BUSH YARNS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1079, 7 December 1911, Page 4

BUSH YARNS.

[Specially written for the Hc.iald,]

What tales the old trees ot the big bush might tell if they could talk. What heroic struggle with hard fate, what terrible tragedies they must have witnessed. The tithe of the adventures of which those pathless areas have been the scene, can never be told. Most of them must be for ever buried in the grave o( eternal silence. But now and then brief reminiscences of some of them may be picked up by the inquiring traveller. My first visit to the New Zealand bush was a ride to the Maungataupu, near Nelson, in the eighties. As I sat on the back of my horse, drinking in the glorious view stretching away to the dim outlines of Havelock in the far disdistance, my companion pointing to the trunk of a big Rata said, “ That is where the murder was committed.” Then he told the grim story of how the three prospectors, travelling with their hard-earned bags of gold dust for Westport, were suddenly attacked by the Burgess gang, shot one by one and their bodies rolled down the hill into the gully below. Some years afterwards I was staying a night with an old settler who told me that he once lived three mouths in the Wairoa Gorge without ever seeing a human face or hearing a sound except that of the roar of the river or the barking ot his dogs. I said to him, “ You must have passed through some strange adventures.” “No,” he replied, “ nothing ever happened.” “ Did you never have any visitors,” I asked. He thought a minute and then answered, “ Well, one night after three days heavy rain, when the river was in high flood, three Maoris knocked at the door of my whare and asked if they might come in and sit by my lire to dry their clothes. They stripped otf their soaking garments and I lent them a blanket to sit under while their things were drying. Alter a meal and a rest they started oft again to swim the river and resume their journey. About a fortnight afterwards two of them came back and called at my whare again. I asked them what had become ot their mate. They told me that he had been drowned in trying to swim the river on the night ot their last visit. Next morning, in walking along the bank ot the river, I saw a head protruding out of the water, and there the poor fellow's dead body had been lying all the time within a few yards of my hut.” “Don’t you call that an adventure ?” I asked. “ Now try to think of something else.” “Oh,” he said, “I remember crossing the stream one morning to muster my cattle. It was then low enough for me to wade through. But during the day it rose, and when I came back at night with my cattle it was running neatly bank high. I did not know how ever to get across, as I could not swim. However, just as the last bullock was taking to the water, I seized hold ot the brute’s tail, held on like grim death, and at last, alter many duckings, found myself pulled safely through.”—And that man had never bad any adventures ! Another time I was riding over the Riwaka ranges, and had to put up for the night in an accommodation house at the foot of the ranges. There I saw an old man, who was very deaf and very lonely. No one else seemed to take any notice ot him, so I sat

down by his side, pulled out my pipe, and began to pump him. I found that he came from London. When I told him that I had been there as a boy he began to be interested, and we got to work comparing reminiscences. I told him that the earliest event I could remember was the illuminations in Piccadilly and Regents Circus in celebration ot the peace after the Russian War. He laughed, and said, “Why, that’s quite modern. But, then, you are only a youngster. I remember seeing George the Fourth’s carriage turned back from the gates ot Temple Bar. You know that once a year the citizens of Loudon had the right of closing the gate against the royal carriage, to show that the city belonged to the people, not to King. On the day of poor Queen Caroline’s funeral, I was standing amongst the crowd in the Strand wailing for the arrival of the procession. At last the hearse containing the body of the unhappy Queen reached the gates which had just been shut by the Lord Mayor. An usher knocked at the gates and begged tor admission, • Who goes there ? ’ was the challenge from the warder. ‘ The body ot Queen Caroline.’ ‘ Queen Caroline is welcome to pass,’ was the answer. Then the gates were flung open till the hearse had passed through, after which they were closed again. A second time a knock was heard at the gates. ‘ Who goes there ? ’ ‘ His Majesty King George the Fourth.’ Then the warder answered, ‘ His Majesty is not welcome to the citizens of Loudon.’ ‘He can go inside by Westminster Bridge.’ So the procession had to be kept waiting at the doors of the abbey until the Royal carriage arrived by the longer route.” That was a strange story to pick up in the bush fifty miles from the nearest town. I got a lawyer friend, R. S. Florance, Ksq., to investigate the matter for me and he found that the incident had actually occurred. My last bush yarn was picked up on a coach ride through the celebrated Otira Gorge. I was on the box seat beside the driver. At a roadside farm house near the Teremakau River we pulled up. A woman came out with a bag of loaves she was sending on by the coach to a sou working on the Midland Railway. As soon as the coach started again the driver said to me, “ Did you notice that that woman’s hair was white?” “ Yes.” “Well, she is only a young woman yet, but her hair was turned white by a sad affair that happened only three or lour years ago.” “What was that ?” “Well, one evening here, two girls, one about 18 and the other 16, turned out to fetch the cows home. The cows came back, followed by the dogs, but there was no sign of the girls. Next day the bush was searched in all directions, and the river dragged, but nothing has ever been heard ot those poor girls from that day to this. Need you wonder that the woman’s hair went white ?” “ That’s a terrible story,” I said. “Did you ever have an accident yourself?” “ No,” the driver answered, “I have driven this coach sixteen years, but never met with the slightest accident either to myself or my horses.” Three months afterwards that driver was thrown off that-very coach and killed at the foot of Porter’s Pass.

Truly the bush has its memories almost as tragic as those ot the sea. —H.J.L.