Station Amusements | Page 2

wide extent of
timbered country. Often in our evening rides we have gone round by
that saddle, in spite of a break-neck track and quicksands and bogs, just
to satisfy our constant longing for green leaves, waving branches, and
the twitter of birds. Whenever any wood was wanted for building a
stockyard, or slabbing a well, or making a post-and-rail fence around a
new paddock, we were obliged to take out a Government license to cut
wood in this splendid bush. Armed with the necessary document the
next step was to engage "bushmen," or woodcutters by profession, who

felled and cut the timber into the proper lengths, and stacked it neatly in
a clearing, where it could get dry and seasoned. These stacks were
often placed in such inaccessible and rocky parts of the steep mountain
side, that they had to be brought down to the flat in rude little sledges,
drawn by a bullock, who required to be trained to the work, and to
possess so steady and equable a disposition as to be indifferent to the
annoyance of great logs of heavy wood dangling and bumping against
his heels as the sledge pursued its uneven way down the bed of a
mountain torrent, in default of a better road.
Imagine, then, a beautiful day in our early New Zealand autumn. For a
week past, a furious north-westerly gale had been blowing down the
gorges of the Rakaia and the Selwyn, as if it had come out of a funnel,
and sweeping across the great shelterless plains with irresistible force.
We had been close prisoners to the house all those days, dreading to
open a door to go out for wood or water, lest a terrific blast should rush
in and whip the light shingle roof off. Not an animal could be seen out
of doors; they had all taken shelter on the lee-side of the gorse hedges,
which are always planted round a garden to give the vegetables a
chance of coming up. On the sky-line of the hills could be perceived
towards evening, mobs of sheep feeding with their heads _up_-wind,
and travelling to the high camping-grounds which they always select in
preference to a valley. The yellow tussocks were bending all one way,
perfectly flat to the ground, and the shingle on the gravel walk outside
rattled like hail against the low latticed windows. The uproar from the
gale was indescribable, and the little fragile house swayed and shook as
the furious gusts hurled themselves against it. Inside its shelter, the
pictures were blowing out from the walls, until I expected them to be
shaken off their hooks even in those rooms which had plank walls lined
with papered canvas; whilst in the kitchen, store-room, etc., whose
sides were made of cob, the dust blew in fine clouds from the
pulverized walls, penetrating even to the dairy, and. settling half an
inch thick on my precious cream. At last, when our skin felt like tightly
drawn parchment, and our ears and eyes had long been filled with
powdered earth, the wind dropped at sunset as suddenly as it had risen
five days before. We ventured out to breathe the dust-laden atmosphere,
and to look if the swollen creeks (swollen because snow-fed) had done
or threatened to do any mischief, and saw on the south-west horizon

great fleecy masses of cloud driving rapidly up before a chill icy breeze.
Hurrah, here comes a sou'-wester! The parched-up earth, the shrivelled
leaves, the dusty grass, all needed the blessed damp air. In an hour it
was upon us. We had barely time to house the cows and horses, to feed
the fowls, and secure them in their own shed, and to light a roaring coal
(or rather lignite, for it is not true coal) fire in the drawing-room, when,
with a few warning splashes, the deluge of cold rain came steadily
down, and we went to sleep to the welcome sound of its refreshing
patter.
All that I have been describing was the weather of the past week.
Disagreeable as it might have been, it was needed in both its hot and
cold, dry and wet extremes, to make a true New Zealand day. The
furious nor'-wester had blown every fleck of cloud below the horizon,
and dried the air until it was as light as ether. The "s'utherly buster," on
the other hand, had cooled and refreshed everything in the most
delicious way, and a perfect day had come at last. What words can
describe the pleasure it is to inhale such an atmosphere? One feels as if
old age or sickness or even sorrow, could hardly exist beneath such a
spotless vault of blue as stretched out above our happy heads. I have
often been told that this feeling