II. OLD NEW ZEALAND--Continued
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II
OLD NEW ZEALAND--Continued
NO wandering reminiscence of these distant days would be complete without a brief mention of the famous snowstorm of 1867, at which I assisted.
I must say a prefatory word or two about the climate--so far as my three years' experience went--in order to explain the full force of the disaster that fall of snow wrought. The winters were short and delicious, except for an occasional week of wet weather, which, however, was always regarded by the sheep-farmer as excellent for filling up the creeks, making the grass grow, and being everything that was natural and desirable. When it did not rain, the winter weather was simply enchanting, although one had to be prepared for its sudden caprices, for weather is weather even at the antipodes, and consequently unreliable. Sometimes we started on an ideally exquisite morning for a long ride on some station business. The air would be still and delicious, fresh and exhilarating to a degree hardly to be understood; the sun brilliant and just sufficiently warming.
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All would go well for four or five hours, until, perhaps, we had crossed a low saddle in the mountains and were coming home by the gorge of a river. In ten minutes everything might have changed. A sou'-wester would have sprung up as though let out of a bag, heavy drops of rain would be succeeded by a snow-flurry, in which it was not always easy to find one's way home across swamps and over creeks, and the riders who set forth so gaily at ten of the clock that same morning would return in the fast-gathering darkness wet to the skin, or rather frozen to the bone. I have often found it difficult to get out of my habit, so stiff with frozen snow was its bodice.
No one ever dreamed of catching cold, however, from the meteorological changes and chances, an immunity which no doubt we owed to the fact that we led, whether we liked it or not, an open-air life. The little weather-boarded house, with its canvas-papered lining, did not offer much protection from a hard frost, and I have often found a heap of feathery snow on a chair near my closed bedroom window; the snow having drifted in through the ill-fitting frame.
Still these snow-showers, and even hard frosts (which usually melted by midday), did no harm to man or beast, and found us totally unprepared for the fall in August 1867. Of course there were no meteorological records kept in those days, for
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they had not long been started even in England, and we had nothing to go by except the Maori traditions, which held no record of anything the least like that snowstorm. Indeed, I had seldom seen snow lie on the ground for more than an hour after the sun rose, and it never was thought of as a danger in our comparatively low hills.
I well remember that Monday morning and the strange restlessness which seemed to extend to the sheep, for they must have felt the coming trouble long before we thought of calamity. The weather during the last week of July had been quite beautiful, our regular winter weather, and we had taken advantage of it to send the dray down to Christchurch for supplies. My store-room was all but empty, and the tea-chest, flour and sugar bags, held hardly half-a-week's consumption, so the drayman was charged not to linger, but to turn round and come back directly he got his load. When speaking of supplies it must be borne in mind that tinned provisions were almost unknown in those days, and certainly never found their way to a New Zealand sheep station. F. had also taken advantage of the beautiful open weather to ride down to Christchurch about wool matters, so I expected to be quite alone with a youth who was learning sheep-farming under F.'s auspices, and my two servants.
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But F. had hardly started before a cousin rode up the track and, hearing I was feeling somewhat depressed and lonely, very kindly volunteered to stay, and before the afternoon was over a neighbouring young squatter also appeared, and asked (as was quite a common thing in that hotel-less district) for shelter for the night. Nothing could have been more unexpected--except that one's station guests always were unexpected--than these two visitors, but it proved a fortunate chance for me that they appeared just then.
The weather was certainly curious, and we all noticed that the sound of the sheep's bleat never ceased. Now the odd thing at a sheep station used to be that you hardly ever saw a sheep, and still more seldom heard one, except perhaps in the early morning, when they were coming down from their high camping-grounds. And sheep always "travel" head to wind, but the sheep that afternoon kept moving in exactly the contrary direction. Still I was not in the least uneasy about the weather, except as it might affect the comfort of F.'s seventy-five mile ride to town, and I knew he would be under comfortable shelter at a friend's half-way house that night. So we gaily and lavishly partook of our supper-dinner, had an absurd game of whist, and went to bed as usual.
