CHAPTER III.
THE BERLINE.
When Clancy took the drover’s track
In years of long ago,
He drifted to the Outer-back
Beyond the Overflow;
By rolling plain and rocky shelf,
With stock-whip in his hand,
He reached at last, Oh lucky elf,
The town of Come-and-help-yourself
In Rough-and-Ready Land.
Next day the hotel handy-man came to tell us there was a buggy we might hire, with collars and traces, for the magnificent sum of five shillings, for as long a period as we liked. We went to look at it forthwith.
Indeed it was a curiosity, quite the earliest type of buggy, and made me think somehow of Alice’s rocking-horse fly, with its small body hung between immense spidery wheels. The paint had long ago become a uniform brownish-red, and bolts and screws were very frail; but it would hold our stores, and the handy-man assured us of its strength and endurance, so we struck the bargain, and promptly christened it the “Berline”—not that our exploring expedition at all resembled the flight from Paris, or this very ancient buggy the brand-new Korff-Berline!
Next thing to be done was to pack on the stores, at which five men, a boy, and several children assisted. A bag of horse-feed was roped on behind, the saddles on top, and the packages stowed below the seat; and bags and sticks and other goods tucked in somehow, and we mounted on top of all.
By this time most of the inhabitants had come into the hotel yard to see the start. I took the reins, the horses strained at their collars, the Berline groaned, the children whooped, the crowd cheered, and we were off! Once down to the level of the lake, the horses dashed off right merrily: up and down, in and out of ruts and streams, till we gained some higher ground where the road followed the curves of the many bays—each one, it seemed to us, more lovely than the last.
Sometimes a rough pasture sloped to the white beach, its surface starred with white gentians and pink centaurea; sometimes the rocks jutted into the blue water in miniature capes and islets, and beautiful clumps of the giant flax, Phormium tenax, or the tall, pampas-like toe-toe grass[1] with its drooping plumes, lined the shore. A little farther a group of manuka[2] scented all the air with its long sprays of white flowers, growing beside tree-veronicas in full bloom. We passed little homesteads nestling among familiar English poplars and fir trees—beloved of the settlers for their rapid growth—with gay gardens full of the old familiar flowers, asters and sweet peas and stocks. And beyond these we drove along a cutting in the face of a cliff, where we looked over into twenty _%C2%B7_Moreland_%C2%B7_237.jpg)
Then the scene changed, and we were driving between rugged hills covered for the most part with greenery; away from the lake and across a little flat to where stark, black mountains, patched with snow and seamed with waterfalls, reared up. These were the outliers of a range that runs up the Matukituki valley, but does not join the Mount Aspiring group, whither we were bent.
To our right a plain was gradually unfolding, with hay crops and standing corn just beginning to ripen, and some miles off the homestead of Russell’s Flat lay half-hidden in its willow and poplar trees. Beyond all this the wide river-bed stretched between enclosing hills for seventeen miles, and the farther view ended in the outer walls and bastions of Mount Aspiring, its snows and glaciers interrupted by patches of black crags and precipices, which, even at this distance, looked awful.
It is not a single lonely peak, but a group of mountains cut into on the east and west by the deep gorges of the two Matukituki rivers. This was our first near view (though still twenty miles off) we had had of our mountain, and somewhere up there lay the wondrous Ice-caves and the Silver Cone we sought.
We lunched with Mrs. Ross, who feasted us most royally and supplied one or two wants in our equipment—we had forgotten to buy a bucket, and she gave us the inevitable kerosene tin with a wire handle, a bottle of milk, and a jar of cream—and we set forth, but not before Mr. Ross had given us his parting instruction: “You won’t find much of a road—it’s mostly washed away, and the bridges over the creeks are not always to be depended on; ten miles up you come to the Niger Hut: take my advice and sleep there. This heat will melt the snows and bring down a flood, and the river goes down at night. The ford is a mile or two further on than the hut, and you must make your camp at the Old Homestead—a couple of miles along the far side of the river.”
I think in all that summer of perfect weather, no day stands out in my memory more fair than the day we drove up the Matukituki valley. Sunshine blazed over everything, larks sang as even at home they hardly know how to sing; soft breezes rippled the blue reaches of water that stretched among the sand and stones of the wide river-bed; and, as we went, our spirits overflowed in bursts of laughter and jokes about our ramshackle old chariot.
We started gaily down a grassy track—no longer a made road, for nobody lives beyond the flat except one old Highlander and his family. The saw-mills that once made a busy little settlement were ruined by disastrous forest fires, and the only other settler was drowned. The way became very rough, and the Berline groaned and creaked as we bumped, now over a dry watercourse, then across a swamp, where it threatened either to part with its wheels or to remain, but a violent jerk from the horses freed it. Presently high grass completely hid the track, and we could only guess at it, and carefully avoid a series of exquisitely blue, but treacherous little peat tarns, where the paradise ducks and pukaki, or “swamp hens,” were busy.
