ideals could not surpass. If he has a gun, "the conies among the rocks," the rabbits, will give him sport; but the true lover of Nature in her wildest mood would forget such sport amidst such a scene, wild and desolate in the extreme.
How turbulent must have been the forces which were in operation ages ago to produce such a scene as that on which we now look with calm complacence, and allow fancy to play in tracing verisimilitudes, as we compare these massive overhanging rocks in the words of Burns to "Ruins pendant in the air," or recall the lines in which Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, described a scene tame in comparison to what is now spread before us:—
"What bard could sing the onward sight?
The piles that frowned, the gulfs that yawned beneath,
Downward a thousand fathoms from the height,
Grim as the caverns in the land of death;
Like mountains shattered in the Eternal's wrath
When fiends their banners 'gainst His reign unfurled,
A grizzly wilderness, a land of scaith,
Rocks upon rocks in dire confusion hurled,
A rent and formless mass, the rubbish of a world."
The reach of the Taieri from the Deep Stream to Outram is far and away the bleakest and most desolate of any river stretch we know of on the eastern seaboard of the Province. It will never be fit for anything but the habitation of wild pigs and rabbits.
The Taieri River is the most tortuous and sluggish of streams. From its source to its mouth it wends a weary way over 150 miles, although the crow starting from its source and landing at its confluence with the sea, would not traverse much more than forty miles, provided it took its proverbial straight course.
It is perhaps unnecessary to state that on this journey it is absolutely necessary to dispense with wheels. To traverse this enchanting country perhaps even a horse might be found superfluous, and the individual be confined to his own powers of locomotion. However, we come safely out on the Strath Taieri Road, and in less than an hour we reach Outram, where we rest and are thankful.
