placed the close 
 of the divine Parker, and many beautiful under- 
 graduates were delighting their tender minds upon it 
 playing cricket with one another ; and a match was 
 being played and two umpires were quarrelling with 
 one another ; the one saying that the batsman who 
 was playing was out, and the other declaring with all 
 his might that he was not ; and while they two were 
 contending, reviling one another with abusive language, 
 a ball came and hit one of them on the nose, and the 
 
 237
 
 238 The Shield of Achilles 
 
 blood flowed out in a stream, and darkness was covering 
 his eyes, but the rest were crying out on all sides : 
 
 " Shy it up." 
 
 And he could not ; him then was his companion 
 addressing with scornful words : 
 
 " Arnold, why dost thou strive with me since I am 
 much wiser ? Did I not see his leg before the wicket 
 and rightly declare him to be out ? Thee then has 
 Zeus now punished according to thy deserts, and I will 
 seek some other umpire of the game equally-partici- 
 pated-in-by-both-sides. ' ' 
 
 And in it he placed the Cam, and many boats 
 equally rowed on both sides were going up and down 
 on the bosom of the deep-rolling river, and the cox- 
 swains were cheering on the men, for they were going 
 to enter the contest of the scratchean fours ; and 
 three men were rowing together in a boat, strong and 
 stout and determined in their hearts that they would 
 either first break a blood-vessel or earn for themselves 
 the electroplated-Birmingham-manufactured magnifi- 
 cence of a pewter to stand on their hall tables in 
 memorial of their strength, and from time to time drink 
 from it the exhilarating streams of beer whensoever 
 their dear heart should compel them ; but the fourth 
 was weak and unequally matched with the others, and 
 the coxswain was encouraging him and called him by 
 name and spake cheering words : 
 
 " Smith, when thou hast begun the contest, be not 
 flurried nor strive too hard against thy fate ; look 
 at the back of the man before thee and row with as 
 much strength as the Fates spun out for thee on the 
 day when thou fellest between the knees of thy mother, 
 neither lose thine oar, but hold it tight with thy hands."
 
 Prospectus of the Great Split Society 
 
 IT is the object of this society to promote parties 
 and splits in general, and since of late we have 
 perceived disunion among friends to be not nearly so 
 ripe as in the Bible it is plainly commanded to be, we 
 the members of this club have investigated the means 
 of producing, fostering, and invigorating strife of all 
 kinds, whereby the society of man will be profited 
 much. For in a few hours we can by the means we 
 have discovered create so beautiful a dissension 
 between two who have lately been friends, that they 
 shall never speak of one another again, and their 
 spirit is to be greatly admired and praised for this. 
 And since it is the great goddess Talebearer who has 
 contributed especially to our success, inasmuch as 
 where she is not strife will cease as surely as the fire 
 goeth out when there is no wood to feed it, we will 
 erect an altar to her and perform monthly rites at her 
 shrine in a manner hereafter to be detailed. And all 
 men shall do homage to her, for who is there that 
 hath not felt her benefits ? And the rites shall be of a 
 cheerful character, and all the world shall be right 
 merry, and we will write her a hymn and Walmisley* 
 shall set it to music. And any shall be eligible to this 
 society by only changing his name ; for this is one of 
 
 * As Walmisley died in January, 1856, this piece must evidently 
 date from Butler's first year at Cambridge. R. A. S. 
 
 239
 
 240 The Great Split Society 
 
 its happiest hits, to give a name to each of its members 
 arising from some mental peculiarity (which the gods 
 and peacemakers call " foible "), whereby each being 
 perpetually kept in mind of this defect and being 
 always willing to justify it shall raise a clamour and 
 cause much delight to the assembly. 
 
 And we will have suppers once a month both to do 
 honour unto Talebearer and to promote her interest. 
 And the society has laid down a form of conversation 
 to be used at all such meetings, which shall engender 
 quarrellings even in the most unfavourable dispositions, 
 and inflame the anger of one and all ; and having 
 raised it shall set it going and start it on so firm a 
 basis as that it may be left safely to work its own way, 
 for there shall be no fear of its dying out. 
 
 And the great key to this admirable treasure-house 
 is Self, who hath two beautiful children, Self-Love and 
 Self-Pride. . . . We have also aided our project 
 much by the following contrivance, namely, that ten 
 of the society, the same who have the longest tongues 
 and ears, shall make a quorum to manage all affairs 
 connected with it ; and it is difficult to comprehend 
 the amount of quarrelling that shall go on at these 
 meetings. 
 
 And the monthly suppers shall be ordered in this 
 way : Each man must take at least two tablespoonfuls 
 of vinegar, which shall make the wit sharp, or in 
 default thereof one teaspoonful of pepper and mustard ; 
 for the rest we leave the diet to the management of 
 our stewards and bursars, but after the cloth has been 
 removed the president shall single out some one of 
 the company, and in a calm and friendly manner 
 acquaint him with his faults and advise him in what
 
 The Great Split Society 241 
 
 way he may best amend the same. The member 
 selected is compelled by the rules to remain silent for 
 the space of three minutes, and is then to retort and 
 bring up six instances. He is to call the present 
 members to witness, and all are to take one side or the 
 other, so that none be neutral, and the melee will 
 doubtless become general, and we expect that much 
 beautiful latent abusive talent will be developed in 
 this way. But let all this be done with an air of great 
 politeness, sincerity, and goodwill, at least at the 
 commencement, for this, when evidently fictitious, is a 
 two-edged sword of irritation. 
 
 And if any grow weak in spirit and retreat from 
 this society, and afterwards repent and wish again to 
 join, he shall be permitted to do so on condition of 
 repeating the words, " Oh, ah ! " " Lor ! " " Such 
 is life," " That's cheerful," " He's a lively man, is Mr. 
 So-and-so " ten times over. For these are refreshing 
 and beautiful words and mean much (!), they are the 
 emblems of such talent. 
 
 And any members are at liberty to have small 
 meetings among themselves, especially to tea, whereat 
 they may enjoy the ever fresh and pleasant luxury 
 of scandal and mischief-making, and prepare their 
 accusations and taunts for the next general meeting ; 
 and this is not only permitted but enjoined and 
 recommended strongly to all the members. 
 
