Heathstock, December 1st, 1865. All I can find to tell you this month is that I have seen one of the finest and best wool-sheds in the country in full work. Anything about sheep is as new to you as it is to me, so I shall begin my story at the very beginning.
I am afraid you will think us a very greedy set of people in this part of the world, for eating seems to enter so largely into my letters; but the fact is—and I may as well confess it at once—I am in a chronic state of hunger; it is the fault of the fine air and the outdoor life: and then how one sleeps at night! I don't believe you really know in England what it is to be sleepy as we feel sleepy here; and it is delightful to wake up in the morning with the sort of joyous light-heartedness which only young children have. The expedition I am going to relate may fairly be said to have begun with eating, for although we started for our twelve miles' drive over the downs immediately after an excellent and somewhat late breakfast, yet by the time we reached the Home Station we were quite ready for luncheon. All the work connected with the sheep is carried on here. The manager has a nice house; and the wool-shed, men's huts, dip, etc., are near each other. It is the busiest season of the year, and no time could be spared to prepare for us; we therefore contented ourselves with what was described to me as ordinary station fare, and I must tell you what they gave us: first, a tureen of real mutton-broth, not hot water and chopped parsley, but excel-lent thick soup, with plenty of barley and meat in it; this had much the same effect on our appetites as the famous treacle and brimstone before breakfast in "Nicholas Nickleby," so that we were only able to manage a few little sheeps' tongues, slightly pickled; and very nicetheywere; then we finished with a Devonshire junket, with clotted creama discretion. Do you think we were much to be pitied?
After this repast we were obliged to rest a little before we set out for the wool-shed, which has only been lately finished, and has all the newest improvements. At first I am "free to confess" that I did not like either its sounds or sights; the other two ladies turned very pale, but I was determined to make myself bear it, and after a moment or two I found it quite possible to proceed with Mr. L——round the "floor." There were about twenty-five shearers at work, and everything seemed to be very systematically and well arranged. Each shearer has a trap-door close to him, out of which he pushes his sheep as soon as the fleece is off, and there are little pens outside, so that the manager can notice whether the poor animal has been too much cut with the shears, or badly shorn in any other respect, and can tell exactly which shearer is to blame. Before this plan was adopted it was hopeless to try to find out who was the delinquent, for no one would acknowledge to the least snip. A good shearer can take off 120 fleeces in a day, but the average is about 80 to each man. They get one pound per hundred, and are found in everything, having as much tea and sugar, bread and mutton, as they can consume, and a cook entirely to themselves; they work at least fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, and with such a large flock as this—about 50,000—must make a good deal.
We next inspected the wool tables, to which two boys were incessantly bringing armfuls of rolled-up fleeces; these were laid on the tables before the wool-sorters, who opened them out, and pronounced in a moment to whichbinthey belonged; two or three men standing behind rolled them up again rapidly, and put them on a sort of shelf divided into compartments, which were each labelled, so that the quality and kind of wool could be told at a glance. There was a constant emptying of these bins into trucks to be carried off to the press, where we followed to see the bales packed. The fleeces are tumbled in, and a heavy screw-press forces them down till the bale—which is kept open in a large square frame—is as full as it can hold. The top of canvas is then put on, tightly sewn, four iron pins are removed and the sides of the frame fall away, disclosing a most symmetrical bale ready to be hoisted by a crane into the loft above, where it has the brand of the sheep painted on it, its weight, and to what class the wool belongs. Of course everything has to be done with great speed and system.
I was much impressed by the silence in the shed; not a sound was to be heard except the click of the shears, and the wool-sorter's decision as he flings the fleece behind him, given in one, or at most two words. I was reminded how touchingly true is that phrase, "Like as a sheep before her shearers is dumb." All the noise isoutside; there the hubbub, and dust, and apparent confusion are great,—a constant succession of woolly sheep being brought up to fill the "skillions" (from whence the shearers take them as they want them), and the newly-shorn ones, white, clean, and bewildered-looking, being turned out after they have passed through a narrow passage, called a "race," where each sheep is branded, and has its mouth examined in order to tell its age, which is marked in a book. It was a comfort to think all their troubles were over, for a year. You can hear nothing but barking and bleating, and this goes on from early morning till dark. We peeped in at the men's huts—a long, low wooden building, with two rows of "bunks" (berths, I should call their) in one compartment, and a table with forms round it in the other, and piles of tin plates and pannikins all about. The kitchen was near, and we were just in time to see an enormous batch of bread withdrawn from a huge brick oven: the other commissariat arrangements were on the same scale. Cold tea is supplied all day long to the shearers, and they appear to consume great quantities of it.
Our last visit was to the Dip, and it was only a short one, for it seemed a cruel process; unfortunately, this fine station is in technical parlance "scabby," and although of course great precautions are taken, still some 10,000 sheep had an ominous large S on them. These poor sufferers are dragged down a plank into a great pit filled with hot water, tobacco, and sulphur, and soused over head and ears two or three times. This torture is repeated more than once.
