OVER THE FALLS AND OUT ON THE OCEAN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 299, 19 December 1871, Page 2

OVER THE FALLS AND OUT ON THE OCEAN.

Br F. R. G. S. [Continued.) However, over the side we bundled, and we and our coffins io tow pulled eff for tbe shore; the SDuflies ceased ou board tiie Lady Hotham, and she bumped and banged herself out of sifilit, making as much or more fuss and noise than our uew ironclad, the Cerberus. "Like captain, like vessel ! " thought I, as we reached the shore, beached our cmoes above highwater mark, and turned to thank our kind friends f<>r helping us " ashore. We were for camping the first night on the sandy beach, hut they wouW not hear of it, ro we left the . canoes and nccompaniei them to the house, where, though it was past midnight, and we were quite unexpected guests (the head of the -family also being absent from home electioneering against him of the buckjumper), a bountiful supper was soon placed on the table, and in 10 minutes we were quite at home. Oh ! the comfort of a house in the hush ! Here were no carpets, marble mantlepieces, mirrors, and jimcracks, bat a floor as clean and bright as the hnndsome face of the eldest daughter, whom I caught scrubbing it 011 my next visit ; a fireplace large enough to roast an ox, burning half a small tree at a time ; and a large roomy apartment, sufficiently large for a goodsized evening party. Hams aud bacon were suspended from the rafters, fowling-pieces of all sizes and descriptions were ranged in :i rack, with powder-flasks, ' shot-bacs, and caps,- all pliced suggestively haudy (we found out the mf-siiing of this"nfext day), and a huge xnassive table was covered with a cloth as white as snow, wiih the best of food temptingly laid thereon. Ami don't they live well in the bush? The improvised supper showed that the larder couid not have been bally stocked on our arrival. Cold roast pork, cold fowls, cold wild ducks, a mutton-ham, the remains of what hud been a splendid saddle of mutton, a salad, some boiled eggs, and some monster radishes. It seemed that, having once a week to attend the steamer to get their mail nnd parcels, it was a rule for all to sit up until her arrival, and then discuss supper and the contents of their letters at the same time. But the beauty of the supper was, that it was all grown upon the place. Tea, sugar, currants, flour, gunpowder, and tobacco was all they had to s> nd to Nelson for, and yet they lived like princes. Did they want change of food, their guns brought them piaeons and kakas (a delicious kind of the parrot tribe), and their boat and lines the beautiful fish for which the whole coast of New Zealand is so justly celebrated. Did they want change of scene, they could ride over the hills to an adjacent township; or did they desire to visit Velson at a time wlien it was inconvenient to wait for the weekly steamer, there was their own large-decked and fast-sailing cutter, mo ired (as- we saw next day) in a lagoon close by, and this very vessel had been built on|'the run They kept no female servant, and the men employed on the run (for it was a large sheep run) slept and messed in a whare some distance off. They kept no ale. wine, or spirits, but the mead, brewed by the lady mother was fit for the gods, and stronger than either of us at first reckoned upon. They were many in family, and a bright, hardy, handsome lot they were, from the bronzed and sinewy eldest son, with the frame of a backwoodsman and the gentlemanly bearing of a young Chesterfield, down to the youngest daughter of ten. still in her scales and exercisebook, for a good piano was amongst the library fisings, and in that library I could have revelled for a month. This is a picture (not an imaginary one, but a true one) of colonial comforf on a large station. The sons worked like their own laborers, the daughters did all the household work, the father (whtn at home) superintended the outdoor work on the run, and the lady-mother the indoor work and her fowls. Ent I must leave the fowls till to-morrow. Though there was no sign of want or poverty, there was also no " appearf-nce'** kept up, and no ostentation. Sons and d iughters had nil beent 0 school (except the youngest who was just about to go to one), and all had the bearing of educated Indies anil gentlemen. For a new churn to walk* suddenly into that house as we did, ho would compare it, most likely, to a rough country farm-house at home, aud having put it down as such, wouldn't trouble his head to look further bthind the scenes. And yet the bead ot that household (at prerept away canvassing for a seat in parliament) was one of the most active and upright of 'Nelson*- magistrates, and possessed, at the time we # sneak of, fully six thousand a year. All things should not be judged by outward appearances. Our lady hostess was full of inquiries about our projected cruise, and anxious to cc. these wonderful boats th»t her sons had endeavored to describe to her. In the meantime, while her daughters retired to make us shake-downs in another room, she, earnestly joined by her sons, urged us to stay sevenil days with them, in such a manner, that it had .been rudeness to refuse; besides, our time was our own, and the weather looked to all appearances, settled Moreover, she had her fowl yards to show us, ilv . girls coidd handle the yacht fully as well as their brothers, and would take us a cruise down tha coast she said, while the boys promised us plenty of p geon shooting and the glories of a pig hunt. Truly the inducements to remain were^trong, sp we succumbed to tha united kindnesses of rur hosts, and willingly agreed for a few days to forego our auri sacra fames. Then, pretty well worn out, toward _ o'clock a.m. we retired to roost (but I must not use , foul language) ready tor the embraces of the ."drowsy god." •* To-ill"' said I, as I drew up the snowy sheet .