 And sentences shall be written for the training of 
 any young hand who wishes to become one of us, 
 since none can hope to arrive at once at the pitch 
 of perfection to which the society has brought the art. 
 And if that any should be heard of his own free will 
 and invention uttering one or more of these sentences
 
 The Great Split Society 
 
 and by these means indicate much talent in the 
 required direction, he shall be waited on by a com- 
 mittee of the club and induced, if possible, to join us, 
 for he will be an acquisition ; and the sentences 
 required are such as : "I think so-and-so a very jolly 
 fellow, indeed I don't know a man in the college I like 
 better than so-and-so, but I don't care twopence 
 about him, at least it is all the same to me whether he 
 cuts me or not." 
 
 The beauty of this sentence is not at first appreciable, 
 for though self-deceit and self-satisfaction are both 
 very powerfully demonstrated in it, and though these 
 are some of the society's most vehement supporters, 
 yet it is the good goddess Talebearer who nourisheth 
 the seed of mischief thus sown. 
 
 It is also strictly forbidden by this society's laws 
 to form a firm friendship grounded upon esteem and 
 a perception of great and good qualities in the object 
 of one's liking, for this kind of friendship lasts a long 
 time nay, for life ; but each member must have a 
 furious and passionate running after his friend for the 
 time being, insomuch that he could never part for an 
 instant from him. And when the society sees this it 
 feels comfortable, for it is quite certain that its objects 
 are being promoted, for this cannot be brought about 
 by any but unnatural means and is the foundation 
 and very soul of quarrelling. The stroking of the hair 
 and affectionate embracings are much recommended, 
 for they are so manly. 
 
 And at the suppers and the rites of Talebearer 
 each member is to drop an anonymous opinion of 
 some other member's character into a common letter 
 box, and the president shall read them out. Each
 
 The Great Split Society 243 
 
 member is to defend himself ; the formula for the 
 commencement of each speech being : "I know who 
 wrote that about me, and it is a very blackguardly 
 thing of him to say. ..." 
 
 N.B. Any number of persons are allowed to speak 
 at the same time. By these means it is hoped to 
 restore strife and dissension to the world, now alas ! 
 so fatally subjugated to a mean-spirited thing called 
 Charity, which during the last month has been per- 
 fectly rampant in the college. Yes, we will give a 
 helping hand to bickerings, petty jealousies, back- 
 bitings, and all sorts of good things, and will be as 
 jolly as ninepence and who'll be the first president ?
 
 Powers 
 
 BUT, my son, think not that it is necessary for 
 thee to be excellent if thou wouldst be powerful. 
 Observe how the lighter substance in nature riseth by 
 its own levity and overtoppeth that which is the more 
 grave. Even so, my son, mayest thou be light and 
 worthless, and yet make a goodly show above those 
 who are of a more intrinsic value than thyself. But 
 as much circumspection will be necessary for thee to 
 attain this glorious end, and as by reason of thy youth 
 thou art liable to miss many of the most able and 
 effective means of becoming possessed of it, hear the 
 words of an old man and treasure them in thy heart. 
 The required qualities, my son, are easily procured ; 
 many are naturally gifted with them. In order, 
 however, that thou mayest keep them in set form in 
 thy mind commit to memory the following list of 
 requisites : Love of self, love of show, love of sound, 
 reserve, openness, distrust. 
 
 The love of self, which shall chiefly manifest itself 
 in the obtaining the best of all things for thyself to 
 the exclusion of another, be he who he may ; and as 
 meal-times are the fittest occasion for the exercise 
 of this necessary quality, I will even illustrate my 
 meaning that thou mayest the more plainly compre- 
 hend me. Suppose that many are congregated to a 
 breakfast and there is a dish of kidneys on the table, 
 but not so many but what the greater number must 
 go without them, cry out with a loud voice, immedi- 
 
 244
 
 Powers 245 
 
 ately that thou hast perceived them : " Kidneys ! 
 Oh, ah ! I say, G., old fellow, give us some kidneys." 
 Then will the master of the house be pleased that he 
 hath provided something to thy liking, and as others 
 from false shame will fear to do the like thou wilt 
 both obtain that thy soul desireth, and be looked 
 upon by thy fellows as a bold fellow and one who 
 knoweth how to make his way in the world, and G. 
 will say immediately : " Waiter, take this to Mr. 
 Potguts," and he taketh them, and so on, my son, 
 with all other meats that are on the table, see thou 
 refrain not from one of them, for a large appetite well 
 becometh a power, or if not a large one then a dainty 
 one. But if thine appetite be small and dainty see 
 thou express contempt for a large eater as one inferior 
 to thyself. Or again, my son, if thou art not at a 
 banquet but enterest any room where there are many 
 met together, see thou take the arm-chair or the best 
 seat or couch, or what other place of comfort is in 
 the room ; and if there be another power in the room 
 as well as thyself see thou fight with him for it, and if 
 thou canst by any craft get rid of him an he be more 
 thickly set than thyself, see that thou do this openly 
 and with a noise, that all men may behold and admire 
 thee, for they will fear thee and yield and not venture 
 to reprove thee openly ; and so long as they dare not, 
 all will be well. Nevertheless I would have thee keep 
 within certain bounds, lest men turn upon thee if thy 
 rule is too oppressive to be borne. And under this 
 head I would class also the care and tending of the 
 sick ; for in the first place the sick have many 
 delicacies which those who are sound have not, so 
 that if thou lay the matter well, thou mayest obtain
 
 246 
 
 Powers 
 
 the lion's share of these things also. But more par- 
 ticularly the minds of men being weak and easily 
 overpowered when they are in sickness, thou shalt 
 obtain much hold over them, and when they are well 
 (whether thou didst really comfort them or not) 
 they will fear to say aught against thee, lest men 
 shall accuse them of ingratitude. But above all 
 see thou do this openly and in the sight of men, who 
 thinking in consequence that thy heart is very soft 
 and amiable notwithstanding a few outward defects, 
 will not fail to commend thee and submit to thee the 
 more readily, and so on all counts thou art the gainer, 
 and it will serve thee as an excuse with the authorities 
 for the neglect or breach of duty. But all this is the 
 work of an exceedingly refined and clever power and 
 not absolutely necessary, but I have named it as a 
 means of making thy yoke really the lighter but 
 nevertheless the more firmly settled upon the neck of 
 thy fellows. So much then for the love of self. 
 