I was very glad to get away from the Dip, and back to the manager's house, where we refreshed ourselves by a delicious cup of tea, and soon after started for a nice long drive home in the cool, clear evening air. The days are very hot, but never oppressive; and the mornings and evenings are deliciously fresh and invigorating. You can remain out late without the least danger. Malaria is unknown, and, in spite of the heavy rains, there is no such thing as damp. Our way lay through very pretty country—a series of terraces, with a range of mountains before us, with beautiful changing and softening evening tints creeping over the whole.
I am sorry to say, we leave this next week. I should like to explore a great deal more.
Christchurch, January 1866. I am beginning to get tired of Christchurch already: but the truth is, I am not in a fair position to judge of it as a place of residence; for, living temporarily, as we do, in a sort of boarding-house, I miss the usual duties and occupations of home, and the town itself has no place of public amusement except a little theatre, to which it is much too hot to go. The last two weeks have beenthegay ones of the whole year; the races have been going on for three days, and there have been a few balls; but as a general rule, the society may be said to be extremely stagnant. No dinner-parties are ever given—I imagine, on account of the smallness of the houses and the inefficiency of the servants; but every now and then there is an assembly ball arranged, in the same way, I believe, as at watering-places in England only, of course, on a much smaller scale. I have been at two or three of these, and noticed at each a most undue preponderance of black coats. Nearly all the ladies were married, there were very few young girls; and it would be a great improvement to the Christchurch parties if some of the pretty and partnerless groups of a London ball-room, in all their freshness of toilette, could be transferred to them. What a sensation they would make, and what terrible heart-aches among the young gentlemen would be the result of such an importation! There were the same knots of men standing together as at a London party, but I must say that, except so far as their tailor is concerned, I think we have the advantage of you, for the gentlemen lead such healthy lives that they all look more or less bronzed and stalwart—in splendid condition, not like your pale dwellers in cities; and then they come to a ball to dance, arriving early so as to secure good partners, and their great ambition appears to be to dance every dance from the first to the last. This makes it hard work for the few ladies, who are not allowed to sit down for a moment, and I have often seen a young and pretty partner obliged to divide her dances between two gentlemen.
Although it tells only against myself, I must make you laugh at an account of a snub I received at one of these balls. Early in the evening I had danced with a young gentleman whose station was a long way "up country," and who worked so hard on it that he very seldom found time for even the mild dissipations of Christchurch; he was good-looking and gentlemanly, and seemed clever and sensible, a littlebrusque, perhaps, but one soon gets used to that here. During our quadrille he confided to me that he hardly knew any ladies in the room, and that his prospects of getting any dancing were in consequence very blank. I did all I could to find partners for him, introducing him to every lady whom I knew, but it was in vain; they would have been delighted to dance with him, but their cards were filled. At the end of the evening, when I was feeling thoroughly done up, and could hardly stand up for fatigue, my poor friend came up and begged for another dance. I assured him I could scarcely stand, but when he said in alarmoyantevoice, "I have only danced once this evening, that quadrille with you," my heart softened, and I thought I would make a great effort and try to get through one more set of Lancers; my partner seemed so grateful, that the demon of vanity, or coquetry, or whatever it is that prompts one to say absurd things induced me to fish for a compliment, and to observe, "It was not worth while taking all the trouble of riding such a distance to dance only with me, was it?" Whereupon my poor, doleful friend answered, with a deep sigh, and an accent of profound conviction, "No, indeed it wasnot!" I leave you to imagine my discomfiture; but luckily he never observed it, and I felt all the time that I richly deserved what I got, for asking such a stupid question.
The music at these balls is very bad, and though the principal room in which they are given, at the Town Hall, is large and handsome, it is poorly lighted, and the decorations are desolate in the extreme. I am afraid this is not a very inviting picture of what is almost our only opportunity of meeting together, but it is tolerably correct. Visiting appears to be the business of some people's lives, but the acquaintance does not seem to progress beyond incessant afternoon calls; we are never asked inside a house, nor, as far as I can make out, is there any private society whatever, and the public society consists, as I have said, of a ball every now and then.
