Sketcher.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 4, 22 April 1893, Page 11

Sketcher.

EARLY DAYS AT THE BLUER. (Specially written for the Southern Cross.) Well, how time does fly! I can scarcely realise that thirty years have passed away since, with my worldly possessions in the shape of a tool chest, I landed at the Bluff. One of the first things to attract the attention of the new chum in those days was Cobh and Co.’s coach, which, thanks to the roads, or rather want of them, was a mud - bespattered vehicle. Another noteworthy object was the Eagle Hotel—not the comfortable hostelry of to-day. Oh, dear, no ! The ridge-pole of the building consisted of a mast raised at one end, and over this was suspended a sail, which was held down on either side with boulders. The bar consisted of two planks resting on casks, and a few bunks, made up from empty cases filled the space behind the bar. There I took up my abode. One raw, wintry morning in June I |was roused before daylight, and found a carpenter busily engaged in knocking off the front boards of my bunk. He explained that he wanted them to make a coffin for a woman who had died on board a barque that bad arrived in port the day before. I felt inclined to resist the intrusion, but turned out with the best grace I could muster, reflecting as I did so that it was just my luck, and that if I had been anyone else the lady might have departed this life earlier on the the undertaker, who now'leads a retired life in Southland, to assist at the burial. Two new chums, a blacksmith |and a carpenter, had already been despatched up the hill to dig a grave, and at half-past ten the funeral ? recession started from the beach, 'he coffin was borne on two pick bandies, four men being impressed into the service. I shall never forget one of these. He was a man with an insatiable appetite, and on the way to the cemetery his disengaged hand was nsed to convey pieces of boiled groper to his mouth. After a most toilsome tramp over boulders and through scrub we reached the end of our journey, but not, as it proved, of our troubles. The new chum gravediggers would not allow us to use the grave! We noticed that it was about six feet deep and four feet square, and it then appeared that shortly after setting out the men were told by a prospector from the Lakes district that whenever yellow sand and gravel came in sight there was gold in it. Soon after starting to dig the grave they came, as they thought, upon “the wash,” and, forgetting what they had been sent to do, they dug straight down, and then scrambled to an adjacent creek with shovelsful of the precious wash. Encouraged by the appearance of flakes of mica in the sand, they got most of the dirt down to the creek, and when we arrived they bad just bottomed on arock. For a time they refused to listen to us, but on learning the truth they were exceedingly crestfallen. It was not till late in the afternoon that a start was made with the burial service, which was delivered by a divine of the old school, and occupied about an hour. Owing to the size and shape of the grave the body had to be placed almost upright in it, the body lying at an angle of about.9o degrees. After a great deal of trouble we got enough fresh soil and boulders to cover the coffin, and when I left the scene as the shades of night were falling the minister was remonstrating with one of the company on account of a grim witticism w'hich he had perpetrated in inference to the circumstances of the rude burial. At a late hour I managed to get back to my quarters at the Eagle, but not quite unscathed, i I had a sprained ankle as a memento j of the old times at the Bluff.