FLOOD IN THE MANAWATU.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3776, 3 October 1907, Page 3

FLOOD IN THE MANAWATU.

It was the privilege of a Times reporter to do part of the hour journey between B'oxton and Levin by boat last Saturday. Much of L the road between the two townt ships was under water, too deep for the coach horses to negotiate. She sea on the roads and on the w-lying paddocks ebbed and flawed with the rise and fall of , the Manawatu river, and the » heavy wind made navigation difficult. A local farmer, who had i of course a good deal of boating i experience, was the Charon who ■ navigated the boat over the not too i pleasant Styx, and on one or two occasions his stout arms were ; working uselessly for some minutes ■ trying to make headway against the strong wind and tide. Here * : and there bits of gaunt herbage poked out of the water, and the mournful pukaki seemed to be the only thing that was entirely at § home. Nobody was sorry when {.he passengers climbed from the L boat into the coach waiting at the f oridge. One large brown horse, Bi' up to his barrel in water on the F main road, viewed the water and * boat with amazement, and failed to get much sustenance from the i. scanty heads of rashes that stuck I out of the flood. Along the road was met an old white horse, with a saddle on. The right stirrup was missing, and only a strip of bridle remained. The coachi< driver explained that So-and-so, | K the rider of the white horse, had ; left Ouch-and-such the day betore, all'veil. Apart from a few vigorous expressions of opinion about the treachery of floods and the fact that a crop oi potatoes wasn’t much good under four feet of water, no one seemed to regard riderless horses and submerged trees and the passage of boats over the tops ot fences with any particular horror.