My greatest interest and occupation consist in going to look at my house, which is being cut out in Christchurch, and will be drayed to our station next month, a journey of fifty miles. It is, of course, only of wood, and seems about as solid as a band-box; but I am assured by the builder that it will be a "most superior article" when it is all put together. F—— and I made the little plan of it ourselves, regulating the size of the drawing-room by the dimensions of the carpet we brought out, and I petitioned for a little bay-window, which is to be added; so on my last visit to his timber-yard, the builder said, with an air of great dignity, "Would you wish to see thehoriel, mum?" The doors all come ready-made from America, and most of the wood used in building is the Kauri pine from the North Island. One advantage, at all events, in having wooden houses is the extreme rapidity with which they are run up, and there are no plastered walls to need drying. For a long time we were very uncertain where, and what, we should build on our station; but only six weeks after we made up our minds, a house is almost ready for us. The boards are sawn into the requisite lengths by machinery; and all the carpentering done down here; the frame will only require to be fitted together when it reaches its destination, and it is a very good time of year for building, as the wool drays are all going back empty, and we can get them to take the loads at reduced prices; but even with this help, it is enormously expensive to move a small house fifty miles, the last fifteen over bad roads; it is collar-work for the poor horses all the way, Christchurch being only nine feet above the sea-level, while our future home in the Malvern Hills is twelve hundred.
You know we brought all our furniture out with us, and even papers for the rooms, just because we happened to have everything; but I should not recommend any one to do so, for the expense of carriage, though moderate enough by sea (in a wool ship), is enormous as soon as it reaches Lyttleton, and goods have to be dragged up country by horses or bullocks. There are very good shops where you can buy everything, and besides these there are constant sales by auction where, I am told, furniture fetches a price sometimes under its English value. House rent about Christchurch is very high. We looked at some small houses in and about the suburbs of the town, when we were undecided about our plans, and were offered the most inconvenient little dwellings, with rooms which were scarcely bigger than cupboards, for 200 pounds a year; we saw nothing at a lower price than this, and any house of a better class, standing in a nicely arranged shrubbery, is at least 300 pounds per annum. Cab-hire is another thing which seems to me disproportionately dear, as horses are very cheap; there are no small fares, half-a-crown being the lowest "legal tender" to a cabman; and I soon gave up returning visits when I found that to make a call in a Hansom three or four miles out of the little town cost one pound or one pound ten shillings, even remaining only a few minutes at the house.
All food (except mutton) appears to be as nearly as possible at London prices; but yet every one looks perfectly well-fed, and actual want is unknown. Wages of all sorts are high, and employment, a certainty. The look and bearing of the immigrants appear to alter soon after they reach the colony. Some people object to the independence of their manner, but I do not; on the contrary, I like to see the upright gait, the well-fed, healthy look, the decent clothes (even if no one touches his hat to you), instead of the half-starved, depressed appearance, and too often cringing servility of the mass of our English population. Scotchmen do particularly well out here; frugal and thrifty, hard-working and sober, it is easy to predict the future of a man of this type in a new country. Naturally, the whole tone of thought and feeling is almost exclusively practical; even in a morning visit there is no small-talk. I find no difficulty in obtaining the useful information upon domestic subjects which I so much need; for it is sad to discover, after all my house-keeping experience, that I am still perfectly ignorant. Here it is necessary to knowhoweverything should be done; it is not sufficient to give an order, you must also be in a position to explain how it is to be carried out I felt quite guilty when I saw the picture inPunchthe other day, of a young and inexperienced matron requesting her cook "not to put any lumps into the melted butter," and reflected that I did not know how lumps should be kept out; so, as I am fortunate enough to number among my new friends a lady who is as clever in these culinary details as she is bright and charming in society, I immediately went to her for a lesson in the art of making melted butter without putting lumps into it.
The great complaint, the never-ending subject of comparison and lamentation among ladies, is the utter ignorance and inefficiency of their female servants. As soon as a ship comes in it is besieged with people who want servants, but it is very rare to get one who knows how to do anything as it ought to be done. Their lack of all knowledge of the commonest domestic duties is most surprising, and makes one wonder who in England did the necessary things of daily cottage life for them, for they appear to have done nothing for themselves hitherto. As for a woman knowing how to cook, that seems the very last accomplishment they acquire; a girl will come to you as a housemaid at 25 pounds per annum, and you will find that she literally does not know how to hold her broom, and has never handled a duster. When you ask a nurse her qualifications for the care of perhaps two or three young children, you may find, on close cross-examination, that she can recollect having once or twice "held mother's baby," and that she is very firm in her determination that "you'll keep baby yourself o' nights; mem!" A perfectly inexperienced girl of this sort will ask, and get, 30 pounds or 35 pounds per annum, a cook from 35 pounds to 40 pounds; and when they go "up country," they hint plainly they shall not stay long with you, and ask higher wages, stipulating with great exactness how they are to be conveyed free of all expense to and from their place.
Then, on the other hand, I must say they work desperately hard, and very cheerfully: I am amazed how few servants are kept even in the large and better class of houses. As a general rule, they, appear willing enough to learn, and I hear no complaints of dishonesty or immorality, though many moans are made of the rapidity with which a nice tidy young woman is snapped up as a wife; but that is a complaint no one can sympathise with. On most stations a married couple is kept; the man either to act as shepherd, or to work in the garden and look after the cows, and the woman is supposed to attend to the indoor comforts of the wretched bachelor-master: but she generally requires to be taught how to bake a loaf of bread, and boil a potato, as well as how to cook mutton in the simplest form. In her own cottage at home, who did all these things for her? These incapables are generally perfectly helpless and awkward at the wash-tub; no one seems to expect servants to know their business, and it is very fortunate if they show any capability of learning.
