CANTERBURY ACROSS THE HURUNUI.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5714, 19 June 1879, Page 6

CANTERBURY ACROSS THE HURUNUI.

Tnv or* iuA.YBU.iKa mvouteb.J no. m. . , “This article can bo confidently recommended to tho public- ■a* combining ■ in an eminent degree tho uscfuland tho ornamental. I have somewhere at some time come across thi> above observation, but whether, it was applied to Otenfleld’s patent starch, to Singer a sewing machines, to American Cabinet organs, or to double-furrow ploughs, I am not at the moment in a position to ear. “in an eminent degree” the utilitarian tendencies of our time; and I make use of it as an introduction to “this article” for tho simple reason that it is (singularly mappropriafo. There Uno merit whatever m finding an appropriate quotation 5 ono baa only to invest iu a “ Newspaper Readers Companion or a " Many Thoughts of Many Mmd«, or any other of tho books expressly designed to relieve one from the trouble of thinking, to discover an apt and fitting comparison j but a direct inversion of this mechanical process is involved in the art of hitting upon a text that shall embody a contradiction of tho context, and yet withal reconcile tho two. By a process which may bo considered autocratic, but possessing tho merit, so far asthe writer is concerned, of being convenient, I reconcile the mercantile quotation with which I have set out with what is to follow, by at once stating that it is not my intention to combine “ in an eminent degree ’ —nor in any degree, eminent or otherwise —“ tho useful and the ornamental.” Since writing tho last of the papers that appeared in tho Lyttelton Times under tho title that heads this column, the exigencies of my profession have compelled me to travel far and wide, and I have had much to think of besides Canterbury, whether on this or the other side of tho fiuruntti.

•* Par hae I ridden. An' mnoklo laio 1 ♦e;n, and I return to tho subject feeling that to some extent the thread of my discourse has been broken, and that I must, as our seafaring friends have it, “make a new departure.” This is the difficulty I am in : Looking over my note-book, I find minute memoranda with reference to such very practical things as, let us say, railways, woolsheds, and landingservices, mixed up in the most admired disorder with references to rare glimpses of the ocein, to wide-ctretching views from mountain tops, to musings amid the desolation of broad river bods, ihe first-mentioned are the “ useful,” the latter the “ ornamental,” and for the life of mo I do not see my way to combine them. Fancy explaining the gauge of a railway, and then describing a sea view that would have Byron! Imagine having to set forth in cubio feet the O-ipit-ity of a sheep-wash, and with tho next dip of the pen to paint a scene that might challenge a Claude Lorraine to put upon canvas ! Picture to yourself such oft-re-curring transitions from the practical to the sublime, end you will nob wonder that I elect tok.ep them separate and apart. Indue time, O most discriminating of readers, I shall tell you how many sheep Chromis runs to the acre, and what Mnasylus considers a specific for foot-rot; I shall dilate upon the pastoral joys of Tiiyrsis, and the Arcadian happiness of Corydon; I shall grow learned on the subject of scab, and will expound in strictly legal phraseology why Mecaleas does not sing to Mopsus—

