SAMUEL BUTLER AS SHEEP FARMER

Evening Star, Issue 21240, 22 October 1932, Page 2

SAMUEL BUTLER AS SHEEP FARMER

A CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT [From ‘The Times.’] The following extracts are from the diaries of the late Edward Chudleigh, who sailed to Now Zealand in 1861. From the Plains of Canterbury he frequently climbed the gorges to Samuel Butler’s mountain stronghold of Mesopotamia, to holj) Butler with his work, or to keep him company'. The diarist, who was the son of a Cornish rector, was just nineteen when he landed in the country, and had been educated at an English public school. His spelling and punctuation are faithfully followed here. The little leathercovered books in which his daily doings and impressions are recorded are stained with rain and the mud waters of Hooded rivers, and worn with long miles of travel in a saddle bag. Except for having “ sold Mr Butler two bullocks at £ls a head ” at a chance meeting during a cattle drive across S. Canterbury (April 26,1862), Chudleigh’s first recorded meeting with Butler occurred on December 3 of that y r ear, at Mt. Peel, the 100,000 acre run at the foot of the mountains, belonging to Mr J. B. Acland, where Chudleigh was then a “ cadet.” Butler, twentysix y r ears of ago, and quite without fame, seems to have made a curious impression on him: — “Mr Butler, the person Pattisson lives with, came here to-day he is one of the cleaverest men in N.Z. he is a little man and nearly as dark as a Mowray (Maori), and is at present very 7 nearly if not quite an infidel, and yet 1 believe would not do a dishonourable thing to save his life, ho admires a man that sticks to his belief no matter what it is.

“Dec. 17. We wont on horseback to the out-hut, 20 miles in the hills, Irvine and I went on to Butler’s, 5 miles further up the river. Butler’s house is surrounded by hills, 7, 8 and 9 thousand ft. tho tops covered with snow a very grand sight indeed.” A throe-days’ exploration further into the mountains follows, during which the diarist finds the remains of four moa, and secures three of the gigantic leg bones, “ one for Butler.” Then he and Butler ride eighty miles through difficult country, enlisting shearers. Two men are rescued from the swollen rapids of the Rangitata, which looks “ awfully dreary,” and the horses sometimes “ lie down with fright ” when scrambling down the dizzy cliff tracks. At the end of January, 1863, all hands are hard at work from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m, bringing in tho sheep and shearing them. On Saturday afternoon tho diarist “ had to set to with the gloves for the edification of the station” with a half-caste Maori of “ enormous strength ” but “ beautiful temper,” and on Sunday “ Butler gave me a little book called tho Rocky island ” to read during hours of rest.

“ Feb. sth. An awful storm appears to be brewing, the wind is getting up, and inkoy-black clouds are gathering. 6th. Tho hurricane that followed came up to the mark. It blew great guns, and took a deal of thatch off our house. Butler could look from his bed through the roof, a large price being taken clean off.”

The following Sunday, being very fine,” is spent in a tour round Butler s property, and the following description of the country which inspired ‘ Erewhon ’ is given :

“ I saw some most beautiful and grand scanery. I was on a hill about 1 500 ft above the Rangitata, the snowtopped hills rise B,oooft and 9,000 ft on my right and left, then lovely valleys covered with hush that you can follow up till thev die away in the blue of the distant mountains whoes tips shoot up into a sky of spotless blew, at my feet there is fine undulating country spotted with small lakes or lagoons, and then como the Rangitata plains. The river loses its dreariness in distance and looks fit for any picture, here downs come in again, which very gradually riso into endless snow. . 1 cannot describe the grandeur of this place. 1 wish 1 could paint it.” This was the brighter side or the picture, but Mesopotamia was a place of moods. For four days the weather held up the shearing, and then ChudIcigh had to go down the mountain to another job. Mis hoi’se had been lamed, and then, the night before he left, had departed in search of quieter pastures, so he had to borrow Butler’s Sultan, “ a very springey horse,” which, however, carried him without stirrups satelv through clouds of sand and showers of sprav, whipped up from the rivers, and through great black drifts of smoke from ‘‘ an enormous fire on the plains, blottin" out every landmark on the track when darkness overcame him. Meetings with Butler are recorded fairly frequently during the ensuing months : in the little storm-wrecked hut up at Mesopotamia; at Mt. Peel; and at Mr Charles Tripp’s station house, where Mrs Tripp (Bishop Harpers daughter) found his “ peculiar nature and'wild theories upsetting ” and did not like it when Butler tried to convert the maid to his ideas,” ns she has loft on record. But “ho played the piano beautifully, and would do so for hours. The next entry of outstanding interest does not occur until March 10. 1864. when the two met by chance in Christchurch : “Reached town early. Had a long talk with Butler on various subjects. I think he is gone us far as man can go now, he is an ultra-Darwinian, he thinks Darwin in 200 years hence will bo looked upon as a most wonderful philosopher, and possibly n prophet, he does not believe the Bible to have been written by men under the influence of divine inspiration, but by good men, ho thinks it a book, for all social and moral purposes, full of moral truths, and a hook to be followed. I think lie docs believe in an almighty something, somewhere; he does not believe there is a colossal etherial being, that pervades all space and matter, whoes person would pass through the densest matter as unconscious of resistance as a feather in a vacuum, he thinks the time will come when man, a very different being to the present worm, will look back on ns much in the same light as wo look on the Silurian Epoch, the names of all the great men that inlluonce the world will bo forgotten but their influence will be handed down from age to age, modified and infinitely improved, just as we feel the influence of the first invention of the lever, wheel, and pulley. Give the Work! time, an infinite number of epochs, and according to its past and present system, like the coming tide each epoch will advance on each, but so slowly that it can barely be traced, man’s body becoming finer to bear his finer mind, till man becomes not only an Angel but an Archangel. “ Hero ho said, My dear hoy you arc quite right to maintain your own opinions."but you cannot blame me for doing, as I do, holding such opinions. I shall not do it (a thing 1 had been talking to him about) because i do not think' it right, I do right because 1

think it wrong tn do otherwise. ‘ Rieht ’ is that which agrees with the law and interest of man, and I suppose, human instinct is to tell one right Ironi wron'r This point Ido not finite comprehend. I have not used his language but these arc some of his views.”-