I must end my long letter by telling you a little story of my own personal experience in the odd ways of these girls. The housemaid at the boarding-house where we have stayed since we left Heathstock is a fat, sonsy, good-natured girl, perfectly ignorant and stupid, but she has not been long in the colony, and seems willing to learn. She came to me the other day, and, without the least circumlocution or hesitation, asked me if I would lend her my riding-habit as a pattern to give the tailor; adding that she wanted my best and newest. As soon as I could speak for amazement, I naturally asked why; she said she had been given a riding-horse, that she had loaned a saddle, and bought a hat, so now she had nothing on her mind except the habit; and further added, that she intended to leave her situation the day before the races, and that it was "her fixed intent" to appear on horseback each day, and all day long, at these said races. I inquired if she knew how to ride? No; she had never mounted any animal in her life. I suggested that she had better take some lessons before her appearance in public; but she said her mistress did not like to spare her to "practise," and she stuck steadily to her point of wanting my habit as a pattern. I could not lend it to her, fortunately, for it had been sent up to the station with my saddle, etc.; so had she been killed, as I thought not at all unlikely, at least my conscience would not have reproached me for aiding and abetting her equestrian freak. I inquired from every one who went to the races if they saw or heard of any accident to a woman on horseback, and I most anxiously watched the newspapers to see if they contained any notice of the sort, but as there has been no mention of any catastrophe, I suppose she has escaped safely. Her horse must have been quieter and better broken than they generally are. F—— says that probably it was a very old "station screw." I trust so, for her sake!
Christchurch, March 1866. I must begin my letter this mail with a piece of domestic news, and tell you of the appearance of your small nephew, now three weeks old. The youth seems inclined to adapt himself to circumstances, and to be as sturdy and independent as colonial children generally are. All my new friends and neighbours proved most kind and friendly, and were full of good offices. Once I happened to say that I did not like the food as it was cooked at the boarding-house; and the next day, and for many days after, all sorts of dainties were sent to me, prepared by hands which were as skilful on the piano, or with a pencil, as they were in handling a saucepan. New books were lent to me, and I was never allowed to be without a beautiful bouquet. One young lady used constantly to walk in to town, some two or three miles along a hot and dusty road, laden with flowers for me, just because she saw how thoroughly I enjoyed her roses and carnations. Was it not good of her?
Christchurch has relapsed into the quietude, to call it by no harsher name. The shearing is finished all over the country, and the "squatters" (as owners of sheep-stations are called) have returned to their stations to vegetate, or work, as their tastes and circumstances may dictate. Very few people live in the town except the tradespeople; the professional men prefer little villas two or three miles off. These houses stand in grounds of their own, and form a very pretty approach to Christchurch, extending a few miles on all sides: There are large trees bordering most of the streets, which give a very necessary shade in summer; they are nearly all English sorts, and have only been planted within a few years. Poplars, willows, and the blue gum grow quickest, are least affected by the high winds, and are therefore the most popular. The banks of the pretty little river Avon, upon which Christchurch is built, are thickly fringed with weeping willows, interspersed with a few other trees, and with clumps of tohi, which is exactly like the Pampas grass you know so well in English shrubberies. I don't think I have ever told you that it has been found necessary here to legislate against water-cress. It was introduced a few years since, and has spread so rapidly as to become a perfect nuisance, choking every ditch in the neighbourhood of Christchurch, blocking up mill-streams, causing meadows to be flooded, and doing all kinds of mischief.
Towards Riccarton, about four miles out of town, the Avon shows like a slender stream a few inches wide, moving sluggishly between thick beds of water-cress, which at this time of year are a mass of white blossom. It looks so perfectly solid that whenever I am at Ilam, an insane desire to step on it comes over me, much to F——'s alarm, who says he is afraid to let me out of his sight, lest I should attempt to do so. I have only seen one native "bush" or forest yet, and that is at Riccarton. This patch of tall, gaunt pines serves as a landmark for miles. Riccarton is one of the oldest farms in the colony, and I am told it possesses a beautiful garden. I can only see the gable-end of a house peeping out from among the trees as I pass. This bush is most carefully preserved, but I believe that every high wind injures it.