(to which we were so soon to be strangers), •'.How do you like your present quarters ? " " Bully ! " was Thomas' laconic answer, and the next minute his heavy .breath ing showed" that he was "off." I was soon "off" after him, and remember nothing, not even the ghost of adream, till the boys barst joyously into the room to tell us they were -waiting breakfast for us. .And. by Jove ! it was eight o'clock, and the bright autumn sun streamed in .t the uncurtained window, ani up we leapt, and the boys took v. down to a beautiful little sheltered creek, wbere a good plunge in the bright frpsh water made rev/ men of v«, and (in spite of the late supper) we actually felt ready for breakfast, nor did the bright cheerful faces around the board deteriorate at all from the sensation. After breakfast was over (and a good one it was), our hostess took us out to inspect her fowl yards, and then it was. we noticed that all the large home paddock was covered at intervals with coops, and broods of chickens, numbering many a hundred ; and now a scene enactedat the breakfast-table was accounted for, on which occasion one of the daughters had snatched up a ready-capped, double barrel that reposed in the rack I have before alluded to, and left the room. Before Tom or I could ask a question, bang ! hang ! followed in quick succession, and the young lady returned, and replaced the still smoking tubes in their place, and quietly resumed her's at tbe table as if nothing had happened. "You fis-ed twice," reproachfully remarked mama. "Yes, ma," was the answer, "but he was 50 yards ofF, and though I missed with the first barrel, the other brought him down dead." "Brought him down dead? Brought who down dead ? " Tom looked at me, and lat Tom, and then we both together looked interrogatively at our hostess, but she soon relieved our fear, and suspicions by remarking, " You see, we have over 12U0 sitting hens, and the hawks tiouble us so, that all my girls have to shoot, and they generally shoot well. It isn't often a second barrel is required. They can load for themselves, and clean their guns too .' " " Twelve hundred hens ! Never require two barrels at 50 yards ! Clean tbeir own guns ! Manage a large cutter ! Good grac'ous," thought 1 I, " what manner of people are these ? Do they ever travel to Nelson io a balloon made on the premises ? Can they sweep chimneys and drive railway engines ? " Tom and I exchanged glances again, and were silent. And here was I, notoriously the worst shot in Nelson, espee'ed to go out and shoot ' pigeons before these dead shots of girls. Not if I knew it. Nor did our astonishment decrease, when, after breakfast, their mother told us, apropos of the prettiest and most delicate-looking of the young ladies (then engaged in the library upon one of Beethoven's soft sonatas), that only a week previously she had s!»ot and killed a wild boar that she met in the bush when wandering in search of wild honey •*lt was a mercy," remarked her mother iv conclusion, " that one of her brothers had left a ballet in one of the barrels, and that htr nerve did not fail her, for, as he ma.de bis rush at her, she hs?.d presence of mind enough to hit him right between the eyes."" "Merciful powers!" thought I, "I wonder what number of Maoris it "would take to storm ibis garrison in broad daylight ! I guess I would not form onp of the attacking party ! " j But we went to see the fowl yards, and observed how everything was reduced to a perfect I system, and how these girls, boys, and their mother managed this seemitiely enormous business without aid. The .yards covered half an acre and more, and the sheds within were constructed of corrugated iron. TheTe were layingsheds, sitting-sheds, roosters' and cockrells' sheds, chicken sheds, and sheds heated with hot-water, flues for wiater time. We stood in a fowl paradise. • While we had been slumbering, all these hundreds had been fed and nttended to, besides the hens in the coops and their broods, and the young ladies hed done the work and changed their dresses before we were called to breakfast. It was wonderful. We asked our hostess how she made this business pay, so far away from a market, and with such a large stock always on hand and increasing? We weri told that the Lady Hotham weekly earned large craves of eggs to Nelson, and generally 50 couples of fowls, but tbat the chief customers and consumers were found to be the Panama steamers aud other coasting steam vessels and sailing cratts, which constantly came in from stress of weather, or to buy cheap poultry, eggs, and butter. Indeed, our hostess did a trade with her children alone that was far from heiug despised, the more especially rs she informed us that all this part of i he business profits fell to ber private pu~se for the use of herself and ber children -, and