THE LATE FLOODS AND THEIR EFFECTS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 809, 15 November 1878, Page 2

THE LATE FLOODS AND THEIR EFFECTS.

<£ .:': I .>ii::-ii:i:ti--.l t,, tht- M.\'i. l.y ('i:.i',v r.ix.v, author of •■N.i Cei-.n'ry," '-.isi.-k li:-.iii)is'.c-r - .-i Kamliles." •••niM.-.iiiyTiMiVor.i.-ae..^-.-.) Mwiafoto Plains, Oct. 10. _l>!:'>i: Bon, —Kvcry man has Ins mission. Mine is to waad.?r about, and write you inters :_hr.t I rather think the m.autb- of'the Wandering .lew has fallen nnou my slumldors, ■iiid that I shall have to finish his contract. Some day I .vTj.-iII get to the verge of creation. :ind tumble ovi r into space, and then yo;i will get no moiv letters iVoin " yours truly.' 7 However, in the meantime. I -will toll you how T got hero fvor.i Civil*-. Yon know already how I got there. ' But fist, touching this same Clyde, you, Boh, have novo 1 seen an old gol.lneH-, township. I have many, ami am always oppressed with the same melancholy feeling.-:, at the sight. Yon might i're a cannon ball down the main street of Clyde, at any hour of the day without injury to anyone. I recollect the time when there was plenty of gold coming into the township daily : and even now the inhabitants are not short of tin, but it is all invested in houses. I mean that it is a galvanised iron township, without any business worth mentioning.:-, but .still with enough licensed publicdiorw-i i:i it for ten times the population. I take, it that it is a bad sign when a publican, upon the chance of a couple of sixpenny drinks, will button-hole a fellow and tell him a long story of what he did on Ballarat in !So2 : it does not look as if his arms were nearly torn from their sockets drawing beer for " thirsty " eustom?rs. If the Molyneux had risen high enough to wash Clyde away altogether it would not matter much, if the pro!>e.rty-Qwnei\s cordd be paid for their loss. Tl.c place is not wanted now that tho gold is worked out. There is nothing to sunport it ; noagrieuitt.. 'Mii — nothing but a" bare flat, backed by mountains only fit for shoe]) gracing. But Clyde is safe, so far as being w.-ished away is concerned, for the river could not rise high enough to do it, for this reason. The principal volume of •water pomes out of Lake Wakatipu, and if the Jake rose above a certain height—-very lictle higher th.au this last flood would suffice—it would cut a channel for itself through the low down.es at Kingston—the foot of the lake—and seek the Pacific Ocean by way of the Mataura. This would relieve the Kawarau —its only outlet now—though it would not be pleasant to the people in Southland ; but in such vn event there would be no South-land, it would be all south-water. But to continue. I left Clyde on Sat-nwtay while the river was still 25ft. above its ordinary level, and proceeded across tho flat in the direction of the Marniherikia. On this same barren flat a French gentleman of the name of Feraud has insisted upon having a garden. He has planted nearly every kind of fruit tree, and he makes a large quantity of wine every year. He calls the place ilonte Christo, and the place is about as much like one of tho places Dumas' hero lived in as the wine is like—but there I will not say anything about the wine ; I admire the maker too much. The man who could have the cool dai'ing sufficient to start a garden in such » spot had lie lived, at an earlier period would have been fit to lead the Old Cuard of the first Napoleon. I forgive him for producing the wiue, but I reserve my forgiveness in the case of his bitters. I onee drank some. The makersname is a Feraud, and the bitter.? ? i ' e the same. I arrived at the ""\ssnviherikia, and made the pleasing discover* that, like the lotus tree in Mahomet's .seventh heaven, beyond it there was no passing, so I sat down and looked at it. Alter a time I walked up to a small shanty where the owner sells whisky. Not that he is

quite authorised to do so, but he does it 1 cause he chooses ; and as I wanted some, subdued my qualms and partook. He and got quite friendly, and he told me a stor 'l'llis is the substance of it. Nearly twent years ago, a man named Duncan Robiuso was sent up to the Galloway with the firs lot of sheep. He remained for years upo: the station, but as he was a married mai with a family he naturally thought h should like a home of ln3 own, so 1. took up some land about four mile from where the Manuherikia joins thf Molyneux, and at what he thought a sah distance from the river, he commenced t< form his home. With industry and perse verance he, in the course of years, becalm possessed of a neat hotel, a nice little farm magnificent orchard, &c. In fact, he was : prosperous man. A fortnight ago the watei rose, drove him, with his family to the hills and carried off his hotel and stables. Pari of the hotel is sticking in the mud opposite the township of Alexandra, four miles irom where it was built. In one night he lost the work of twenty years. I could see the tops of the apple trees in blossom just above the silt left by the river. There are hundreds of case like this : but in many instances it serve people right. They have built houses whe>they know—or could know if they chose—that the river lias Rowed at some tinuFifteen years ago I washed a fair prospect o I gold out of some left by a flood in tb branches of a matagauri bush, thirty fee above where the .Moiynt'iix was then flowing There are thousands of indications of wher die water has been, and where it has beei once it may come again : peihaps not for . hundred years, but it might come nex | spring. The mountains in the Lake dis triets arc so saturated with water, and tin] ground so loosened, that it only requires : heavy fall of snow next winter, a quicLj melting in the spring, and land slips o: millions of tons won hi occur. There is out good that may possibly arise out of all thi: evils of this Hood—fresh deposits of gold on the banks of the rivers, but that will not be ascertained till next winter. I must closethis now as the mail bag is ready : howevei I will write again ; ei'nre I leave here. 'Sours, truly. Chaw Linn.