Christchurch is very prettily situated; for although it stands on a perfectly flat plain, towards the sea there are the Port Hills, and the town itself is picturesque, owing to the quantities of trees and the irregular form of the wooden houses; and as a background we have the most magnificent chain of mountains—the back-bone of the island—running from north to south, the highest peaks nearly always covered with snow, even after such a hot summer as this has been. The climate is now delicious, answering in time of year to your September; but we have far more enjoyable weather than your autumns can boast of. If the atmosphere were no older than the date of the settlement of the colony, it could not feel moreyouthful, it is so light and bright, and exhilarating! The one drawback, and the only one, is the north-west wind; and the worst of it is, that it blows very often from this point. However, I am assured that I have not yet seen either a "howling nor'-wester," nor its exact antithesis, "a sutherly buster."
We have lately been deprived of the amusement of going to see our house during the process of cutting it out, as it has passed that stage, and has been packed on drays and sent to the station, with two or three men to put it up. It was preceded by two dray-loads of small rough-hewn stone piles, which are first let into the ground six or eight feet apart: the foundation joists rest on these, so as just to keep the flooring from touching the earth. I did not like this plan (which is the usual one) at all, as it seemed to me so insecure for the house to rest only on these stones. I told the builder that I feared a strong "nor'-wester" (and I hear they are particularly strong in the Malvern Hills) would blow the whole affair away. He did not scout the idea as much as I could have wished, but held out hopes to me that the roof would "kep it down." I shall never dare to trust the baby out of my sight, lest he should be blown away; and I have a plan for securing his cradle, by putting large heavy stones in it, somewhere out of his way, so that he need not be hurt by them. Some of the houses are built of "cob," especially those erected in the very early days, when sawn timber was rare and valuable: this material is simply wet clay with chopped tussocks stamped in. It makes very thick walls, and they possess the great advantage of being cool in summer and warm in winter. Whilst the house is new nothing can be nicer; but, in a few years, the hot winds dry up the clay so much, that it becomes quite pulverized; and a lady who lives in one of these houses told me, that during a high wind she had often seen the dust from the walls blowing in clouds about the rooms, despite of the canvas and paper, and with all the windows carefully closed.
Next week F—— is going up to the station, to unpack and arrange a little, and baby and I are going to be taken care of at Ilam, the most charming place I have yet seen. I am looking forward to my visit there with great pleasure.
Ilam, April 1866. We leave this to-morrow for the station in the most extraordinary conveyance you ever saw. Imagine a flat tray with two low seats in it, perched on four very high wheels, quite innocent of any step or means of clambering in and out, and drawn, tandem-fashion, by two stout mares; one of which has a little foal by her side. The advantage of this vehicle is that it is very light, and holds a good deal of luggage. We hope to accomplish the distance—fifty miles—in a day, easily.
Although this is not my first visit to Ilam, I don't think I have ever described it to you. The house is of wood, two storeys high, and came out from England! It is built on a brick foundation, which is quite unusual here. Inside, it is exactly like a most charming English house, and when I first stood in the drawing-room it was difficult to believe: that I was at the other end of the world. All the newest books, papers, and periodicals covered the tables, the newest music lay on the piano, whilst a profusion of English greenhouse flowers in Minton's loveliest vases added to the illusion. The Avon winds through the grounds, which are very pretty, and are laid out in the English fashion; but in spite of the lawn with its croquet-hoops and sticks, and the beds of flowers in all their late summer beauty, there is a certain absence of the stiffness and trimness of English pleasure-grounds, which shows that you have escaped from the region of conventionalities. There are thick clumps of plantations, which have grown luxuriantly, and look as if they had always been there. A curve of the opposite bank is a dense mass of native flax bushes, with their tall spikes of red blossom filling the air with a scent of honey, and attracting all the bees in the neighbourhood. Ti-ti palms are dotted here and there, and give a foreign and tropical appearance to the whole. There is a large kitchen garden and orchard, with none of the restrictions of high walls and locked gates which fence your English peaches and apricots.
The following is our receipt for killing time at Ilam:—After breakfast, take the lastCornhillorMacmillan, put on a shady hat, and sit or saunter by the river-side under the trees, gathering any very tempting peach or apricot or plum or pear, until luncheon; same thing until five o'clock tea; then cross the river by a rustic bridge, ascend some turf steps to a large terrace-like meadow, sheltered from the north-west winds by a thick belt of firs, blue gums, and poplars, and play croquet on turf as level as a billiard-table until dinner. At these games the cockatoo always assists, making himself very busy, waddling after his mistress all over the field, and climbing up her mallet whenever he has an opportunity. "Dr. Lindley"—so called from his taste for pulling flowers to pieces—apparently for botanical purposes—is the tamest and most affectionate of birds, and I do not believe he ever bit any one in his life; he will allow himself to be pulled about, turned upside down, scratched under his wings, all with the greatest indifference, or rather with the most positive enjoyment. One evening I could not play croquet for laughing at his antics. He took a sudden dislike to a little rough terrier, and hunted him fairly off the ground at last, chasing him all about, barking at him, and digging his beak into the poor dog's paw. But the "Doctor's" best performance is when he imitates a hawk. He reserves this fine piece of acting until his mistress is feeding her poultry; then, when all the hens and chickens, turkeys, and pigeons are in the quiet enjoyment of their breakfast or supper, the peculiar shrill cry of a hawk is heard overhead, and the Doctor is seen circling in the air, uttering a scream occasionally. The fowls never find out that it is a hoax, but run to shelter, cackling in the greatest alarm—hens clucking loudly for their chicks, turkeys crouching under the bushes, the pigeons taking refuge in their house; as soon as the ground is quite clear, Cocky changes his wild note for peals of laughter from a high tree, and finally alighting on the top of a hen-coop filled with trembling chickens, remarks in a suffocated voice, "You'll be the death of me."