Since on the do vcs oar flocks together feed. And since m> voice crn ma'oh jour tuneful reed. Why sit we not beneath the grateful shade, Which hazels, intermix'd with elms, have made. All this I hope, in due course, to accomplish; but, as has already been intimated, I am not inclined to mix up the works of man with the works of the Creator, and will, therefore, confine this paper to a description of such of the latter as most profoundly impressed me during my journey northward. Looking at any map of this island, the reader will observe on the East coast, a few miles to the north of the mouth of the Hurunui river, and immediately beyond a small headland, an elliptical indentation known to geographers as Gore Bay. The bay is at the present time the scene of a most important experiment in that particular branch of engineering concerning which Sir John Coode is, in these Colonies, supposed to be an authority. Of that, however, more anon, I shall now write of it as though the hand of man bad not been there. It appears on the map, as I have said, merely as a long elliptical indentation,extending nearly the whole distance between the mouths of the Hurunui and the Waiau. Passing vessels give this part of the coast a wide berth; consequently its beauties are known only to the very few persons who have visited it Irom landward. These —the beauties, not the persons—l am about to attempt to describe. But, first, let mo explain the circumstances that aroused my interest in Gore Bay, and led to my going there. It was a cat. A cat is not a circumstance, but the gentle reader will be good enough to overlook the litTe irregularity. While seated one evening in a tent on the banks of the Hurunui this particular tabby, after the manner of its species, made friendly overtures to me, which overtures I need scarcely sa-, were duly reciprocated. “That there cat,” said my host of the tent, “ came ashore from the wrack of the Glencoe on a boord, which that wrack are now a lyin’ down in GorejJßay, as a man might ate any day.” Now does any enterprising journalist, with a roving commission require further inducement than a shipwrecks i cat, a castaway hulk, and a picturesque bay to induce him to go a few miles out. of his way to visit the spot ? I trow not. A very few days after I had established an intimacy witti the castaway of the Glencoe found me a guest at the homestead of the Hon W. Robinson, within the boundaries of who-e Oht-vio . Estate Gore Bay is, distant fri.m the house some seven or eight miles. The opportunity was, of course, not to be lost. A c mipanied by a gentleman whoso name 1 shall hereafter have occasion to mention in connect ion with the landing service, I started one bright autumn morning for the bay. It was one of those glorious days that even in this favoured part of the world are as angel-’ visi's A sky not cloudless, but just flecked with fleecy cumuli that relieve the va-t. ei pause of blue ; a gentle breeze faintly rus'ling the rush-like leaves of the tall flax ju»t perceptibly undulating the dense fern on the hil! site . and passing like a shadow over the lagoon* i i the hollows; a clearness in the ai mowphiTt* i hat brings into sharp distincttic-* i e ordinarily rounded outline of distant in. lint tin range* ; a fcUIl wIIOSO rays are not -oa-d.-ni, hot»hat, whether walking or riding, on.- cun t»ring the energies into full play. Koch am ihe morning on which wo started tr.on tto* O.eviot mansion for the Coast, (liven, in addition, a good mount, an elastic turf, am an intelligent companion, and the I heart of t tie man wjiich does not I eat responsively to tin* joyousness of nature must indeed dad within him. For two or three miles w e canter along a valley lying between ranges of hills r mning nearly parallel to the coast lino , through which a pretty streamlet, the Jed', winds if# devious way—hero brawling in inimit-turo rapids, there spreading in long stretches of crystal shallows, anon stilled in deep po ol# beloved of tlie trout brought from then- tar Northern homo, and again plunging and 1 u)/i t/g riotously down some rocky gully that leads steeply to the sea. How that refrain of t he Laureate keeps repeating itself in unison wit.h the babbling of the water —

Men ok V come and men may go, i;nr. I go on forever. But above the rhjVmthical prattle of the Jed is a deep, grand, Jur-away cadence. At first it all uek< the sense —what particular sense it seems hard to say—like some vast pulsation of iml nre—one almost expects to see the solid ground tremble. Then it falls more distim-tly on the ear—it might ha the ru«h of a distant hurricane, or the tramp of “an exceeding great army.” -At lasL the pounding beat of the waves upOL 1 tbo shingly beach, and the hissing rush of the hack water c«n he clearly distinguished, and wo know that on the other de of the low range to our