though she did not say so. I verily believe she paid for her daughter's schooling and clothing with that same egg money. What a wife I She veminded one forcibly of that description of a good wife in the last chapter of the Proverbs of Solomon, although nothiug, as we remember, was remarked about eggs in connection with that lady. But as far as getting up in the night (i. c , before dawn) and superintending her maidens went, the simile held good. She also told us that a carpenter lived at the farm whare, who had put up the fowl sheds, and was employed in doing nothing else but sawing and making these crates to transport the eggs in, and iruit (of which they had abundance) in the season, A large dairy of seventeen cows we visited afterwards, and likewise some splendid Leicester and Southdown wethers in an art j acent paddock, for home con- < sumption. We had noticed in the centre of the

fowl enclosure a huge boiler, surrounded by gigantic pigs' feet scattered about, while pigs' hides of all sizes and thicknesses huug over fences here and there, and on inquiry we were informed fckat the wild pigs destroyed on the run were ''broughtdown here to be boiled down for the fowlf. Various little patches of maize and other corn were scattered about the home farm, so it was evident these fowls were not starved. lam sorry for the sake of f«wl fanciers that I know nothing of the breeds of fowls, but I fancy I remember our hostess saying som.thi-i**: about Spanish and Dorkings, and frequent changes in the breeds. However, they were now u'l anxiety to see our canoes, so down to the bench we went, and great was their astonishment at our hardihood in risking our lives in such frail machines J Nothing would satisfy but that we must show them how they went, under sail and paddle, so for the greater facility of hauling them about (not being required notv for a journey), we unloaded them into the adjacent boatshed (tor security against wild pigs;, and if they had been previously astounded at tbe canoes themselves, how much more was their wonder excited by the seemingly endless lot of miscellaneous goods thar, like conjurors, we kept producing from those apparently inexhaustible little boats. At last they were emptied to their bottom-boards, back-board and cushion, so we shipped our mast arranged the sail with its halyard, sheet, and bamboo gaff and boom, along the deck, fore-and-aft; likewise the paddle, leaving the waterproof hatch-cover, for'ard of the hatch, stretched out with its cleet. ready for immediate turning back round our waists, and having performed a hasty toilette de mer (depriving us of all clothes but our shirts and - trousers, turned up to the knee), we each ran our canoe down the sandy slope, and as the sea was then as smooth as glass, and it being ebb tide where there was no surf, light into it several feet, when by a movement we had both weU practised, that of placing our hands behind us on the combings of the, hatch, on the right and the left side, starbord and port (oily we were not sailors) we sprang easily to our seats, disposed cf our legs, drew over the hatch cover, grasped the paddle, and wore soon 100 yaTds from shore. We then went through various manoeuvres, which, unless the sea had been perfectly still, we could not have attempted, such as standing up in the canoe and paddling, and sitting down again (the hardest part), holding out our paddls by its blade at arm's length, lying down on our backs, with our legs stretched out over the deck, sitting astride on the after part, so as to raise the fore part right ont of the water, &c, and finally, as a little breeze sprang up, hoisting our calico sails, and flying down towards the lagoon at six knots an hour, followed by the plaudits of our kind audience on tbe sand. The two youog men ran aloug the beach alongside of us, until the lagoon opened suddenly out, and lying behind a sandback we saw the topmast anu cro?stree of a cutter, so we steered right in, and were soon alongside of one of the prettiest and fastest sailing crafts in Ntlso" waters. Her pretty nume I -will not mention, for ifc would seem too personal. I will only state that it was taken from Victor Hugo's celebrated novel. •' Les Miserables !" We w«_t all over her and inspected her little tiny cabin, with its two snug lockers, and her w e ll found gear, and trini appearance, and then we had another dip, this time in salt water, after which the brothers said they would like to try the canoes, so we sat on the deck of the cutter, and watched our friends, while they wobbled about from side to side, and seemed trying all the.v could do to upset themselves, while we enjoyed our For remainder of news see fourth page. A