I must reverse the proverb about the ridiculous and the sublime, and finish my letter by telling you of Ilam's chief outdoor charm: from all parts of the garden and grounds I can feast my eyes on the glorious chain of mountains which I have before told you of, and my bedroom window has a perfect panoramic view of them. I watch them under all their changes of tint, and find each new phase the most beautiful. In the very early morning I have often stood shivering at my window to see the noble outline gradually assuming shape, and finally standing out sharp and clear against a dazzling sky; then, as the sun rises, the softest rose-coloured and golden tints touch the highest peaks, the shadows deepening by the contrast. Before a "nor'-wester" the colours over these mountains and in the sky are quite indescribable; no one but Turner could venture upon such a mixture of pale sea-green with deep turquoise blue, purple with crimson and orange. One morning an arch-like appearance in the clouds over the furthest ranges was pointed out to me as the sure forerunner of a violent gale from the north-west, and the prognostic was fulfilled. It was formed of clouds of the deepest and richest colours; within its curve lay a bare expanse of a wonderful green tint, crossed by the snowysilhouetteof the Southern Alps. A few hours afterwards the mountains were quite hidden by mist, and a furious gale of hot wind was shaking the house as if it must carry it off into the sky; it blew so continuously that the trees and shrubs never seemed to rise for a moment against it.
These hot winds affect infants and children a good deal, and my baby is not at all well. However, his doctor thinks the change to the station will set him all right again, so we are hurrying off much sooner than our kind friends here wish, and long before the little house in the hills can possibly be made comfortable, though F—— is working very hard to get things settled for us.
Broomielaw, Malvern Hills, May 1866. I do not like to allow the first Panama steamer to go without a line from me: this is the only letter I shall attempt, and it will be but a short and sad one, for we are still in the first bitterness of grief for the loss of our dear little baby. After I last wrote to you he became very ill, but we hoped that his malady was only caused by the unhealthiness of Christchurch during the autumn, and that he would soon revive and get on well in this pure, beautiful mountain air. We consequently hurried here as soon as ever we could get into the house, and whilst the carpenters were still in it. Indeed, there was only one bedroom ready for us when I arrived. The poor little man rallied at first amazingly; the weather was exquisitely bright and sunny, and yet bracing. Baby was to be kept in the open air as much as possible, so F—— and I spent our days out on the downs near the house, carrying our little treasure by turns: but all our care was fruitless: he got another and more violent attack about a fortnight ago, and after a few hours of suffering he was taken to the land where pain is unknown. During the last twelve hours of his life, as I sat before the fire with him on my lap, poor F——kneeling in a perfect agony of grief by my side, my greatest comfort was in looking at that exquisite photograph from Kehren's picture of the "Good Shepherd," which hangs over my bedroom mantelpiece, and thinking that our sweet little lamb would soon be folded in those Divine, all-embracing Arms. It is not a common picture; and the expression of the Saviour's face is most beautiful, full of such immense feminine compassion and tenderness that it makes me feel more vividly, "In all our sorrows He is afflicted." In such a grief as this I find the conviction of the reality and depth of the Divine sympathy is my only true comfort; the tenderest human love falls short of the feeling that, without any words to express our sorrow, God knows all about it; that He would not willingly afflict or grieve us, and that therefore the anguish which wrings our hearts is absolutely necessary in some mysterious way for our highest good. I fear I have often thought lightly of others' trouble in the loss of so young a child; but now I know what it is. Does it not seem strange and sad, that this little house in a distant, lonely spot, no sooner becomes a home than it is baptized, as it were, with tears? No doubt there are bright and happy days in store for us yet, but these first ones here have been sadly darkened by this shadow of death. Inanimate things have such a terrible power to wound one: though everything which would remind me of Baby has been carefully removed and hidden away by F——'s orders, still now and then I come across some trifle belonging to him, and, as Miss Ingelow says—
"My old sorrow wakes and cries."
Our loss is one too common out here, I am told: infants born in Christchurch during the autumn very often die. Owing to the flatness of the site of the town, it is almost impossible to get a proper system of drainage; and the arrangements seem very bad, if you are to judge from the evil smells which are abroad in the evening. Children who are born on a station, or taken there as soon as possible, almost invariably thrive, but babies are very difficult to rear in the towns. If they get over the first year, they do well; and I cannot really call to mind a single sickly, or even delicate-looking child among the swarms which one sees everywhere.
