Samuel Butler: a sketch | Page 4

in the course of which
many alternatives were considered. There are letters about his
becoming a farmer in England, a tutor, a homoepathic doctor, an artist,
or a publisher, and the possibilities of the army, the bar, and diplomacy.
Finally it was decided that he should emigrate to New Zealand. His
passage was paid, and he was to sail in the Burmah, but a cousin of his
received information about this vessel which caused him, much against
his will, to get back his passage money and take a berth in the Roman
Emperor, which sailed from Gravesend on one of the last days of
September, 1859. On that night, for the first time in his life, he did not
say his prayers. "I suppose the sense of change was so great that it
shook them quietly off. I was not then a sceptic; I had got as far as
disbelief in infant baptism, but no further. I felt no compunction of
conscience, however, about leaving off my morning and evening
prayers--simply I could no longer say them."
The Roman Emperor, after a voyage every incident of which interested
him deeply, arrived outside Port Lyttelton. The captain shouted to the
pilot who came to take them in:
"Has the Robert Small arrived?"
"No," replied the pilot, "nor yet the Burmah."
And Butler, writing home to his people, adds the comment: "You may
imagine what I felt."
The Burmah was never heard of again.
He spent some time looking round, considering what to do and how to
employ the money with which his father was ready to supply him, and
determined upon sheep-farming. He made several excursions looking
for country, and ultimately took up a run which is still called
Mesopotamia, the name he gave it because it is situated among the
head-waters of the Rangitata.

It was necessary to have a horse, and he bought one for 55 pounds,
which was not considered dear. He wrote home that the horse's name
was "Doctor": "I hope he is a Homoeopathist." From this, and from the
fact that he had already contemplated becoming a homoeopathic doctor
himself, I conclude that he had made the acquaintance of Dr. Robert
Ellis Dudgeon, the eminent homoeopathist, while he was doing parish
work in London. After his return to England Dr. Dudgeon was his
medical adviser, and remained one of his most intimate friends until the
end of his life. Doctor, the horse, is introduced into Erewhon Revisited;
the shepherd in Chapter XXVI tells John Hicks that Doctor "would
pick fords better than that gentleman could, I know, and if the
gentleman fell off him he would just stay stock still."
Butler carried on his run for about four and a half years, and the open-
air life agreed with him; he ascribed to this the good health he
afterwards enjoyed. The following, taken from a notebook he kept in
the colony and destroyed, gives a glimpse of one side of his life there;
he preserved the note because it recalled New Zealand so vividly.
April, 1861. It is Sunday. We rose later than usual. There are five of us
sleeping in the hut. I sleep in a bunk on one side of the fire; Mr. Haast,
{3} a German who is making a geological survey of the province,
sleeps upon the opposite one; my bullock-driver and hut-keeper have
two bunks at the far end of the hut, along the wall, while my shepherd
lies in the loft among the tea and sugar and flour. It was a fine morning,
and we turned out about seven o'clock.
The usual mutton and bread for breakfast with a pudding made of flour
and water baked in the camp oven after a joint of meat--Yorkshire
pudding, but without eggs. While we were at breakfast a robin perched
on the table and sat there a good while pecking at the sugar. We went
on breakfasting with little heed to the robin, and the robin went on
pecking with little heed to us. After breakfast Pey, my bullock-driver,
went to fetch the horses up from a spot about two miles down the river,
where they often run; we wanted to go pig-hunting.
I go into the garden and gather a few peascods for seed till the horses
should come up. Then Cook, the shepherd, says that a fire has sprung

up on the other side of the river. Who could have lit it? Probably
someone who had intended coming to my place on the preceding
evening and has missed his way, for there is no track of any sort
between here and Phillips's. In a quarter of an hour he lit another fire
lower down, and by that time, the horses having come up, Haast and
myself--remembering how Dr. Sinclair had just been drowned