 As for the love of show this is to display itself in 
 thy dress, in the trimming or in the growth of thy 
 whiskers, in thy walk and carriage, in the company 
 thou keepest, seeing that thou go with none but powers 
 or men of wealth or men of title, and caring not so 
 much for men of parts, since these commonly deal less 
 in the exterior and are not fit associates, for thou 
 canst have nothing in common with them. When thou 
 gcest to thy dinner let a time elapse, so that thine 
 entry may cause a noise and a disturbance, and when 
 after much bustling thou hast taken thy seat, say not : 
 " Waiter, will you order me green peas and a glass of 
 college," but say : " Waiter (and then a pause), 
 peas," and then suffer him to depart, and when he
 
 Powers 247 
 
 hath gone some little way recall him with a loud 
 voice, which shall reach even unto the ears of the 
 fellows, say, " and, waiter, college " ; and when 
 they are brought unto thee complain bitterly of the 
 same. When thou goest to chapel talk much during 
 the service, or pray much ; do not the thing by 
 halves ; thou must either be the very religious power, 
 which kind though the less remarked yet on the whole 
 hath the greater advantage, or the thoughtless power, 
 but above all see thou combine not the two, at least 
 not in the same company, but let thy religion be the 
 same to the same men. Always, if thou be a careless 
 power, come in late to chapel and hurriedly ; sit with 
 the other powers and converse with them on the 
 behaviour of others or any other light and agreeable 
 topic. And, as I said above, under this love of show 
 thou must include the choice of thine acquaintance, 
 and as it is not possible for thee to order it so as not 
 to have knowledge of certain men whom it will not be 
 convenient for thee to know at all times and in all 
 places, see thou cultivate those two excellent defects 
 of both sight and hearing which will enable thee to 
 pass one thou wouldst not meet, without seeing him 
 or hearing his salutation. If thou hast a cousin or 
 schoolfellow who is somewhat rustic or uncouth in his 
 manner but nevertheless hath an excellent heart, 
 know him in private in thine individual capacity, but 
 when thou art abroad or in the company of other 
 powers shun him as if he were a venomous thing and 
 deadly. Again, if thou sittest at table with a man at 
 the house of a friend and laughest and talkest with 
 him and playest pleasant, if he be not perfect in 
 respect of externals see thou pass him the next day
 
 248 Powers 
 
 without a smile, even though he may have prepared 
 his countenance for a thousand grins ; but if in the 
 house of the same friend or another thou shouldst 
 happen to stumble upon him, deal with him as though 
 thy previous conversation had broken off but five 
 minutes previously ; but should he be proud and have all 
 nothing to say unto thee, forthwith calumniate him to 
 thine acquaintance as a sorry-spirited fellow and mean. 
 
 And with regard to smoking, though that, too, is 
 advantageous, it is not necessary so much for the power 
 as for the fast man, for the power is a more calculating 
 and thoughtful being than this one ; but if thou 
 smokest, see that others know it ; smoke cigars if thou 
 canst afford them ; if not, say thou wonderest at such 
 as do, for to thy liking a pipe is better. And with 
 regard to all men except thine own favoured and pre- 
 eminent clique, designate them as " cheerful," " lively," 
 or use some other ironical term with regard to them. 
 So much then for the love of show. 
 
 And of the love of sound I would have thee observe 
 that it is but a portion of the love of show, but so 
 necessary for him who would be admired without being 
 at the same time excellent and worthy of admiration 
 as to deserve a separate heading to itself. At meal- 
 times talk loudly, laugh loudly, condemn loudly ; if 
 thou sneezest sneeze loudly ; if thou call the waiter 
 do so with a noise and, if thou canst, while he is 
 speaking to another and receiving orders from him ; it 
 will be a convenient test of thine advance to see 
 whether he will at once quit the other in the midst 
 of his speech with him and come to thee, or will wait 
 until the other hath done ; if thou handle it well 
 he will come to thee at once. When others are in
 
 Powers 249 
 
 their rooms, as thou passeth underneath their windows, 
 sing loudly and all men will know that a power goeth 
 by and will hush accordingly ; if thou hast a good 
 voice it will profit thee much, if a bad one, care not 
 so long as it be a loud one ; but above all be it remem- 
 bered that it is to be loud at all times and not low 
 when with powers greater than thyself, for this 
 damneth much even powers being susceptible of 
 awe, when they shall behold one resolutely bent to 
 out-top them, and thinking it advisable to lend such 
 an one a helping hand lest he overthrow them but 
 if thy voice be not a loud one, thou hadst better give 
 up at once the hope of rising to a height by thine own 
 skill, but must cling to and flatter those who have, and 
 if thou dost this well thou wilt succeed. 
 
 And of personal strength and prowess in bodily 
 accomplishment, though of great help in the origin, 
 yet are they not necessary ; but the more thou lackest 
 physical and mental powers the more must thou cling 
 to the powerful and rise with them ; the more careful 
 must thou be of thy dress, and the more money 
 will it cost thee, for thou must fill well the bladders 
 that keep thee on the surface, else wilt thou sink. 
 
 And of reserve, let no man know anything about 
 thee. If thy father is a greengrocer, as I dare say 
 is the case with some of the most mighty powers 
 in the land, what matter so long as another knoweth 
 it not ? See that thou quell all inquisitive attempts 
 to discover anything about thine habits, thy country, 
 thy parentage, and, in a word, let no one know any- 
 thing of thee beyond the exterior ; for if thou dost 
 let them within thy soul, they will find but little, but 
 if it be barred and locked, men will think that by
 
 250 Powers 
 
 reason of thy strong keeping of the same, it must 
 contain much ; and they will admire thee upon credit. 
 
 And of openness, be reserved in the particular, 
 open in the general ; talk of debts, of women, of 
 money, but say not what debts, what women, or what 
 money ; be most open when thou doest a shabby 
 thing, which thou knowest will not escape detection. 
 If thy coat is bad, laugh and boast concerning it, call 
 attention to it and say thou hast had it for ten years, 
 which will be a lie, but men will nevertheless think 
 thee frank, but run not the risk of wearing a bad coat, 
 save only in vacation time or in the country. But 
 when thou doest a shabby thing which will not reach 
 the general light, breathe not a word of it, but bury 
 it deeply in some corner of thine own knowledge only ; 
 if it come out, glory in it ; if not, let it sleep, for it is 
 an unprofitable thing to turn over bad ground. 
 
 And of distrust, distrust all men, most of all thine 
 own friends ; they will know thee best, and thou 
 them ; thy real worth cannot escape them, think not 
 then that thou wilt get service out of them in thy 
 need, think not that they will deny themselves that 
 thou mayest be saved from want, that they will in 
 after life put out a finger to save thee, when thou canst 
 be of no more use to them, the clique having been broken 
 up by time. Nay, but be in thyself sufficient ; distrust, 
 and lean not so much as an ounce-weight upon another. 
 