left, the restless ocean is fretting itself against New Zealand’s eastern ramparts. B rtteg » stony track out through the only piece of natural bush on the road, the matohlose panorama of the Paioifta suddenly burst* full upon the view. For away down at oh* feet the groat rollons following ono anothor with % regular pertinacity that somehow suggests the embodiment of moroilewness, are vainly expending their concentrated force upon the shelving shore. You can trace the progrenof each mighty breaker. Miles away ft u a mere ripple, gently undulating towards the land, behind come other ripples, and that which wo are watching gathers volume and momentum os it comes nearer and nearer I prosobtly the ripple becomes a long, heavy swell, heaving its bosom higher and higher at each giant sweep t and then, as though eentlenl paring itself for one final effort, it rears aloft Tts proud head j along its curving orert the snowv foam for one moment flashes in tno sun, andin thenextitdaehcsltsclf on the firm beach, to bo thrown back high in the air in ang^,M6th. in* clouds of spray, again and again to retu.n to the attack until the vision of 1 atmos shall bo fulfilled, and it will be said, “ heaven and a now earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had pnsscd MW, tod there was no more sea.” To the n«H that is looking southward, the view of the coast line is broken at a distance of about three miles from where wo arc standing by a abort but bold headland, which, sweeping round towards tho north, shelters from tho dreaded south-easters a charming little inlet. Against this headkmd, ore their white mains arc reared, and while through their pellucid creels the sunlight yet flashes in brightest emerald and deepest sapphire, the waves dash themselves in ineffectual rage. And right into the little bay comes a long, smooth swell, that just lasily stirs the broad, brown pennants of tho algro that hero impart to the water its Bembrandtcsqu a brown, and expends itself in the gentlest and most dreamily musical of wavelets on the shell-strewn beach. Following the coast-lino northward from this enchanting spot, the eye takes in a magnificent curve of smooth beach stretching in one bold swoop right away to the Amun Bluff. Certainly* it is broken at one point by the estuary of tue Waiau, but that is far distant as to bo absorbed in the general view. Tho Amuri Bluff cuts off any further glimpse of the coast northward, until tho Kgikoura lifts its grand head proudly above the waters, and shuts out all beyond. Along the whole sea-line the hills come down so abruptly to the shore, that it is st but two or three places that a descent can be made. These lulls are backed by range upon range of mountains, rising higher and higher as they recede, until in the dim distance their snow-clad summits are hid in fantastic coronals of cloud. To tho northward, immediately behind the Katkouros, one stern, black peak lifts itself high above its fellows. A heavy bank of mist rests half-way up its precipitous side, and from its glistening white forehead tho sun’s brilliatit rays are defiantly thrown bock. It is tho Looker-On. When I first saw the name on a map it struck me as rather an ugly one, but now that Nature’s own panorama lay outstretched before me in all its living magnificence, I had to acknowledge its wonderful appropriateness. There it stands towering above its companions, isolated in mid-air, looking on over such a stretch of sea, such an expanse of sky, such a chaos of mountaintops as may be seen from few other of tho world’s vantage grounds. But the eye goes back from tho mountains to the ocean—of that it never tires. We have glanced along the white fringe of surf that bounds it where it meets the land; but who shall describe the immensity, bounded only by the finality of human vision P Hope, just beyond the snowy surf, of that delicately cunning compromise between the emerald and the sapphire displayed in loveliest of gems, tho aqua marine ; there, passing into a transparent green that becomes darker in the distance, until, by & series of imperceptible gradations beyond the power of the artist to paint, or of the poet to sing, all is absorbed in the “ deeply, darkly beautifully blue ”of the fathomless depths. To-day the ocean is an emblem of peace, and 1 bethink me of my “iEneid,” where Virgil, describing the quelling by Neptune of the storm raised by iEolus at Juno’s request, sings :

Bo when the father of the flood appears, And o'er the seas his sovereign trident rears. Their fury fails; he skims the liquid plains. High on bis chariot, and with loosen'd reins, Mcjcstio moves along, and awful peace maintains. Here, indeed, is “ awful peace " —the peace of “ the great waters,” and of “ the everlasting hills. Presently a passing wind, bringing with it a whiff of the briny, comes up from below, and as it strikes with refreshing coolness upon the face and hands heated with hard riding, those breezy lines of—l really forget whom—flash across the memory. The sea, the sea, the open sea ; The blue, the fresh, the ever free. Now, far out in the offing, but just rounding the Gore Head into view, comes a threemasted schooner, with a spanking breeze on her starboard beam—evidently it is blowing harder there than here—and a rollicking style of song is to the fore. Surely it was just such a scene as this that inspired Cuningham with the jovial song, redolent of the ocean, bracing as a “ southerly buster,” beginning — A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that fellows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast. But to mo the idea of jollity in connection with the sea is very evanescent. It is altogether too grand, too awful to be treated light ly and jauntily. There are some subjects, that cannot bo approached save in a spirit of awe and reverence. For instance, the man who could write of Niagara as Southey wrote, appropriately enough, otLodore would be a literary Vandal. The occupation of the sailor may bo a fitting theme for the pen of a Dibdin, but it taxed the genius of a Byron to paint the ocean in its majesty. Who does not know that splendid apostrophe— Thou glorioiiß mirror, where the Almighty’s form Glasses if self iu tempests: in all time, Calm or convulsed—iu breeze, or gale, or storm. Icing the Polo, or in tiro torrid olimo; Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime. Tho image of Eternity j the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy sllmo Thu monsters of tho doop aro made. Each zone Obeys thee—thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. I do not quite think that a complete course of Byron would bo a very healthy feature of our public school curriculum 5 but I do say that if every child could bo taught to appreciate t h o»c concluding stanzas of Child® Harold, commencing—

