“ Knocking About in New Zealand.”

Cromwell Argus, Volume 2, Issue 96, 12 September 1871, Page 6

“ Knocking About in New Zealand.”

This is the title of a book by Charley L. Money, published in Melbourne. Mr Money, landing in the Canterbury settlement in 1861, commenced a seven years’ career in New Zealand by rapidly transferring himself to the Otago province, the gold-fields of which had been recently opened out. From that time forth the occupations he was engaged in were multifarious, and occasionally a “ little mixed.” He was by turns a digger and a fencer, a builder and a storekeeper, a prospector and a surveyor. At one period he was known as “ Charley tho Packer,” because he earned a good sum daily by undertaking the business usually performed by a packhorse and carrying goods at the West Coast diggings along some twelve miles of steep road which fairly bothered the bullock drays. Towards the close of his Now Zealand career ho joined the small colonial force under Colonel M'Donnell, and took active part in the capture of two or three native pahs. The following extract describes the descent of one of the rivers upon a moguey —a Maori raft made of flax sticks : “ Two days and a half sufficed to complete the mogneys, and the next morning we launched them, Rowley and I going aboard the first, three others managing the second, and Johnston and his mate on the third. Johnson’s mate was a German, with a perfectly natural horror of cold water, and as soon as we started he laid himself flat on his stomach and clasped the sides of the moguey with both hands. In this order we launched our little fleet, and by punting with long sticks soon got into the current. Once fairly under weigh, steering was of no further use. We went down tho rapid river like straws. For tho first two miles it was jolly enough, and we were congratulating ourselves on the success and safety that had attended om venture, when, after rounding a long curve in tho course of tho river, wo arrived in sight of a gorge into which the wide river narrowed, and rushed.as through a mill race with foaming, seething violence. Om raft being ahead, we were the first to perceive the breakers as they dashed up against the rocks at tho foot of the clifls on the further side from us. We shouted a proposal to the others to try and gat out of the stream and land at .a spot where we could see more of the place, but we might as well have tried to stop a woman’s tongue as to stop our rafts. On we werrt, and nearer came the danger; already we began to rock in the waves caused by the drawing in of tho funnel or gorge, and for full two minutes 1 gave up all hope. Right in the face of the main body of the water whom it entered the gorge was a mass of rocks, jumbled one upon another, at the foot of a towering cliff, that frowned grimly down on our adventurous little vessels as they approached nearer and nearer. Splashed with spray on all sides, tossed and tumbled by the various currents as they met together, we drove on, helpless ns infants, towards tho coming peril. I uttered a prayer not loud but deep, and, clutching the fragile twigs beneath me awaited the fats that seemed inevitible. “ Scarcely could I credit the evidence of my senses as I felt myself flying, not against but past the terrible spot, and still more when we found our little moguey suddenly Joating safely in the centre of a lake-like expanse, of water, with the most beautifully foliage crowding the slopes of the Wnges on each side of us. Tho whole of y)at afternoon, with its dash of hazardous adventure to give it a zest, often comes Tw£!j to me in day-dreams, like the sound iflf'tfeme sweet voice heard above a chorus discordant singers. A bright sun gleaming far down the windings of the die brilliant vcrmillion of rata jbloisoms relieving the varied green and w of the trees high above us, and our Jwrtle bark floating peacefully on, except now and then it shot down a fall only lipjreach another wavoless surface beyond.’’