 These things keep and thou shalt do well ; keep 
 them all and thou wilt be perfect ; the more thou 
 keep, the more nearly wilt thou arrive at the end I 
 proposed to thee at the commencement, and even if 
 thou doest but one of these things thoroughly, trust 
 me thou wilt still have much power over thy fellows.
 
 A Skit on Examinations 
 
 It should be explained that Tom Bridges was a gyp 
 at St. John's College, during Butler's residence at 
 Cambridge. 
 
 WE now come to the most eventful period in 
 Mr. Bridges' life : we mean the time when 
 he was elected to the shoe-black scholarship, com- 
 pared with which all his previous honours sank into 
 insignificance. 
 
 Mr. Bridges had long been desirous of becoming a 
 candidate for this distinction, but, until the death of 
 Mr. Leader, no vacancy having occurred among the 
 scholars, he had as yet had no opportunity of going 
 in for it. The income to be derived from it was not 
 inconsiderable, and as it led to the porter fellowship 
 the mere pecuniary value was not to be despised, but 
 thirst of fame and the desire of a more public position 
 were the chief inducements to a man of Mr. Bridges' 
 temperament, in which ambition and patriotism 
 formed so prominent a part. Latin, however, was 
 not Mr. Bridges' forte ; he excelled rather in the 
 higher branches of arithmetic and the abstruse sciences. 
 His attainments, however, in the dead languages were 
 beyond those of most of his contemporaries, as the 
 letter he sent to the Master and Seniors will abundantly 
 prove. It was chiefly owing to the great reverence 
 
 251
 
 2 $2 A Skit on Examinations 
 
 for genius shown by Dr. Tatham that these letters 
 have been preserved to us, as that excellent man, 
 considering that no circumstance connected with Mr. 
 Bridges' celebrity could be justly consigned to oblivion, 
 rescued these valuable relics from the Bedmaker, as 
 she was on the point of using them to light the fire. 
 By him they were presented to the author of this 
 memoir, who now for the first time lays them before 
 the public. The first was to the Master himself, and 
 ran as follows : 
 
 Reverende Sir, 
 
 Possum bene blackere shoas, et locus shoe- 
 blackissis vacuus est. Makee me shoeblackum si hoc 
 tibi placeat, precor te, quia desidero hoc locum. 
 Your very humble servant, 
 
 THOMASUS BRIDGESSUS. 
 
 We subjoin Mr. Bridges' autograph. The reader 
 will be astonished to perceive its resemblance to that 
 of Napoleon I, with whom he was very intimate, and 
 with anecdotes of whom he used very frequently to 
 amuse his masters. We add that of Napoleon. 
 
 THOMAS BRIDGES 
 NAPOLEON 
 
 The second letter was to the Senior Bursar, who 
 had often before proved himself a friend to Mr. 
 Bridges, and did not fail him in this instance. 
 
 BURSARE SENIOR, 
 
 Ego humiliter begs pardonum te becausus
 
 A Skit on Examinations 253 
 
 quaereri dignitatum shoeblack! and credo me getturum 
 esse hoc locum. 
 
 Your humble servant, 
 
 THOMASUS BRIDGESSUS. 
 
 Shortly afterwards Mr. Bridges was called upon, 
 with six other competitors, to attend in the Combina- 
 tion Room, and the following papers were submitted 
 to him. 
 
 I 
 
 1. Derive the word " blacking." What does Paley 
 say on this subject ? Do you, or do you not, approve 
 of Paley's arguments, and why ? Do you think that 
 Paley knew anything at all about it ? 
 
 2. Who were Day and Martin ? Give a short 
 sketch of their lives, and state their reasons for 
 advertising their blacking on the Pyramids. Do you 
 approve of the advertising system in general ? 
 
 3. Do you consider the Japanese the original 
 inventors of blacking ? State the principal ingredients 
 of blacking, and give a chemical analysis of the follow- 
 ing substances : Sulphate of zinc, nitrate of silver, 
 potassium, copperas and corrosive sublimate. 
 
 4. Is blacking an effective remedy against hydro- 
 phobia ? against cholera ? against lock-jaw ? And 
 do you consider it as valuable an instrument as burnt 
 corks in playing tricks upon a drunken man ? 
 
 This was the Master's paper. The Mathematical 
 Lecturer next gave him a few questions, of which the 
 most important were : 
 
 II 
 
 i. Prove that the shoe may be represented by an 
 equation of the fifth degree. Find the equation to a
 
 254 A Skit on Examinations 
 
 man blacking a shoe : (i) in rectangular co-ordinates ; 
 (2) in polar co-ordinates. 
 
 2. A had 500 shoes to black every day, but being 
 unwell for two days he had to hire a substitute, and 
 paid him a third of the wages per shoe which he him- 
 self received. Had A been ill two days longer there 
 would have been the devil to pay ; as it was he 
 actually paid the sum of the geometrical series found 
 by taking the first n letters of the substitute's name. 
 How much did A pay the substitute ? (Answer, 
 135. 6d.) 
 
 3. Prove that the scraping-knife should never be a 
 secant, and the brush always a tangent to a shoe. 
 
 4. Can you distinguish between meum and tuum ? 
 Prove that their values vary inversely as the propin- 
 quity of the owners. 
 
 5. How often should a shoe-black ask his master 
 for beer notes ? Interpret a negative result.
 
 An Eminent Person 
 
 AMONG the eminent persons deceased during the 
 past week we have to notice Mr. Arthur Ward, 
 the author of the very elegant treatise on the penny 
 whistle. Mr. Ward was rather above the middle 
 height, inclined to be stout, and had lost a considerable 
 portion of his hair. Mr. Ward did not wear spectacles, 
 as asserted by a careless and misinformed contem- 
 porary. Mr. Ward was a man of great humour and 
 talent ; many of his sayings will be treasured up as 
 household words among his acquaintance, for instance, 
 "Lor!" "Oh, ah!" " Sech is life." "That's 
 cheerful." " He's a lively man is Mr. . . ." His 
 manners were affable and agreeable, and his playful 
 gambols exhibited an agility scarcely to be expected 
 from a man of his stature. On Thursday last Mr. 
 Ward was dining off beef-steak pie when a bit of 
 gristle, unfortunately causing him to cough, brought 
 on a fit of apoplexy, the progress of which no medical 
 assistance was able to arrest. It is understood that 
 the funeral arrangements have been entrusted to our 
 very respectable fellow-townsman Mr. Smith, and will 
 take place on Monday. 
 
