LAND OF ROCKS AND RIVERS DEEP

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22135, 3 July 1937, Page 17

LAND OF ROCKS AND RIVERS DEEP

(SPECIALLY WRITTEN TOU THE PRESS.)

[By BRUCE STRONACH.]

Land of rock? and rivers deep. Lcusv with dogs and merino sheep, Squatter's paradise, musterer's hell— Molesworth Station, fare you well! —Mustei-ers' Rhyme,

I watched my friend's car disappear down the long road bordered by the larch trees of the Hanmer Forest. It was my last link with the life I knew, the easy life of a cadet on a small sheep-run, the life of easy days among the sheep, of weekends and cricket and football, of comfortable, warmed rooms, and hot baths, and evenings with books and friends.

Now, at last, I was going to see what lay beyond the foot hi Is. j Always I had wondered about life j in the real back-country, the huge, \ isolated blocks of mountain pasture | land which are known to so few. I: was prepared, I thought, to hold j down a job as a high-country I musterer. I had written to six; stations, untruthfully describing my- i self as experienced, as used to rough i country, and as possessing good dogs. Five wrote polite refusals. The sixth, Molesworth, invited me to come. • I had but one dog, old Boy. I ; bought two more, and borrowed two j of unknown qualifications. I bought a sleeping bag, boots, socks, and warm clothing. My swag weighed 70 pounds. Having no horse, I decided to go bv car to Johie's Pass and walk \ with' my swag to Tarndale. Moles- j worth's'out-station, about 40 miles j from Hanmer. I didn't know I i couldn't do it As I saw the car disappear I felt very much alone I wondered if I looked the part of i a real high-country musterer. Did I look green? I felt that at all costs I must put up the bluff of being an old hand. Not With That Swag My dogs I tied to the iron fence outside the hotel. They were: Boy. big and dependable; Pat, a:so big but, as I well knew, useless; Maud, a bob-tailed bitch, one of the borrowed ones and already under suspicion as a "sundowner"; Bruce, a pup just ready to work; and Storm, quite useful. They seemed to make up a terrific crowd; never before had I owned more than two dogs. I carried my swag into the pub. The hotelkeeper (whom later I was to know very well) greeted me, gave me a room and dog-tucker, and inquired whither I was bound. "Molesworth," I said, as casually as I was ab!e.

Arrival

He looked at my swag. "Walking?" f rephed that I was. "Then you can't do it—not with that swag," he said with flat finality.

I endeavoured to meet the situation in an off-hand manner; but in the face of his obvious know'edge I was already beginning secretly to agree with him. A seventv-pound swag for 40 miles . . . However, I was still determined to give it a go.

Next day. for all that it was November, there was snow. Soon the ground was white, and travelling not to be thought of. The rule was that anyone setting out for the Back was to telegraph through to the station: This, in case of his being lost or snowbound in one of the huts on the way. I had sent a telegram to say I was coming; then, because of the snowfall, dispatched another to say I was not. That day another musterer arrived, also for Molesworth, one "Nobby." tall, thin and Eng'ish. As an old hand, knowing his country, he had sent his swag on to Blenheim, with instructions that it should go thence on the weekly coach to Molesworth, a distance of 70 miles. I tried to get under his skin. He had been mustering for 20 years, he told me in his pleasant Enplish voice. I noted the way in which he spoke to his dogs, the manner in which his swag was rolled. Unluckily I mentioned my 70-pound swag, whereat his manner changed abruptly. He became wary; and I felt like a new boy at school, callow and unlearned.

Watty

Luck came my way. Watty, the Tarndale cook, arrived with a packhorse, lightly loaded, on his way to the station. He offered to take in my swag, with myself walking behind. Splendid. All that was now necessary was to await the clearing of the weather. The third day broke clear. Rain had fallen in the night and most of the snow had vanished. We set out, Watty riding a hack and leading the packhorse. Nobby and I trudging behind. I had one bottle of whisky and Watty had several. Mine was just in case the other musterers expected it of me. Old Watty was a character, about 60 years of age and properly grey. He was very fit and made no hardship of the ride. Later I was to discover that he had spent years as a packman and, in general, hated musterers like poison. But la me he was kind, even after my bottle was empty, which it was, long before we reached the station. A few miles down from Jollied Pass we struck the Clarence river. All the country through which we had hitherto passed was St. Helens Station, and that afternoon, following the river down, we came to the, Clarence Accommodation House, where we made the acquaintance of Ernie Tozer, in charge of it. He was just another Watty, but a French one. The two men were great chums, and their argument upon the best methods of breadmaking lasted until far into the night. The charge system at the accommodation house was beautifully simple, two bob for a meal, two for a bed, two for horse-feed, and so on. The beds were hard: but the sheets were spotless. Everything was clean and tidy. For the evening meal Ernie set eight eggs in front of me, and I had no trouble at all in downing them, along with two slices of toast and four cups of tea.

