Tales Told by an Early Pioneer

Lake County Mail, Issue 10, 30 July 1947, Page 12

Tales Told by an Early Pioneer

A Plague of Mice The time was fast approaching when the bustling digger was to disturb the smoothness of our life on the Wakatipu, but before that desecrator of pastoral quietness had put in his appearance, another torment, almost as formidable* 'had overrun the station. On January 1, 1862, the first mouse Avas seen on the shores of the lake, but we little thought what that NiSf Year’s gift Avould grow into before many* mouths had gone by. Yet before the month of July, the country was

swarming with the little pests, and

nothing Avas safe from their mischievous attention. Strange to say, however, _ at Mr - -Won Tunzlemann’s no such thing hacTbeen seen-up to that time, although the breadth of - the lake- divided the stations.,.,

I -am not a professional mouse fancier nor indeed am I amateur, so I will leave to the professional the task of explaining how it was that the mice came there and increased so rapidly in numbers. I have heard of showers of mice, as I have heard of showers of frogs, and I have read of mice spontaneously springing into life, but these theories we rejected for the more commonplace one which we believed in, namely, that a few mice had been concealed in the bags of the flour which we got up from Invercargill and these, once set at large at the home station, soon produced the legions of tormentors that we afterwards had to contend with. Bucaneer Towards the end of September, 1862, I. was sent down country to bring up a horse belonging to Mr Eees from the south end of the lake. Old Bucaneer was a sort of pensioner, having been in Mr Rees’s possession all the time he had lived in Australia, and had carried all his colours to the front more than once over a steeplchase course. Some years previous to this he was sent over from Australia and had been foundered Shortly after his arrival by a stupid ostler from the stables in Dunedin, who took him, when newly landed after a long voyage, all round the sides of Flagstaff Hill looking for lost horses and jumped him over every paddock fence that came his way between Flagstaff and . the Commercial stables in' Dunedin, Since then he had done but little work and had been running at Mr Wentworth’s Punjaub station. I was accordingly despatched to try to bring the old horse up to the homestead and Mr Wentworth kindly allowed a Mexican boy, belonging to the station, to accompany me as he knew it would bo a difficult journey. It was on September 29, 1862, that the boy and I with old Buccaneer, scrambled up the Devil’s Staircase, and at considerable risk of life and limb, fossacked our way through grim collections of loose rocks, known to us by the name of the Devil’s Lumber Box.

We had hoped to reach the peninsula, •f]»«slto the station, that evening, but were unable to accomplish the object as Buccaneer was too tired to go fast, and so we were obliged to camp out.

First Diggers on the Lake Next morning we met three men with swags , on their backs, and picks and •hovels in their hands, who looked as if they had not seen food for days, which was indeed the case, and yet the first thing they said when they saw us was not a request for food, but “Have you any tobacco'?” I, of course, had none, but the Mexican had, and lie handed it over to them and then we gave them also what little food we had remaining. As we sat talking they informed iis that they had followed the Kawarau up from the Dunstan diggings and were very anxious to get on to Fee’s country. I told them that Mr Kcct? was to be at the foot of the lake that day, and if they pushed on and nuked him, he might give them a life in the boat, which they accordingly did, and Mr Eces gave them a sail up to the station, and having supplied, them with provisions, sent them off to the Arrow River. The leader of the party was William Fox, and thp township which sprung up on the Arrow after-

wards, for. many years went by the name’ of Fox’s.