 255
 
 Napoleon at St. Helena 
 
 I SEE a warrior 'neath a willow tree ; 
 His arms are folded, and his full fixed eye 
 Is gazing on the sky. The evening breeze 
 Blows on him from the sea, and a great storm 
 Is rising. Not the storm nor evening breeze, 
 Nor the dark sea, nor the sun's parting beam 
 Can move him ; for in yonder sky he sees 
 The picture of his life, in yonder clouds 
 That rush towards each other he beholds 
 The mighty wars that he himself hath waged. 
 Blow on him, mighty storm ; beat on him, rain ; 
 You cannot move his folded arms nor turn 
 His gaze one second from the troubled sky. 
 Hark to the thunder ! To him it is not thunder ; 
 It is the noise of battles and the din 
 Of cannons on the field of Austerlitz, 
 The sky to him is the whole world disturbed 
 By war and rumours of great wars. 
 He tumbled like a thunderbolt from heaven 
 Upon the startled earth, and as he came 
 The round world leapt from out her usual course 
 And thought her time was come. Beat on him, rain ; 
 And roar about him, O thou voice of thunder. 
 But what are ye to him ? O more to him 
 Than all besides. To him ye are himself, 
 He knows it and your voice is lovely to him. 
 
 256
 
 Napoleon at St. Helena 257 
 
 The storm is over ; one terrific crash 
 
 Hath brought the warfare to a close. 
 
 Now, now he feels it, and he turns away ; 
 
 His arms are now unfolded, and his hands 
 
 Pressed to his face conceal a warrior's tears. 
 
 He flings himself upon the springing grass, 
 
 And weeps in agony. See, again he rises ; 
 
 His brow is calm, and all his tears are gone. 
 
 The vision now is ended, and he saith : 
 
 " Thou storm art hushed for ever. Not again 
 
 Shall thy great voice be heard. Unto thy rest 
 
 Thou goest, never never to return. 
 
 I thank thee, that for one brief hour alone 
 
 Thou hast my bitter agonies assuaged ; 
 
 Another storm may scare the frightened heavens, 
 
 And like to me may rise and fill 
 
 The elements with terror. I, alas ! 
 
 Am blotted out as though I had not been, 
 
 And am become as though I was not born. 
 
 My day is over, and my night is come 
 
 A night which brings no rest, nor quiet dreams, 
 
 Nor calm reflections, nor repose from toil, 
 
 But pain and sorrow, anguish never ceasing, 
 
 With dark uncertainty, despair and pain, 
 
 And death's wide gate before me. Fare ye well ! 
 
 The sky is clear and the world at rest ; 
 
 Thou storm and I have but too much in common."
 
 
 The Two Deans 
 
 WILLIAMS, I like thee, amiable divine ! 
 No milk-and-water character is thine. 
 A lay more lovely should thy worth attend 
 Than my poor muse, alas ! hath power to lend. 
 Shall I describe thee as thou late didst sit, 
 The gater gated and the biter bit, 
 When impious hands at the dead hour of night 
 Forbade the way and made the barriers tight ? 
 Next morn I heard their impious voices sing ; 
 All up the stairs their blasphemies did ring : 
 " Come forth, O Williams, wherefore thus supine 
 Remain within thy chambers after nine ? 
 Come forth, suffer thyself to be admired, 
 And blush not so, coy dean, to be desired." 
 The captive churchman chafes with empty rage, 
 Till some knight-errant free him from his cage. 
 Pale fear and anger sit upon yon face 
 Erst full of love and piety and grace, 
 But not pale fear nor anger will undo 
 The iron might of gimlet and of screw. 
 Grin at the window, Williams, all is vain ; 
 The carpenter will come and let thee out again. 
 
 Contrast with him the countenance serene 
 And sweet remonstrance of the junior dean ; 
 
 258
 
 The Two Deans 259 
 
 The plural number and the accents mild, 
 
 The language of a parent to a child. 
 
 With plaintive voice the worthy man doth state, 
 
 We've not been very regular of late. 
 
 It should more carefully its chapels keep, 
 
 And not make noises to disturb our sleep 
 
 By having suppers and at early hours 
 
 Raising its lungs unto their utmost powers. 
 
 We'll put it, if it makes a noise again, 
 
 On gatesey patsems at the hour of ten ; 
 
 And leafy peafy it will turn I'm sure, 
 
 And never vex its own dear Sharpey more. 
 
 n 
 
 SCENE. The Court of St. John's College, Cambridge. 
 Enter the two Deans on their way to morning chapel. 
 
 JUNIOR DEAN. Brother, I am much pleased with 
 
 Samuel Butler, 
 
 I have observed him mightily of late ; 
 Methinks that in his melancholy walk 
 And air subdued whene'er he meeteth me 
 Lurks something more than in most other men. 
 SENIOR DEAN. It is a good young man. I do be- 
 think me 
 
 That once I walked behind him in the cloister ; 
 He saw me not, but whispered to his fellow : 
 " Of all men who do dwell beneath the moon 
 I love and reverence most the senior Dean." 
 JUNIOR DEAN. One thing is passing strange, and 
 
 yet I know not 
 
 How to condemn it, but in one plain brief word 
 He never comes to Sunday morning chapel.
 
 260 The Two Deans 
 
 Methinks he teacheth in some Sunday-school, 
 Feeding the poor and starveling intellect 
 With wholesome knowledge, or on the Sabbath morn 
 He loves the country and the neighbouring spire 
 Of Madingley or Coton, or perchance 
 Amid some humble poor he spends the day, 
 Conversing with them, learning all their cares, 
 Comforting them and easing them in sickness. 
 SENIOR DEAN. I will advance him to some public 
 
 post, 
 
 He shall be chapel clerk, some day a Fellow, 
 Some day perhaps a Dean, but as thou say'st 
 He is indeed an excellent young man 
 
 Enter BUTLER suddenly, without a coat or anything 
 on his head, rushing through the cloisters, bearing a 
 cup, a bottle of cider, four lemons, two nutmegs, half a 
 pound of sugar and a nutmeg grater. 
 
 Curtain falls on the confusion of BUTLER and the 
 horror-stricken dismay of the two Deans.
 
 The Battle of Alma Mater 
 
 i 
 
 HT^HE Temperance commissioners 
 
 JL In awful conclave sat, 
 Their noses into this to poke 
 
 To poke them into that 
 In awful conclave sat they, 
 
 And swore a solemn oath, 
 That snuff should make no Briton sneeze, 
 That smokers all to smoke should cease, 
 
 They swore to conquer both. 
 