There is a pleasure in the pathless woode, There Is a rapture on the lonely shore, we should roar a race that would better know howto “look fiom Nature up to Nature’s God.”

Slowly wo co down the winding track to the beach, and I ride my horse into the surf. He is a splendid follow at a fence, but this big roller gliding steadily up to him ho doesn’t understand. He puts his head down to look at it, and snorts and paws as ho hears the hissing of its foaming crest. Presently it strikes him full on his brood chest—-ho stands seventeen and a-half hands by-the-way—and ho rears straight up in the air as the water boils under him and ourls over his flanks. He was frightened at first, but ho has learned that the waves don't hurt him, and when the next big fellow comes up it requires the very mildest persuasion of tire spur to send him at it as though it were a nost-and-rail. He takes it flying, and comes down plump in about three feet of water, sending the spray high in the air, whence it returns in an impromptu shower that I do not care to have repeated. By-and-bye, we tie up our horses, and wander amongst the huge boulders that have fallen ages ago from the overhanging cliffs, and are now either water-worn to a slippery smoothness, or encrusted with shells and swathed in many-tinted seaweed. Seating myself on one or these, just whore the biggest of the waves expend themselves in long shallow reaches, the old solemn mood that had momentarily been dissipated hy the bit of marine steopleohasing comes hack strongly upon mo, and a* the tiny wavelets fall rhymthically upon the over-shifting shingle, Tennyson’s lament for his lost friend, Arthur Hallam, adapts itself dirge-like to the sound. Whub is there in oar language more exquisitely mournful ?

Break, break, break At the foot of thy crags, O Be» I But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never coma book to me.

Than nnnm mm the min* wander* into ®SST eteradaptlnaftAlford’s nmiot, weird, ,*s Jg* o ®., known “ Hymn to the enoraf. « lr ® member aright— . . Ww^eokuS2«^ , *“^ f thou lm*t Bis am Wbk W# ft ■ sot with hta> Bub there is a etUlgmndor P°« r f “W 1 have yet quoted. There is an opto Umt wiU live when all other* have been forfiOttonjMd as I look out wistfully hero** the Rearing bosom of. tho Wroad; Faolflo, ofthe time when the nrophetiOi Wr* of the inspired writer sball be fulfilled* tod when it will be said, “The tea gate ußtha dead that were in it.” Am I tholes* a man that as m y mind goes backyear* and year* to the cruel separation of a certain fearful whiter', night in the wild North Atlantic, earth, and sea, and eky became lor the moment but a blurred and blotted vision P Let those who weary for the time when there ehall be no more sea what of the wreck P Well, there she lies—dl that remains of her. A battered old hulk i her side* twisted and men by suooesrive storms t her hold banked up wfthiand and ishiogle ( sea-weed and shell-fish clinging to her rotting timbers t in her stern a great gaping oavern j her decks ' up j and her maat jlong gone by the board, Ahrme I T think I could, with the assistants* of my friend the cat, weave # romance around this poor waif of the sea { bat she is, eo far a* I know, tho sole survivor, and is not communicative on tho subject of her adventures.