I cannot say that I think colonial children prepossessing in either manners or appearance, in spite of their ruddy cheeks and sturdy limbs. Even quite little things are pert and independent, and give me the idea of being very much spoiled. When you reflect on the utter absence of any one who can really be called a nurse, this is not to be wondered at. The mothers are thoroughly domestic and devoted to their home duties, far more so than the generality of the same class at home. An English lady, with even an extremely moderate income, would look upon her colonial sister as very hard-worked indeed. The children cannot be entrusted entirely to the care of an ignorant girl, and the poor mother has them with her all day long; if she goes out to pay visits (the only recognized social duty here), she has to take the elder children with her, but this early introduction into society does not appear to polish the young visitors' manners in the least. There is not much rest at night for the mater-familias with the inevitable baby, and it is of course very difficult for her to be correcting small delinquents all day long; so they grow up with what manners nature gives them. There seems to me, however, to be a greater amount of real domestic happiness out here than at home: perhaps the want of places of public amusement may have something to do with this desirable state of affairs, but the homes seem to be thoroughly happy ones. A married man is an object of envy to his less fortunate brethren, and he appears anxious to show that he appreciates his good fortune. As for scandal, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, it is unknown; gossip there is in plenty, but it generally refers to each other's pecuniary arrangements or trifling peculiarities, and is all harmless enough. I really believe that the life most people lead here is as simple and innocent as can well be imagined. Each family is occupied in providing for its own little daily wants and cares, which supplies the mind and body with healthy and legitimate employment, and yet, as my experience tells me, they have plenty of leisure to do a kind turn for a neighbour. This is the bright side of colonial life, and there is more to be said in its praise; but the counterbalancing drawback is, that the people seem gradually to lose the sense of larger and wider interests; they have little time to keep pace with the general questions of the day, and anything like sympathy or intellectual appreciation is very rare. I meet accomplished people, but seldom well-read ones; there is also too much talk about money: "where the treasure is, there will the heart be also;" and the incessant financial discussions are wearisome, at least to me.
Broomielaw, July 1866. We are now in mid-winter, and a more delicious season cannot well be imagined; the early mornings and evenings and the nights are very cold, but the hours from 10 A.M. till 5 P.M. are exquisitely bright, and quite warm. We are glad of a fire at breakfast, which is tolerably early, but we let it out and never think of relighting it until dark. Above all, it is calm: I congratulate myself daily on the stillness of the atmosphere, but F—— laughs and says, "Wait until the spring." I bask all day in the verandah, carrying my books and work there soon after breakfast; as soon as the sun goes down, however, it becomes very cold. In an English house you would hardly feel it, but with only one plank an inch thick, a lining-board and canvas and paper, between you and a hard frost, a good fire is wanted. We burn coal found twelve miles from this; it is not very good, being only what is called "lignite." I don't know if that conveys to you a distinct impression of what it really is. I should say it was a better sort of turf: it smoulders just in the same way, and if not disturbed will remain many hours alight; it requires a log of dry wood with it to make a really good blaze. Fuel is most difficult to get here, and very expensive, as we have no available "bush" on the Run; so we have first to take out a licence for cutting wood in the Government bush, then to employ men to cut it, and hire a drayman who possesses a team of bullocks and a dray of his own, to fetch it to us: he can only take two journeys a day, as he has four miles to travel each way, so that by the time the wood is stacked it costs us at least thirty shillings a cord, and then there is the labour of sawing and cutting it up. The coal costs us one pound a ton at the mouth of the pit, and the carriage exactly doubles its price; besides which it is impossible to get more, than a small quantity at a time, on account of the effect of the atmosphere on it. Exposure to the air causes it to crumble into dust, and although we keep our supply in a little shed for the purpose, it is wasted to the extent of at least a quarter of each load. We are unusually unfortunate in the matter of firing; most stations have a bush near to the homestead, or greater facilities for draying than we possess.