 II 
 Forth went a great Teetotaller, 
 
 With pamphlet armed and pen, 
 He travelled east, he travelled west, 
 
 Tobacco to condemn. 
 At length to Cantabrigia, 
 
 To move her sons to shame, 
 Foredoomed to chaff and insult, 
 
 That gallant hero came. 
 
 in 
 
 'Tis Friday : to the Guildhall 
 
 Come pouring in apace 
 The gownsmen and the townsmen 
 
 Right thro' the market place 
 ; 261
 
 262 The Battle of Alma Mater 
 
 They meet, these bitter foemen 
 Not enemies but friends 
 
 Then fearless to the rostrum, 
 The Lecturer ascends. 
 
 IV 
 
 He cursed the martyr'd Raleigh, 
 
 He cursed the mild cigar, 
 He traced to pipe and cabbage leaf 
 
 Consumption and catarrh ; 
 He railed at simple bird's-eye, 
 
 By freshmen only tried, 
 And with rude and bitter jest assailed 
 
 The yard of clay beside. 
 
 When suddenly full twenty pipes, 
 
 And weeds full twenty more 
 Were seen to rise at signal, 
 
 Where none were seen before. 
 No mouth but puffed out gaily 
 
 A cloud of yellow fume, 
 And merrily the curls of smoke 
 
 Went circling 'thro the room. 
 
 VI 
 
 In vain th' indignant mayor harangued, 
 
 A mighty chandler he ! 
 While peas his hoary head around 
 
 They whistled pleasantly.
 
 The Battle of Alma Mater 263 
 
 In vain he tenderly inquired, 
 
 'Mid many a wild " hurrah ! " 
 " Of this what father dear would think, 
 
 Of that what dear mamma ? " 
 
 VII 
 
 In rushed a host of peelers, 
 
 With a sergeant at the head, 
 Jaggard to every kitchen known, 
 
 Of missuses the dread. 
 In rushed that warlike multitude, 
 
 Like bees from out their hive, 
 With Fluffy of the squinting eye, 
 
 And fighting No. 5. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Up sprang Inspector Fluffy, 
 
 Up Sergeant Jaggard rose, 
 And playfully with staff he tapped 
 
 A gownsman on the nose. 
 As falls a thundersmitten oak, 
 
 The valiant Jaggard fell, 
 With a line above each ogle, 
 
 And a " mouse " or two as well. 
 
 IX 
 
 But hark ! the cry is " Smuffkins ! 
 
 And loud the gownsmen cheer, 
 And lo ! a stalwart Johnian 
 
 Comes jostling from the rear :
 
 264 The Battle of Alma Mater 
 
 He eyed the flinching peelers, 
 
 He aimed a deadly blow, 
 Then quick before his fist went down 
 Inspector, Marshal, Peelers, Town, 
 While fiercer fought the joyful Gown, 
 To see the claret flow. 
 
 x 
 
 They run, they run ! to win the door 
 
 The vanquished peelers flew ; 
 They left the sergeant's hat behind, 
 
 And the lecturer's surtout : 
 Now by our Lady Margaret, 
 
 It was a goodly sight, 
 To see that routed multitude 
 
 Swept down the tide of flight. 
 
 XI 
 
 Then hurrah ! for gallant Smuffkins, 
 
 For Cantabs one hurrah ! 
 Like wolves in quest of prey they scent 
 
 A peeler from afar. 
 Hurrah ! for all who strove and bled 
 
 For liberty and right, 
 What time within the Guildhall 
 
 Was fought the glorious fight.
 
 On the Italian Priesthood 
 
 This an adaptation of the following epigram, which 
 appeared in Giuseppe Giusti's RACCOLTA DI PROVERBI 
 TOSCANI (Firenze, 1853) : 
 
 Con arte e con inganno si vive mezzo I' anno 
 Con inganno e con arte si vive I'altra parte. 
 
 In knavish art and gathering gear 
 They spend the one half of the year ; 
 In gathering gear and knavish art 
 They somehow spend the other part. 
 
 265
 
 Samuel Butler and the Simeonites 
 
 The following article, which originally appeared in 
 the CAMBRIDGE MAGAZINE, i March, 1913, is by Mr. 
 A. T. Bartholomew, of the University Library, Cam- 
 bridge, who has most kindly allowed me to include it in 
 the present volume. Mr. Bartholomew's discovery of 
 Samuel Butler's parody of the Simeonite tract throws 
 a most interesting light upon a curious passage in THE 
 WAY OF ALL FLESH, and it is a great pleasure to me to 
 be able to give Butlerians the story of Mr. Bartholomew's 
 " find " in his own words. 
 
 Samuel Butler and the Simeonites 
 
 READERS of Samuel Butler's remarkable story 
 The Way of All Flesh will probably recall his 
 description of the Simeonites (chap, xlvii), who still 
 flourished at Cambridge when Ernest Pontifex was up 
 at Emmanuel. Ernest went down in 1858 ; so did 
 Butler. Throughout the book the spiritual and 
 intellectual life and development of Ernest are drawn 
 from Butler's own experience. 
 
 " The one phrase of spiritual activity which had any 
 life in it during the time Ernest was at Cambridge 
 was connected with the name of Simeon. There were 
 still a good many Simeonites, or as they were more 
 briefly called ' Sims/ in Ernest's time. Every college 
 
 266
 
 Butler and the Simeonites 267 
 
 contained some of them, but their head-quarters were 
 at Caius, whither they were attracted by Mr. Clayton, 
 who was at that time senior tutor, and among the 
 sizars of St. John's. Behind the then chapel of this 
 last-named college was a ' labyrinth ' (this was the 
 name it bore) of dingy, tumble-down rooms," and 
 here dwelt many Simeonites, " unprepossessing in 
 feature, gait, and manners, unkempt and ill-dressed 
 beyond what can be easily described. Destined most 
 of them for the Church, the Simeonites held them- 
 selves to have received a very loud call to the ministry. 
 . . . They would be instant in season and out of season 
 in imparting spiritual instruction to all whom they 
 could persuade to listen to them. But the soil of the 
 more prosperous undergraduates was not suitable for 
 the seed they tried to sow. When they distributed 
 tracts, dropping them at night into good men's letter 
 boxes while they were asleep, their tracts got burnt, or 
 met with even worse contumely." For Ernest Pontifex 
 " they had a repellent attraction ; he disliked them, 
 but he could not bring himself to leave them alone. On 
 one occasion he had gone so far as to parody one of the 
 tracts they had sent round in the night, and to get a 
 copy dropped into each of the leading Simeonites' 
 boxes. The subject he had taken was ' Personal 
 Cleanliness.' ' 
 
 Some years ago I found among the Cambridge 
 papers in the late Mr. J. W. Clark's collection three 
 printed pieces bearing on the subject. The first is a 
 genuine Simeonite tract ; the other two are parodies. 
 All three are anonymous. At the top of the second 
 parody is written " By S. Butler. March 31." It will 
 be necessary to give a few quotations from the
 
 268 Butler and the Simeonites 
 
 Simeonite utterance in order to bring out the full 
 flavour of Butler's parody, which is given entire. 
 Butler went up to St. John's in October, 1854 ' so a ^ 
 the time of writing this squib he was in his second 
 term, and 18 years of age. 
 