smoke. Finally they both came alongside, and protested ogainßt the boats as crank, unmanageable, unsafe, and no good. We enjoyed, our. laugh, of course; having so often heard the same verdict pronounced upon them by others who could not manage them, and hadn't the experience or practice with them, to learn the art of manoeuvring them (an art ; by the way, which is not learnt in a hurry). As for myself, from long practice, I felt as muck at home in a canoe as in a boat. In any ordinary seaway, if you will only sit perfectly at ease, keep the canoe head. to sea (if out at sea), and be careful-how you go about ; if you have to run, you will find the little vessel as buoyant as a cork ! What does it matter?; You have nothing on you that will hurt; your waterproof hatch-cover is tight round your body and the combings, and elie cannot ship a single teacupful of salt water, uoless by clumsiness you upset her; and even then you are not tied in, for the weight of your body carries the cover away with you, and after you are out the canoe will generally right herself, half full of water, and you can nusb her before you to the shore, swimming. However, thank goodness, no such accident occurred to Thomas or me throughout our whole expedition. Of course, I need not say that had one such happened we should have lost certainly onehalf of our stores, and probably a canoe too, heavily freighted as they were, in which case the chance of reaching a rugged iron-bound coast by swimming, sitting on.a wet rock for a day and a night, with nothing to eat or drink, waiting anxiously for the other canoe to bring you aid, and perpetually haunted the whole time by the encouraging idea tbat your companion also had come to grief, would not have been the liveliest position in the world. Whether our safety lay by picking our weather, by extreme caution in some cases, and by a bold push, when it came to a push, in others, I do not know. I would rather attribute it, with reverence, to the care taken of us by a higher Power than this world possesses. Well, we got into our tiny cockleshells again, and slipped away towards our hospitable entertainer's homestead, from which the distant screech of a discordaut conch-shell now proceeded, warning us that dinner was ready. But now the wind had got up, tbe tide had, turned, and three white lines of surf spanned the half-moon bay in front of. the boat-house, rushing high up the steep-sloping sandbank. Looking to seaward, black ciouds were rolling up, and the crests of the waves were beginning to curl. " Tom," said I, "my boy, we're in for a wetting. Here's our first experiment in surf. It don't seem much as yet, and we must get on the top of a roller and paddle like blazes with if, and it will wash us right up. Then we must jump out waist deep, and - haul up.' before the next one comes to knock us over." "All right, old cock!" replied my companion, "but suppose you go first, I want to see what ' getting drowned ' looks like. I am afraid it was with something distantly resembling an oath at his abominably cool chaff at such a time as this, that I set my teeth, and " went at it " like riding a half-broken three-year-old ait a stiff fence for the first time, when you don't know exactly how he is going to take it. Away I went, the great undulations passing me in their rush towards the shore, but not breaking as yet, and getting on all the steam I could. At last I got to the surf. I could see jfchree or four men , and what looked like two large dogs, standing motionless on the edge of the shore watching me. All I bad to do now was to keep her head straight, and jump out directly her bow grounded. Here comes a roller ! Wish-h 1 Swish-rh 1 comes the seething water all around me up to my waist, and lifts me along. I paddle like blue murder, but alas ! it goes too fast for me, and I see it break on the sand a (ew yards ahead of me. Her nose touches ! I hurl the paddle ashore, and out I jump, but as I gain my feet on the sliding sand, and sieze the canoe by her combings to drag her up, the second roller is upon ue, and down I co upon my face, with such a seething in my ears as was particularly disagreeable, as the breaker rolls over me with a roar. Before the backwater comes, however, strong arms are laid upon both, my collar and the canoe, and we are both hauled out of the reach of the incoming rollers. Had we been alone, with no one to assist us ashore, and with the canoes loaded, Tom and I would never have ventured out from the lagoon, but would have remained quietly there till the breeze was over, and the sea gone down. As it was, the best thing to do was to act as I had done, i.e., to jump out, and try to „ collar the boat directly she touched, and a stronger and more active man than myself would ' doubtles. have succeeded. It was and ia (as I have before explained) my misfortune to be lame of one leg, and this, no doubt, made all the difference. '