Behind, running away to the east, the Rakaia cuts its way, first for fourteen miles over a shingle-bed about a mile wide, and then, for another eight, rushing through a narrow defile amid some of the grandest gorge scenery of the Dominion.
Away to the left the Mt. Hutt Range continues, until it meets the Arrowsmith Range, capped with snow and girdled with glaciers, standing across the valley. To the right is Peak Hill’s lower range, ending in a sharp point, — Mt. Oakden, cut off from the Rolleston Range by the Wilberforce stream, which has been strengthened above by the lesser Harper and Avoca.
All around, the mountain sides are weathered into great shingle slips, marching down to take possession of the plain, debouching here, uniting forces there, now in file, then in column, but always met by the indomitable tussock. The fight goes on, but the tussock is here unbeaten; life tells; “a living dog is better than a dead lion.”
But these shingle slides—which for size and abundance are said to be seen nowhere else in the world, and accounted for by brittle strata and very sudden changes in temperature are an annoyance to the traveller. Travelling is frightfully heavy and slow; and any attempt to ascend their shifting stretches is heart-breaking.
As night be expected, over this vast wilderness sparse settlement only is possible. A few lonely homesteads, each with its shearing sheds and shepherds’ huts, are all that can be found in the way of dwellings. The attendant sheds and huts are often separated from each other, and from the central dwelling, by miles of mountain range and stony river-bed. Each homestead is the centre of a sheep-station, which often includes many mountain chains. Life in the central dwelling is as a rule rigorous and lonely enough for the most austere hermit. News from the outer world filters in uncertainly, and usually with intervals of many weeks. For the lonely musterer, or shepherd, in his detached hut, the life is even worse. Little wonder that now and again one becomes mad or misanthropic.