The mountains on each side of us rose 2,000 to 3,000 feet, sloping steeply to the river, and patched with dark bush and the brilliant green of young bracken, and the valley itself varied from one to three miles in width. Plenty of long grass grew by the river margins, where fine cattle were feeding. We wondered why so fair and fertile a land was utterly uninhabited. In all our wanderings I never enjoyed a drive so much. The air was so exhilarating, the sunshine so glorious, and the goal in front so alluring; everything thus far had gone well, too, and no thought of failure or disaster crossed our minds.
And so the long sunny day wore on, and the lights and shades on the snows ahead changed, and crept higher and higher as the sun moved westward, and at five o’clock we saw the Niger Hut perched on a slope of grassy hillside, the track winding down to it through a cutting. Transome inspected it, and then invited me to ook in. One look was enough, and in that I had a vision more of a cowshed than a habitation for tired travellers! The chimney had fallen, daylight streamed across the dirty floor from a gaping hole—even the window-frame of the inner room had been broken up for fuel, and the glass in the other had fallen out.
I came back and urged we should cross the ford to the Old Homestead, and not unpack in such a place. Very reluctantly Transome consented, and we bumped down over rough stones and shingle, among rabbit-holes and flax stumps, to the river. We searched carefully till we found some old wheel ruts, and following them, crossed without difficulty a stretch of gravel and two shallow arms of the river, and then we came to the main stream. Crossing these smiling, shallow waters and yellow-grey ribbed sand had presented no difficulties at all! Could anything be easier?
The sun was fast drawing down behind a great barrier of purple rock; the glacier, hanging to its crest somewhat in the shadow, looked coldly remote and pure; the wide river-bed and sheltering hills were bathed in a flood of golden light; the heavy bush, clothing those more distant with a dark mantle, concealed their precipitous slopes and deep ravines. The spell of absolute stillness lay over all. Not a sound but a little murmur of the river over its shingly reaches. Around us was a wilderness of stones and bleached tree-trunks, carried down in flood-time, and here and there an oasis where some scrub and grass made shift to grow. In front of us was the pale blue hurrying tide, milky from the melted snows, swirling silently past, “too full for sound or foam.”
“Better give it up, and cross in the morning,” says Transome, and I answer: “I don’t want to sleep in that hut, and I’m sure it’s not half so dangerous as a West Coast river”—and, with a little more urging, Transome agreed to try the depth by riding one of the horses over. He found the track on the far side, which assured us we were at the crossing-place, for the ford was so wide it was impossible to see any track from where I was. The water was up to the horse’s chest, and measuring this against the floor of the Berline, we foresaw our precious stores would be wet, and we decided to make the passage in two journeys, carrying them over on the seat. So the bulkiest sack and one of the saddles were removed, and Transome drove the horses into the flood, I watching from the shore.
They had not gone far into deep water when I saw something was wrong: the Scorpion was standing away from the pole, and trying to turn round. What happened next was so rapid I could scarcely follow it; for a moment the Berline whirled one wheel wildly in the air, and threatened to over-turn, but swung round instead, and then everything was in confusion! Three traces were floating loose, washed from their fastenings by the current. The Scorpion somehow had come to the same side as Tom, and was sheltering herself against him; and they were facing my side of the stream, and only attached by the one trace and the pole-straps! Fortunately, they were standing quite quietly. By a dexterous twist of her head the Scorpion now freed herself from her collar, so that, except for the reins tangled up with the rest of the harness, she was free. What was one poor man unaided to do in such extremities? He did the only thing possible—climbed out on the submerged pole and got astride the Scorpion, and began to worry at that tangle of harness—the water surging all the time against the wreck, and threatening to sweep it all away. At last he fished up the collar, and patiently worked at the wet buckles till both horses were freed; though for some time it seemed as if the tangle never could come undone without being cut, and one trace got washed away in the process. He rode ashore, bearing the collar and remains of the traces—a sorry sight—and left the shipwrecked Berline lying mid-stream, but now settled-down comfortably, and no longer waving a distressed wheel as at the first.
I was crushed—it was all my fault, and the most precious of our stuff was lying out there at the mercy of the capricious Matukituki!
To save what we could was the next consideration, and this was no easy matter in that wild swirl of waters. The remaining saddle was put on the Scorpion, and she was with some difficulty _(14596475229).jpg)
The next journey he brought the groceries in safety, but the saddle-bags, alas! fell in and were rescued with difficulty, and my supply of stamps and stationery suffered. I urged him to leave the rest—the river would fall at least two feet in the night, and no doubt was at its highest now. He was tired and we were both discouraged, but he persisted in another journey, though the mare was shivering from the snow-water. This time he tried to rescue two paper parcels, one containing a large cake and the other a roll of bacon, and they both fell in. Grabbing at the most precious (the bacon, as he thought) he clutched the cake, and the bacon went sailing back to Wanaka! Much as I felt the loss, just then my desire was to get somewhere—even to the hut—for the night.
It was not yet dark, but the light was growing less every minute, and the rest of our stuff must be left to its fate. We put what we could upon the horses, and, with our hands full of the smaller packages, we started back, fording the two smaller branches, and stopping constantly to pick up the things that jolted off. It was a forlorn-looking pair that dragged themselves and their horses through the long grass, over two creeks, and up to the dilapidated old hut—and with but scant hopes of any comfort to be found therein.