It was no surprise to see snow falling steadily
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next morning, but it was disagreeable to find there was very little mutton in the house, and that it was quite likely the shepherd would wait for the weather to clear before starting across the hills and swamps between us and the little homestead where the woolshed stood, and from whence the business of the station was carried on.
The three gentlemen lounged about all day and smoked a good deal. They told me afterwards how bitterly they regretted not having made some preparation in the way of at least bringing in fuel, or putting extra food for the fowls, &c. But each said to the other every five minutes, "Oh, you know snow in New Zealand never lasts," though their experience was only a very few years old. It was short commons that second day, and I thought sadly that the dray would have only reached Christchurch that evening! We all felt depressed, and, as no one had any use for depression up that valley, the sensation was quite new to us.
It was not until we met on the third morning, however, that we at all acknowledged our fears. By this time the snow was at least four feet deep in the shallowest places, and still continued to fall steadily. It was impossible to see even where the fowl-house and pig-sties stood, on the weather side of the house. All the great logs of wood lying about waiting to be cut up were hidden, so
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was the little shed full of coal. A smooth high slope, like a hillock, stretched from the outer kitchen door, which could not be opened that morning, out into the floating whiteness. All our windows were nearly blocked up and became quite so by the evening, and no door except one, which opened inwards, could be used. And we had literally no food in the house. The tea at breakfast was merely coloured hot water, and we each had a couple of picnic biscuits. For dinner there was a little rice and salt. Imagine six people to be fed every day, and an empty larder and storeroom!
The day after that my maids declined to get up, declaring they preferred to "die warm"; so I took them in a sardine each, a few ratafia biscuits, and a spoonful of apricot jam. Those were our own rations for that day. We had by that time broken up every box for fuel, and only lighted a fire in the kitchen, where also a solitary candle burned.
"Be very careful of the dips," said one of my guests, "for I've read of people eating them."
"I hear the cat mewing under the house," said another; "we'll try to get hold of her."
"I wonder if those are the cows?" asked a third, pointing to three formless heaps high above the stockyard rails, but within them.
By Friday morning the maids, still in bed, were
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asking tearfully, "And oh! when do you think we'll be found, mum?" Whereas my anxiety was to find something to feed them with! We shook out a heap of discarded flour-bags and got, to our joy, quite a plateful of flour, and a careful smoothing out of the lead lining of old tea-chests yielded a few leaves, so we had girdle-cakes and tea that day. I was very unhappy about the dogs: the horses were out on the run as usual, so it was no use thinking of them.
On Saturday there was literally nothing at all in the house (which was quite dark, remember), and my three starving men roped themselves together and struggled out, tunnelling through the snow, in the direction where they thought the fowl-house must lie. After a couple of hours' hard work they hit upon its roof, tore off some of the wooden shingles, and captured a few bundles of feathers, which were what my poor dear hens were reduced to. However, there was a joyful struggle back, and after some hasty preparation the fowls were put into a saucepan with a lump of snow, for there was no water to be got anywhere, and a sort of stew resulted, of which we thankfully partook. This heartened up the gentlemen to make another sally to the stockyard in search of the cows. The clever creatures had kept moving round and round as the snow fell, so as to make a sort of wider tomb for themselves, and they were alive,
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though mere bundles of skin and bone. They were dragged by ropes to the stable and there fed with oaten hay. It was no question of milking the poor things, for they were quite dry.
Next day the dogs were dug out, but only one young and strong one survived. Two more were alive, but died soon after.
On Sunday it had ceased snowing and the wind showed signs of changing. I struggled a yard or two out of the house, as it was such a blessing to get into daylight again. My view was of course much circumscribed, as I could only see up and down the "flat," as the valley was called. But it all looked quite different; not a fence or familiar landmark to be seen on any side. If I could have been wafted to the top of the mountain from which we saw the sun rise the summer before, what a white world should I have beheld! And if I could have soared still higher and looked over the whole of the vast Canterbury Plains, I should have been gazing at the smooth winding-sheet of half a million of sheep, for that was found, later, to be the loss in that Province alone.
