IN THE BUSH.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 8, 9 July 1909, Page 3

IN THE BUSH.

« WORK FOR THE WORKLESS. AT RANGITATAU. CANOEING UP THE RIVER. It does not do to leave men idle long In the bush, so the problem of finding employment for tho hundred and odd unemployed, who have come into the Tarata camp from the various centres by -way of Waitotara to fell the Rangitatau forest, is tackled without delay. The problem is difficult, as the surveyors have not leally had time to complete their subdivision of the ten thousand acres of bush that constitute the now well-known Rangitatau block. Still, it ■will not do to have men hanging about the camp in the rain waiting for work. That is the first step to grumbling, disaffection and rank mutiny. So the district surveyor, Mr. E. P. Greville, who is essentially the right man in the right place, a man who knows the bush and bushmen through and through, confers with his able second in command, Mr. W. J. Price, and plans are quickly made. The men are to get their swags and 1 go up the river at daybreak next morning. UNDER THE SWAG. In the grey light of dawn they are up and away on the track, plodding through the mud under huge burdens. One man slings a cast-iron camp-oven over his back, another carries a. grindstone impaled on a stick, a third has a billowy bundle of canvas for the tents, and the fourth is laden with axes and slashers. Part of their stuff will go up in a canoe, but only the merest trifles, the surplusage over what they can actually carry,, the la&t straw, so to speak, so that their backs will not break under the load. SCENES BY THE RIVER. It is Sunday morning, but there is nothing in tho scene to suggest it. Sunday is like any other day in the bush, when there is necessary work to be done. It is for this reason that men lose count of the calendar, and you often hear arguments as to what day of the week ifc really is, When a man has been a month or two in the bush, life becomes some-" what of a succession ci periods of light and darkness, with nothing to distinguish any one day from any other. There are no theatres, no musical halls, no hotels, no streets, no nothing — nothing but tho sun and sky, wind and rain, and the immemorial forest. The 'Viver elides past with now and then a swirl and a gurgle round g, hidden snag, a pigeon coos from the "'top of a tawa tree, the little tomtits flit from bough to bough, chirping cheerfully, and the call of the tuis and the makomakos is heard. The bushman is not sentimental. Doubtless, these sounds are music to him, but he is inarticulate to express his emotions. The sound he loves best is the deep fleshy thud of the axe striking to the heart of a noble tree, followed by the crash when the tree falls; and the eight, he loves best, is the bush laid low and the cheque that lesults. The pigeon to him represents a pleasant change in the menu Irom the tough steak and the recurrent chop. The morepork is useful, because it kills the bush rat that preys on the camp, and the other birds are pretty ornaments too .small to be worth the shooting. The bushman has no time for sentiment. THE WAYFARERS. The party trudges along the track over a clearing, where turnips are growing amid the recumbent logs. A turnip is not amiss for refreshment, and tops and peelings strew the track. Taking turnips is against orders, but a hungry man will stop at little. After the clearijuj, more bush on the flat — then .a whitewashed wooden building with wide overhanging eaves comes into view. It is Macgregor's store. Mr. Macgregor ha* • the contract for supplying the camps, and he does it at rates cheaper than those ruling in Waitotara township. The bushmen get meat for threepence a pound, which is somewhat better than they would do in town. Other things are similarly reasonable, and stores are to be delivered within a radius of two miles, so that the bush camps should not go short. POLING UP STREAM. At Macgregor's three canoes are moored by the river bank. Into one of these the surveyors, who are conducting the party up the river, step to continue their way by water. The bushmen swag it on round the bluff and into the skirts of the forest again. They are told to wait at a certain spot lor the canoe, which is to take them and their belongings across the river to. their particular camps. The current on the river is swift through the recent rains, and it would be useless for the three men to paddle. So Mr, Price takes the pole — a rough sapling about 12 feet long — and goes to the bows. Mr. Neilson, the young overseer of the bush contracts, who is there to see that the agreement and specifications are properly carried out, sits in tfie stern and steers. The third party is a passenger, and takes up fiis position amidships on a bundle of. stores. He holds a pea rifle out of harm's 'way in case of a capsize. There is every- chance of that in a muddy river infested with snags. SNAGS AND RAPIDS. The voyage commences. The man ■with the pole runs tip to the bows, plunges it 'in and turning runs back to midship, pushing hard all the way. The canoe takes a leap and a swerve corrected by a turn of the steer paddle. Snags are grazed, and in a rapid one is chopped off with a slasher head to make room for the canoe. It is impossible to go midstream, as the water is far too deep. As it is, under the banks, fringed with weeping willows, the pole sometimes fails to find bottom, and must be -used as a paddle to assist the steersman, who then works with a frenzy of' energy until shallower water is reached, and poling begins again. A FERTILE VALLEY. The -river winds like a snake from side to side of the narrow valley, leaving rich flats first on, one hand and then on the other. 'The high banks show thirty feet or so of fertile alluvium. Anything will grow on such soil, and the climate, apart from a somewhat heavy rainfall, is ideal. There is little or no wind, no frost worth the mention — simply a warm steamy atmosphere — giving birth to luxuriant growth. The coastal downs, bare and swept by every wind of heaven, are far bleaker. The Waitotara valley is sheltered by its high enclosing hills, clad in bush from top to bottom. On the flats are great patches of beautiful mamaku ferns leiHiing over the edge of the river I bank, or peering out of a wilderness of j tindergrowth. Large trees are not num- | erous. The bush is mostly tawa, whitey wood, hinau, and other smaller trees. The crests of the ridges are usually crowned with birch, so that no valuable timber will be lost in the falling. Various scenic reserves are useful as well as ©rnamental. They are situated gener*ally on steep papa-sandstone cliffs and bluffs, where nothing- could grow if the bush were fallen. They will keep some of the beauty of the valley, when the rest goes, and they will hold the retaining walls firm from slips, which might prove very destructive to the road planned along the side of the river. It is through this wild, almost tropical, scenery that the canoe passes up the river. White vapours are still curling out of the rank growth on the hillsides, and all around there is nothing but bush. Thus the canoe, after arduous efforts against a rising river, reaches its destination.