 A. T. B. 
 
 /. Extracts from the sheet dated " St. John's College, 
 March i^th, 1855." In a manuscript note this is 
 stated to be by Ynyr Lamb, of St. John's (B.A., 1862) . 
 
 1. When a celebrated French king once showed the 
 infidel philosopher Hume into his carriage, the latter 
 at once leaped in, on which his majesty remarked : 
 " That's the most accomplished man living:' ' 
 
 It is impossible to presume enough on Divine grace ; 
 this kind of presumption is the characteristic of 
 Heaven. . . . 
 
 2. Religion is not an obedience to external forms or 
 observances, but " a bold leap in the dark into the 
 arms of an affectionate Father." 
 
 4. However Church Music may raise the devotional 
 feelings, these bring a man not one iota nearer to Christ, 
 neither is it acceptable in His sight. . . . 
 
 13. The one thing needful is Faith : Faith =| 
 (historical faith) +| (heart-belief, or assurance, or 
 justification) + peace; and peace =t? trust -care -f- 
 joy"' r+1 
 
 18. The Lord's church has been always peculiarly 
 tried at different stages of history, and each era will 
 have its peculiar glory in eternity. ... At the 
 present time the trial for the church is peculiar ; 
 never before, perhaps, were the insinuations of the
 
 Butler and the Simeonites 269 
 
 adversary so plausible and artful his ingenuity so 
 subtle himself so much an angel of light experience 
 has sharpened his wit " While men slept the enemy 
 sowed tares " he is now the base hypocrite he suits 
 his blandishments to all the Church is lulled in the 
 arms of the monster, rolling the sweet morsel under 
 her tongue. . . . 
 
 II. Samuel Butler's Parody 
 
 1. Beware ! Beware ! Beware ! The enemy sowed 
 tracts in the night, and the righteous men tremble. 
 
 2. There are only 10 good men in John's ; I am one ; 
 reader, calculate your chance of salvation. 
 
 3. The genuine recipe for the leaven of the Pharisees 
 is still extant, and runs as follows : Self-deceit -J- 
 want of charity \ + outward show $, humbug <x> , 
 insert Sim or not as required. Reader, let each one 
 who would seem to be righteous take unto himself this 
 leaven. 
 
 4. " The University Church is a place too much 
 neglected by the young men up here." Thus said the 
 learned Selwyn,* and he said well. How far better 
 would it be if each man's own heart was a little 
 University Church, the pericardium a little University 
 churchyard, wherein are buried the lust of the flesh, 
 the pomps and vanities of this wicked world ; the veins 
 and arteries, little clergymen and bishops ministering 
 therein ; and the blood a stream of soberness, temper- 
 ance and chastity perpetually flowing into it. 
 
 5. The deluge went before, misery followed after, in 
 the middle came a Puseyite playing upon an organ. 
 
 * William Selwyn D.D., Fellow of St. John's Lady Margaret 
 Professor of Divinity, died 1875. A. T. B.
 
 2 jo Butler and the Simeonites 
 
 Reader, flee from him, for he playeth his own soul to 
 damnation. 
 
 6. Church music is as the whore of Babylon, or the 
 ramping lion who sought whom he might devour ; 
 music in a church cannot be good, when St. Paul bade 
 those who were merry to sing psalms. Music is but 
 tinkling brass, and sounding cymbals, which is what 
 St. Paul says he should himself be, were he without 
 charity ; he evidently then did not consider music 
 desirable. 
 
 7. The most truly religious and only thoroughly 
 good man in Cambridge is Clayton,* of Caius. 
 
 8. " Charity is but the compassion that we feel for 
 our own vices when we perceive their hatefulness in 
 other people." Charity, then, is but another name 
 for selfishness, and must be eschewed accordingly. 
 
 9. A great French king was walking one day with 
 the late Mr. B., when the king dropped his umbrella. 
 Mr. B. instantly stooped down and picked it up. The 
 king said in a very sweet tone, " Thank you." 
 
 10. The Cam is the river Jordan. An unthinking 
 mind may consider this a startling announcement. 
 Let such an one pray for grace to read the mystery 
 aright. 
 
 11. When I've lost a button off my trousers I go to 
 the tailors' and get a new one sewn on. 
 
 12. Faith and Works were walking one day on the 
 road to Zion, when Works turned into a public-house, 
 and said he would not go any further, at the same time 
 telling Faith to go on by himself, and saying that " he 
 should be only a drag upon him." Faith accordingly 
 
 * Charles Clayton, M.A., of Gonville and Caius, Vicar of Holy 
 Trinity, Cambridge, 1851-65. Died 1883. A. T. B.
 
 Butler and the Simeonites 271 
 
 left Works in the ale-house, and went on. He had not 
 gone far before he began to feel faint, and thought he 
 had better turn back and wait for Works. He suited 
 the action to the word, and finding Works in an advanced 
 state of beer, fell to, and even surpassed that worthy 
 in his potations. They then set to work and fought 
 lustily, and would have done each other a mortal 
 injury had not a Policeman providentially arrived, and 
 walked them off to the station-house. As it was they 
 were fined Five Shillings each, and it was a long time 
 before they fully recovered. 
 
 13. What can 10 fools do among 300 sinners ? 
 They can do much harm, and had far better let the 
 sinners seek peace their own way in the wilderness 
 than ram it down their throats during the night. 
 
 14. Barnwell is a place near Cambridge. It is one 
 of the descents into the infernal regions ; nay, the 
 infernal regions have there ascended to the upper 
 earth, and are rampant. He that goeth by it shall be 
 scorched, but he that seeketh it knowingly shall be 
 devoured in the twinkling of an eye, and become 
 withered as the grass at noonday. 
 