Early on the following morning we set out for Tarndale. The way led up the Acheron river, which runs into the Clarence, not far from the accommodation house. The Five-Mile-Yards was our first stop, a long five miles; two hours went to the covering of it. Since I was never again to go by this track in to Tarndale I forget the name of the hut to which we came before climbing over a saddle and dropping

A Musterer on Molesworth

down into the Alma river. Not having heeded Nobby's advice to take it ea?y, after 20 miles I had to confess myself done. We struck the Alma just four miles from Tarndale; and I sat down while Watty j ferried Nobby across the river. Prei sently he came back for me. Then : they both went on, leaving me sit- | ting among the mountain lilies. I and with my boots off and j but one thought in my head— Jto bathe my blistered feet. Later I | followed, reaching Tarndale just at ; dusk.

Tarndale ; Watty fed us again, chops and ! more chops. He called them '"hockey-sticks"; but there was j never anything in the world more j toothsome than that merino mutton, | killed a week previously and hung in the clear, rarefied air of the i Tarndale uplands. That night, for ;.the first time, I brought out my own j brand-new blankets, at which ] Nobby looked amusedly. However, I he did not speak, and I slipped into ' sleep, feeling that somewhere I had | blundered. A note lrom the manager had b;dden us each calch a hack and ride into Molesworth next day. We were astir early, and I had the opportunity to look about mc. Behind us towered Alma Peak. To i the north I could see the Rainbow ■ Range, thinly coated with snow, and looking every bit as formidable as was its reputation—that of being the roughest mustering in New Zealand. In front of the homestead stood i a big hi 1, known as the Station ! block. Beside it ran the pack-track ! to Molesworth, 25 miles away. I The house itself was built of pug, ' that mixture c£ clay and tussock ; which makes the most comfortable i of all dwellings, cool in summer and warm in winter. There was a whare for the musterers, a square, floorless room with wire-netting bunks round the wall, but there was not a single cupboard or a peg to hang one's clothes. Nails would not stick in those brittle pug walls. The other | buildings comprised a huge kitchenI diningroom used by the musterers, | two bedrooms for visitors (for TarnI dale was also an accommodation house), a room for the head shepherd, and a bedroom and a kitchen for Watty. In his kitchen were fed , the visitors and the manager. The j chimneys were huge, each one four feet of solid pug all round. Staples, dip, and enormous sheep-yards comI pleted the outfit.

Nobby and I made a 9 o'clock start for Molesworth on two station horses, with a pack-horse trailing behind. I felt uneasy. I had yet to meet all tVve rv-msterers, 12 of them; and my bottle of whisky had been downed move than a score of miles back. I kept wondering what type of men they were and whether they would find me the utter greenhorn I was already suspecting myse'f to be. Such worldly experience as was mine had taught me one golden rule: "Keep your mouth shut." We followed the Alma downstream for about nine miles until we came to its junction with the Severn river. There we lunched on bread and jam at the Red Hut. where formerly Tarndale bounded Molesworth. We left the river then and crossed the Isolated Hill, a name which explains itse'f. Far in front we could see the Saxon Pass, over which lay Molesworth. To the north was the Saxon block, very high, its tops seemingly remote. At dusk the station buildings came into view, the woolshed. the whares. and then the cookhouse. Molesworth. And I was too saddle-sore to worry about my reception. (To be continued.)

AN INDIAN IN THE EAST INDIES *

The Bell* of Eall. Bv N. WadH. M.\. J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd. 112 pp. (10/6 net.) These recollections of "a pleasure cruise to the Dutch East Indies, via Cochin, Colombo, Penang, and Singapore," make very agreeable reading; and if the majqr credit is the author's, something, also, must be credited to the large, clear, beautifully impressed type. At Colombo, in the famous Temple of the Tooth, Mr Wadia was fortunately saved by a guide from having to wait in a queue half a mile long before he could see the Tooth. It was a canine, so large that only a giant three or four times as big as an ordinary man could have grown it. Mr Wadia hinted as much to the guide, who "coolly replied that in their ancient books it was said that men in the Buddha's days were of giant stature and the great teacher himself was one of them; naturally enough, he had a tooth proportionate to his size." Mr Wadia saw the Buddhists falling on their knees and bowing before the Holy Tooth, which was "shown on a golden platter." He exclaims:

What a hideous travesty of the pure, unworldly religion of the Buddha —this degrading worship of the tooth, and the tooth of a monster at that! And to complete this picture of degradation entered the Buddhist Bhikksu—the fatcheeked, fat-paunched. shaven-pated, r-affi-on-robed, bespectacled Buddhist monk—carrying a sacred script in one? hand and swinging a cheap umbrella with a plated handle in the other.

He pays a remarkable tribute to the Balinese makers of "togogs," little wooden carved figures, of one of which, the work of a day, he says: "In all my experience of the art galleries of Europe and America, I have never seen a statue of a feeble old man as touching and instantly appealing in its expression and attitude." Elsewhere he makes "a direct challenge to Bernarr Macfadden to reproduce in his widely read magazine of physical culture, a photograph, taken in action and unawares, of a Western woman, equally straight-limbed and beautifully moulded, displaying at once beauty and grace of carriage and freedom and ease of action"—equally, that is, with the Balinese girls as they "lightly flitted across the open, sunlit market places"; and Mr Wadia's own photograph of one is certainly charming. He is a good noticer, a good, if sometimes slightly inflated, writer; and he is a superb photographer, as 20 full-page plates here show.