As soon as I got Buccaneer safely on to the station, I went out to Hayes Lake again, where George and Mitchell had been staying together, and a few days after my return four men Avho Avere engaged in prospecting for gold came to the lint. It turned out that one of these men was a MacGregor, formerly lessee of the Taieri ferry, and in whose employ Kijgour had been, and it was supposed that in correspondence with each other Kilgour had mentioned that Maori Jack had found 11 the colour ” in, all the rivers in the Lake District, and MacGregor and his mates had decided to push on and try if they could not do better than the Maori had done. These settled doAvn at the Arrow Gorge, alongside Fox and his comrades and another party headed by a Captain Glen. Panning Out a Trial Dish The first day I had at my disposal after ray return —the Bth of October, 1862, I rode across to ArroAV to see how the diggings Avere getting on, and Fox giving me a tin dish, told me to Avash a trial dish for luck. Putting a slioa--elful of earth from under a tomatagarra bush groAving on the bank of the river, into the dish, he told me to Avash aAvay, showing me lioav to twirl the dish, gradually allowing the earth to float aAvay, at the same time retaining the gold and the black sand. Being a novice at the \vork I was naturally awkAvard, and Fox laughingly told me that I Avas washing all the gold aAvay as Avell as the refuse; but, granting such to be the ease, the fact remains that I panned out of that one dishful nearly four pennyAveights of fine gold. It Avas my first and only attempt at gold digging, but there are feAv people, I fancy, Avho have washed out such a rich sample for their first attempt.

From this time the solitude of the Lake and the quiet aiid peaceful life of the pioneers were .things of the past, and- daily more diggers arrived to swell the crowd at Arrow. These drew their supplies chiefly from Dunstan-Clyde, but got their mutton from us at Hayes Lake, where we had instructions to sell live sheep to them at the price of one ounce of gold and half a crown, the whole being equal to four pounds sterling. This, of course, gave us much more work, and a man named Ned, with only one hand, was sent out to look after the rams, a duty George had had to do. These were yarded every night and this was the cause of murder being almost committed. One morning a man came to the hut in a great hurry, wanting a sheep. I told him we would get one in shortly, but he declared he had no time to wait, and would take one of those in the yard. We scouted the idea, and laughingly told him that these were rams lie had seen there; nothing would satisfy him, however, but he would take one of them. Ned in the meantime had gone away to> let the rams out of the yard, and when he was doing so the man rushed up and stopped them as they were on the point of going out of the gate. Ned told him to stand aside, but he declined to do this, and at last Ned, losing his temper, shook the iron stump which he had on his maimed arm in the man’s face, and said he would “ knock daylight through him ” if he stopped the sheep again. It was ,no use, however, the man was obstinate, and laughing his one-armed man to scorn, ho jumped in front of the sheep, when Ned, his eyes blazing with anger, stepped up to him, and crash came that awful stump of his through the double guard which the man had tried to make with his two arms, and planted itself in the middle of his face, knocking him down, like a bullock. It was well that he was a thick-skulled speci-

men of the Irish race, for an ordinary head would have been split with such a blow, but, concluding that he had had enough, he allowed Ned to go away with the rains unmolested, and waited patiently till we had brought in some sheep, from which we picked one. On another occasion a man rushed into onr hut when George was in the act of kneading dough wherewith to bake a batch of bread. Without saying “by your leave,” he seized a lump of the dough and devoured it, and again went for more. George stood appalled, whilst Mitchell and I laughed at the poor fellow’s eagerness, although he was no object of merriment, with his hollow cheeks, his staring eyeballs and his ragged clothes —all evidence of a protracted fast and a rough and toilsome journey. Having satisfied his appetite, he told us that he had been without food for five days, and that the misery he had endured had made him decide to give up digging for ever. He then sold his shovel, pan, and dish, etc., to Mitchell for 30s, and next day he went up to the Arrow to see if he could get employment there. Before one could havp thought he had time to be back, he came running down the ridge behind the hut and insisted on rebuying his digging utensils from Mitchell, saying that those at the Arrow were simply coining money, and, that every minute he was away was a pound out of his pocket. Mitchell let him have his tools, and poor old “ Rough and Tumble,” for such was the name he went by all over the diggings, went off with joy in his heart to make the “ pile ” which I saw him some months later doing his best to spend at the bars of the Queenstown hotels. (To be continued)