 15. Young men do not seem to consider that houses 
 were made to pray in, as well as to eat and to drink 
 in. Spiritual food is much more easily procured and 
 far cheaper than bodily nutriment ; that, perhaps, is 
 the reason why many overlook it. 
 
 16. When we were children our nurses used to say, 
 " Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top, when the bough 
 bends the cradle will rock." Do the nurses intend the 
 wind to represent temptation and the storm of life, 
 the tree-top ambition, and the cradle the body of the 
 child in which the soul traverses life's ocean ? I
 
 27 '2 Butler and the Simeonites 
 
 cannot doubt all this passes through the nurses' minds. 
 Again, when they say, " Little Bo-peep has lost her 
 sheep and doesn't know where to find them ; let them 
 alone and they'll come home with their tails all right 
 behind them," is Little Bo-peep intended for mother 
 Church ? Are the sheep our erring selves, and our 
 subsequent return to the fold ? No doubt of it. 
 
 17. A child will often eat of itself what no com- 
 pulsion can induce it to touch. Men are disgusted with 
 religion if it is placed before them at unseasonable 
 times, in unseasonable places, and clothed in a most 
 unseemly dress. Let them alone, and many will 
 perhaps seek it for themselves, whom the world 
 suspects not. A whited sepulchre is a very picturesque 
 object, and I like it immensely, and I like a Sim too. 
 But the whited sepulchre is an acknowledged humbug, 
 and most of the Sims are not, in my opinion, very far 
 different. 
 
 THE END
 
 Re-issue of the Works of the late 
 Samuel Butler 
 
 Author of " Erewhon," " The Way of All Flesh," etc. 
 
 MR. FIFIELD has pleasure in announcing the re-issue of the entire works 
 of the late SAMUEL BUTLER, novelist, philosopher, scientist, satirist, and 
 classicist; "in his own department," says Mr. Bernard Shaw, "the greatest 
 English writer of the latter half of the igth century." "The Way of 
 All Flesh," " Erewhon," " Unconscious Memory," * Alps and Sanctuaries," 
 "The Fair Haven," "Life and Habit," "Evolution, Old and New," and "A 
 First Year in Canterbury Settlement," have been reprinted with additions, the 
 "Note Books," "God the Known," and "The Humour of Homer," added, 
 and these and all the other works are now published at popular prices. 
 
 A First Year in Canterbury Settlement, with 
 
 other early Essays. Re-set enlarged edition. js. net 
 
 The Humour of Homer, and other Essays on Life, 
 Art and Science. With a portrait, and a sketch of the 
 life of Samuel Butler by H. F. Jones. Re-set Edition. 53. net 
 The Fair Haven. New Edition, re-set. 58. net 
 
 Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton 
 Ticino. Illustrated by the Author, Charles Gogin 
 and H. F. Jones. Large Crown 8vo, cloth gilt. 
 New and enlarged Edition, re-set, with index. 55. net 
 
 The Note-Books of Samuel Butler. W ith Portrait 
 
 and Poems. Edited by H. F. Jones. 2nd Impression. 6s.net 
 The Way of All Flesh. A novel. Seventh Im- 
 pression of Second Edition. 6s. 
 God the Known and God the Unknown. is. 6d. net 
 Erewhon. 8th Impression of loth Edition. 2s. 6d. net 
 Erewhon Revisited. 5th Impression, 340 pages, zs. 6d. net 
 Unconscious Memory. New Edition, re-set. 53. net 
 Life and Habit. An essay after a completer view 
 
 of Evolution. New Edition with Addenda. 55. net 
 
 Evolution Old and New. A comparison of the 
 theories of Buffbn, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, with 
 that of Charles Darwin. New Revised Edition. 53. net 
 
 Luck, or Cunning, as the main means of organic 
 
 modification ? 5s. net 
 
 The Authoress of the Odyssey, who and what she 
 
 was, when and where she wrote. With portrait. 53. net 
 
 The Iliad of Homer, rendered into English prose. 53. net 
 The Odyssey, rendered into English prose. 53. net 
 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets, with notes and original text. 53. net 
 Ex Voto. An account of the Sacro Monte or New 
 
 Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia. Fully illustrated. 5. net 
 
 Charles Darwin and Samuel Butler. A step 
 
 towards reconciliation. By H. F. Jones. is. net 
 
 London : A. C. Fifield
 
 Mr. Ftfield's New List 
 
 The Note- Books of 
 Samuel Butler 
 
 Author of Erewhon," " The Way of All Flesh," etc. 
 
 Arranged and Edited by Henry Festing Jones 
 Large Crown 8vo, 452 P a g es > 6 s nef > postage 4^. 
 
 Second impression. With photogravure portrait. 
 
 The volume includes a portrait taken in 1898 ; a preface ; the chief events 
 and dates of Butler's life ; his poems and sonnets ; and an Index. 
 
 The Times says : " No one knows Samuel Butler who has not read this book 
 through; and perhaps it will come to be the most read and valued of all his works." 
 (From a three-column review.) 
 
 The Nation says : " The book is packed with good things from cover to cover, and 
 it makes up what amounts to a fresh and striking work from Butler's pen." 
 
 English Review says : " A priceless book of wit and wisdom. _. . . Even the most 
 liberal quotation could hardly convey any adequate sense of its gay wisdom and 
 pregnant wit." 
 
 A New Revised and Enlarged Edition, entirely re-set, of 
 
 Alps and Sanctuaries 
 
 of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino 
 
 With 83 Illustrations by the Author, H. F. Jones and Charles 
 
 Gogin, an Introduction by R. A. Streatfeild, an etched 
 
 frontispiece, and an additional chapter and index. 
 
 336 pages. Large Crown 8vo. Cloth gilt. 5/. net, postage \d. 
 
 The Athenceum says: "It is as good as the 'Note Books,' and has the same 
 quality of sudden revelations, frank confessions, and delightful encounters." 
 
 The Times says : " In no other book did Samuel Butler write with a freer, fuller, 
 more felicitous self-abandonment." 
 
 The Pall Mall Gazette says : " It gives the essence of the writer and the man, and 
 there was never, surely, a happier combination of the thinker and traveller, humorist 
 and humanist, all grouped in one. It if as full of laughter as ' Hudibras,' and tilts just 
 as hard, with ten times the humanity." 
 
 London : A. C. Fifield
 
 000 143 651