You tell me to describe my little house to you, so I must try to make you see it, only prefacing my attempt by warning you not to be disgusted or disappointed at any shortcomings. The house has not been built in a pretty situation, as many other things had to be considered before a picturesque site: first it was necessary to build on a flat (as the valleys here are called), not too far off the main track, on account of having to make the road to it ourselves; the next thing to be thought of was shelter from the north-west wind; then the soil must be fit for a garden, and a good creek, or brook, which would not go dry in the summer, close at hand. At present, everything out of doors is so unfinished that the place looks rather desolate, and it will be some years before our plantations can attain a respectable size, even allowing for the rapid growth in this climate. The first step is to obtain shelter from our enemy the "nor'-wester," and for this purpose we have planted quantities of broom in all directions; even the large beds for vegetables in the garden have a hedge of Cape broom on the exposed side; fortunately, the broom grows very quickly in spite of the wind, and attains to a luxuriant beauty rarely seen in England. We have put in many other trees, such as oaks, maples, etc., but not one is higher than this table, except a few poplars; the ground immediately outside the house has been dug up, and is awaiting the spring to be sown with English grass; we have no attempt at a flower-garden yet, but have devoted our energies to the vegetable one,—putting in fruit trees, preparing strawberry and asparagus beds, and other useful things. Out of doors matters would not even be as far advanced towards a garden and plantation as they are if we had commenced operations ourselves, but the ground has been worked since last year. I am glad we have chosen to build our house here instead of at the homestead two miles off; for I like to be removed from the immediate neighbourhood of all the work of the station, especially from that of the "gallows,"—a high wooden frame from which the carcases of the butchered sheep dangle; under the present arrangement the shepherd brings us over our mutton as we want it.
Inside the house everything is comfortable and pretty, and, above all things, looks thoroughly home-like. Out of the verandah you pass through a little hall hung with whips and sticks, spurs and hats, and with a bookcase full of novels at one end of it, into a dining-room, large enough for us, with more books in every available corner, the prints you know so well on the walls, and a trophy of Indian swords and hunting-spears over the fireplace: this leads into the drawing-room, a bright, cheery little room—more books and pictures, and a writing-table in the "horiel." In that tall, white, classical-shaped vase of Minton's which you helped me to choose is the most beautiful bouquet, made entirely of ferns; it is a constant object for my walks up the gullies, exploring little patches of bush to search for the ferns, which grow abundantly under their shelter by the creek. I have a small but comfortable bedroom, and there is a little dressing-room for F—— and the tiniest spare room you ever saw; it really is not bigger than the cabin of a ship. I think the kitchen is the chief glory of the house, boasting a "Leamington range" a luxury quite unknown in these parts, where all the cooking is done on an American stove,—a very good thing in its way, but requiring to be constantly attended to. There is a good-sized storeroom, in which F—— has just finished putting me up some cupboards, and a servants' room. It is not a palace is it? But it is quite large enough to hold a great deal of happiness. Outside, the premises are still more diminutive; a little wash-house stands near the kitchen door, and further up the enclosure is a stable, and a small room next it for saddles, and a fowl-house and pig-stye, and a coal-shed. Now you know everything about my surroundings; but—there is always abutin everything—I have one great grievance, and I hope you will appreciate its magnitude.
It was impossible for F—— to come up here when the house was first commenced, and the wretch of a builder deliberately put the drawing-and dining-room fireplaces in the corner, right up against the partition wall, of course utterly destroying the comfort as well as the symmetry of the rooms. I am convinced some economy of bricks is at the bottom of this arrangement, especially as the house was built by contract; but the builder pretends to be surprised that I don't admire it, and says, "Why, it's so oncommon, mum!" I assure you, when I first saw the ridiculous appearance of the drawing-room pier-glass in the corner, I should liked to have screamed out at the builder (like the Queen in "Alice in Wonderland"), "Cut off his head!"
When we were packing up the things to come here, our friends expressed their astonishment at our taking so many of the little elegancies of life, such as drawing-room ornaments, pictures, etc. Now it is a great mistake not to bring such things, at all events a few of them, for they are not to be bought here, and they give the new home a certain likeness to the old one which is always delightful. I do not advise people to make large purchases of elegancies for a colonial life, but a few pretty little trifles will greatly improve the look of even a New Zealand up-country drawing-room.
You have asked me also about our wardrobes. Gentlemen wear just what they would on a Scotch or English farm; in summer they require perhaps a lighter hat, and long rides are always taken in boots and breeches. A lady wears exactly what would be suitable in the country in England, except that I should advise her to eschew muslin; the country outside the home paddock is too rough for thin material; she also wants thick boots if she is a good walker, and I find nails or little screws in the soles a great help for hill-walking. A hat is my only difficulty: you really want a shady hat for a protection against the sun, but there are very few days in the year on which you can ride in anything but a close, small hat, with hardly any brim at all, and even this must have capabilities of being firmly fastened on the head. My nice, wide-brimmed Leghorn hangs idly in the hall: there is hardly a morning still enough to induce me to put it on even to go and feed my chickens or potter about the garden. This being winter, I live in a short linsey dress, which is just right as to warmth, and not heavy. It is a mistake to bring too much: a year's supply will be quite enough; fresh material can easily be procured in Christchurch or any of the large towns, or sent out by friends. I find my sewing-machine the greatest possible comfort, and as time passes on and my clothes need remodelling it will be still more use ful. Hitherto I have used it chiefly for my friends' benefit; whilst I was in town I constantly had little frocks brought to me to tuck, and here I employ it in making quilted cloth hats for my gentlemen neighbours.