Traveller. Three Weeks in Southland, N.Z. By Frank Morley. (Continued.)

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1985, 28 March 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Traveller. Three Weeks in Southland, N.Z. By Frank Morley. (Continued.)

I met my friend the commercial here, and, foute de mieuv, we drank whisky and smoked until it waa time to go to bed. In the morning I thought of climbing the mountain at the back of the hotel, but when I mentioned my intention to one of the natives, stating at the same time that I was going to Kingston by the Mountaineer, he smoled a smile so full of meaning that I instantly saw the error of my ways and gave up the idea. However, I waa not to be altogether balked in my resolution, bo I walked to thu foot of the mountain, which wai at lea3t three hundred yards from the door of the Queen's Arms, and managed to get back in time to pay my bill and reach the deck of the Mountaineer before she cast oil from the wharf. On board the Mountaineer, bound for Kingston, I found an acquaintance from whom I imbibed a good deal of information about the various runs which we passed on our way to Kingston ; and if I refrain from becoming a run-holder about Wakatip it is not from want of being impressed with the many advantages of such a venture. The following are samples of tho many good things going a begging in this romantic, if somewhat inaccessible country :—: — "Birch Grove," 27,000 acres of Crown lands, together with 2.5,000 acres of abandoned country. Improvements cost £1,500 ; will carry 8,000 sheep for six months of summer. lienc, SL"> per annum. The house, woolshed, and improvements, can be purchased for a very reasonable price, possibly £150. The rent of Birch Grove in 1881 was CBO per annum ; in 188' i it was reduced to 1X0; in '84 the rent was fixed at ilo ; and if that does not induce some adventurous squatter to take it up and keep the rabbits down, well, then, I suppose the Government will have to kill their own rabbits. Run No. G, adjoining the abovo; 20,000 acres, no improvements ; rent, £10 per annum. Run No. 438 : 36,000 acres of good bummer country ; no fences ; rent, £o per anuum. All these runs were good propertun before the advent of the rabbits. The sheep used to come off the mountains rolling fat, and disease was unknown among them But the rabbits have changed all that. The grass is not what it was. What the rabbits did not eat out has been, to a great extent, destroyed by injudicious burning. The grass w»s

burned at the wrong time of the year in order to destroy the cover under which bunny obtained shelter ; and wherever it was so burned it was killed. In the winter the grass in New Zealand burns freely. But if it is burned in the winter it is utterly destroyed. The frost gets at the roots and there is an end of it. Then, again, a good many of the native grasses appear to have a habit of growing from the root rather than from the seed. No doubt some of the grasses seed freely also ; and the denuded areas are being gradually grassed over again. But this is a slow process ; and, in the meantime, the bare soil, exoosed on the top of the mountains to the winds, is blown away. No doubt this sounds very bad. But the idea of blowing away the soil from the mountains around Lake Wakatip is somewhat imaginary. 'Tis not my idea, however, I am simply the chronicler. lam the Boswell who jots down for the information of my readers the words of wisdom which fall from the lips of all the Johnson's who happen to be my fellowtravellers. But in my humble opinion, it will take some time to blow these mountains away. And even what soil is blown from the top only rests a little lower down. The secret of these runs being at a discount is no doubt the rabbit. The phosphorous keeps them in check, but that is all. Every year the fight has to be renewed, and there is no finality. In Victoria we dig them up wherever practicable, and in certain parts of New Zealand digging is also adopted as the best cure for the pest, but among these wild and lofty mountains digging is simply an impossibility. The fee simple of one hundred square miles would not pay for the labor of digging the rabbits out of one holding. Yet it is wonderful how the rabbits are reduced in numbers. A few years more and, by keeping up fi constant warfare against them, it is just possible that these runs may become practically, if not absolutely, free of the pest. Let us hope so. Above all let us hope that there will be no relaxation of the action against the common enemy. Such relaxation would be simply suicidal ; and two years of laissez faire would see the rabbits once moro all over the Middle Island as " Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks In Valhambrosa." But here we are at Kingston. In an hour or so the train leaves for Invercargill, and at 8.30 p.m., or thereabouts, my friend, the commercial, and I are served with whisky hot by the fair Hebe who presides at the bar of the Albion, and who looks so killing in a new sealskin or other gorgeous jacket that my susceptible friend cannot find the road to his mouth, and incontinently pours his liquor on his immaculate shirt-front. But I must now say adieu to New Zealand, and all the pleasant memories and much drinking therein contained. I have had a good time and have met very many pleasant fellows and many charming women. That New Zealand is under a cloud just now there is no doubt ; but the cloud has a silver lining, and the sun of prosperity will soon shine upon a country so favored by nature. New Zealand has a great future before her ; and if she is now somewhat depressed it is probably because she has somewhat rashly mortgaged her present in testimony of her faith in the " sweet bye and bye." But the prosperous future is perhaps not so far off as some people affect to think. The reouperative powers of a country like New Zealand are simply incalculable. If times are bad, let the people who suffer remember that " sweet are the uses of adversity ; which, like a toad, ugly and venemous, wears a precious jewel in his crown." A few years of public and private economy, and the accumulation of capital from saving", would put fresh life into the dry bon' of en terprise ; and New Zealand would cn^e tno.e go ahead by leaps and bounds,— Unti' ovt. speculation brought on another crisis But it is not my place to preach or moralise ; or to imagine vain things for a whole people ; I am-» simple reeonteur. I hope that even if I have extenuated anything I have at least not set down anything in malice. When I step on board the Manapouri, now lying nt the wharf where, three weeks before, I landed from the Arawata, my thoughts tend towards Victoria, and I would that I had the wings of a dove to fly away to dear old Melbourne. Not that I love New Zealand less, but I love Victoria more. And when the Manapouri, after a four days passage, is tugged up the dear, dirty old Yarra, in a dense fog, amid a crowd of dredges and other small craft, against which we are in danger of collision, and at whom the pilot swears in the choicest Italian, I feel as if I could embrace the whole city and forgive even the stinks of the overflowing. What I have written has been the impressions of a flying visit. It was a trip for pleasure, combined with some not very hard work, and a good deal of whisky. The last was the most severe trial of all. The whiaky was good and the spirit was willing ; but the flesh, alas ! was weak, and I gained eight pounds of fat in three weeks, a redundancy which I have now to get rid of by fasting and tribulation. Adieu 1 dear Lady of the Lake ; if I never see thee more I will at least bear thy sweet vision in memory as I saw thee last, waiting under the shadow of the Glacier Hotel for the sun to shine once more upon the snows of Wakatip. Farewell ! ye merry blades and ohoice drinkers of the Albion who helped to kill the tedious hours which, but for you, might have hung so heavily upon a stranger in a strange land. Adieu I fair Marie, the maid of the inn ; if I were proof against thy charms it is that beauty is so common in Invercargill that— but, enough of this ; dear reader, adieu 1 The End.