Yet, as we afterwards came to know, it was not really the fall of snow, tremendous as it had been, which cost the Province nearly all its stock. As I have said, the wind changed to the north-west --the warm quarter--on Sunday night, and it rained heavily as well as blowing half a gale. On
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Monday morning the snow was off the roof and it was possible to clear some of the windows. An early excursion was also made to the styes and a very thin pig was killed, and, as a bag of Indian meal for fattening poultry had also been found in the stable loft, a sort of cake could be made. So we were no longer starving, and the maids got up!
Twenty-four hours of this warm rain and wind was what did all the mischief to the poor sheep. By Monday night every creek within sight had overflowed its banks, and was running--a dirty yellow stream--over the fast-melting snowfields. The rapid thaw and the flooded creeks made locomotion more difficult than ever, but the three gentlemen set to work at once to try to release the imprisoned sheep. There was but one dog to work with, and he was so weak he could hardly move, but the poor sheep were still weaker. Contrary to their custom they had mostly sought refuge beneath the projecting banks of the creeks, and would have been safe enough there had not the sudden thaw let the water in on them before they could struggle up, so they were nearly all drowned. It was most pathetic to discover how in some places the mothers had tried to save the lambs by standing over them in a leaning attitude so as to make a shelter. The lambing season had just begun, and on our own run, which was but
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a small one, we lost three thousand lambs. Several were brought in to me to try to save, but I had no cow's milk to give them, and warm meal and water did not prove enough to keep the poor little starving creatures alive. It was heart-breaking work, and when F. returned it was to find the fences tapestried with the skins of a thousand sheep.
As soon as we could move about on horseback we rode all over the run and found that the sheep had evidently fared better when they had kept on higher ground. It was curious to see the tops of the little Ti-ti palms, some ten or twelve feet high, entirely nibbled off where the sheep had clustered round them, and, as the snow fell, mounted higher and higher until they could reach the green leaves. In those days all the flocks were pure or half-bred merino; active, hardy little black-faced sheep, tasting like Welsh mutton, and delicious eating. On these excursions we often came upon dead wild-pigs, boars cased in hides an inch thick, which had perished through sheer stress of weather. It was wonderful to think that thin-skinned animals, with only a few months' growth of fine merino wool on their backs, could have survived.
During the long bright summer which followed, we used often to ask each other if it could be true that hills had apparently been levelled and valleys
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filled up by the heaviest snowstorm ever known. But when we looked at the Ti-ti palms with their topmost leaves gnawed to the stump, we realised that the sheep must have been standing on eight or nine feet of snow to reach them. When the survivors came to be shorn, it was plainly to be seen by the sort of "nick" in the fleece, where their three weeks' imprisonment had evidently checked the growth of the wool. Many of the hardiest wethers must have been without food for that time, as the pasturage was either under snow or flooded.
In looking back on that tragic time, its only bright memory is connected with tobogganing on a rough but giant scale, and I greatly wonder any of us survived that form of amusement. By the time every possible thing had been done for the surviving sheep, the snow had disappeared from all but the steep weather-side of the encircling hills, so our slides had to be arranged on very dangerous slopes.
The sledges on which these perilous journeys were made consisted of a couple of short planks nailed together, with a batten across for one's feet to rest on, and half a shears for a brake. If the gentlemen would only have made these rapid descents alone! But they insisted on my being a constant passenger. No one who has not gone through it can imagine the sensation of being
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launched on a bit of board down a mountain side! And yet there must have been a fearful joy in it, because after turning round and round many times as one flew over the hard snow surface, and arriving in a heap, head foremost, in a snowdrift, one was quite ready to try again. Luckily another northwest gale set in, and when it had blown itself out there were too many sharp-pointed rocks sticking up out of the remaining snow to make our mad descents practicable.
