RURAL RAMBLES,

Otago Witness, Issue 2104, 21 June 1894, Page 22

RURAL RAMBLES,

By C. N. B.

Off THE ROAD TO MACRAES.

From Palmerston we set out for Macraes via Dunback. The road to Dunback iB very good indeed, as Mr Arkle, the mayor of Palmerston, remarked at the banquet with pardonable pride. From Dunback to Macraes it is otherwise. Going up the hill we slid back one foot in every three, but coming down Thomas put his feet together and slid down with that exhilirating motion that one enjoys when tobogganing. There was a very strong wind blowing, and we found the sleet decidedly damping, but our crowning misfortune overtook us about half-way. M/ papers, sketch-book, &c, had been tied in brown paper to the lappel of the saddle. This parcel somehow came undone, and I was compelled to dismount and chase the scattering papers, draggiug Thomas after me, greatly to his surprise and indignation. Anyone who has chased 50 single sheets of paper in a very strong wind, dragging an utterly bewildered and protesting hor«e after him the while, will sympathise acutely with my plight. I had to drag Thomas with me because the nearest tree was about five miles away, and I dared not leave'him alone. My one solatium was that we had no audience — no one to laugh at our utterly idiotic and imbecile rushes and the wild and ill-chosen selection of words from onr objurgatory vocabulary.

Macraes is not quite as lively as London or Paris, butib has its excitements. One of the boys in the town sometimes takes fits, and occasionally gives an exhibition in the middle of the crowded thoroughfares, and sometimes a pig escapes from its pen and wanders at large at its own sweet will. Indeed it is said by some of the older inhabitants that once while the boy was having a beautiful fit in the gutter an errant pig came down the street in full flight, and it is computed that the rival shows attracted about equal numbers. ' Nenthorn, which is hard by, is a veritable New Zealand "Deserted Village," and stands as a memorial of an unwise " haste to be rich." It wil be a Nenthorn in the Bide of certain speculators for many a long day. The road from Hyde to Eyeburn is decidedly interesting if the Taieri and Kyeburn rivers are in flood, as they were when we went through. The Kyeburn especially is a very awkward ford. On ordinary occasions there are three little streams, but in flood they unite into one raging, rushing, and surging torrent, which is sometimes absolutely unfordable.

At Kyeburn we were invited to a "swaggor" dance. There were three or four girls and about 14 representatives of thq opposite sex, and the dancing w*g of an extremely interesting kind. Nearly all the square were converted into round dances by a proceßs of " hugging." Milton,-who possibly was not an authority on dancing, invitts one to Come and trip it, as you go, On the light fantastic toe. And verily they did "trip it" as they went, and although the toes of the dancars were anything but light', they were undoubtedly somewhat fantastic. These simple folk at Kyeburn are still in the state in which onr first parents were — Ere yet the Devil, with promise fine and false, Turned their poor heads, and taught them how to waltz. The music was supplied by two fiddlers. The first performed an air, and the second played second fiddle without unduly distressing himself as to key sigoitures or intervals. The playing here, however, was entrancing when compared with the accompaniment to the dancing at the Waikouaiti Assembly. A gentleman there played a cornet, and throughout one entire quadrille thepianiste (a young girl of about 12) vamped in three- quarter time, making frantic efforts the while to keep with the cornet, who of course played in common time. But if the cornst plajed in time this is the only virtue that could be claimed for him, for he never once played in the same ~key as the violin and piano. It was the most appalling thing we have ever heard, and we suggested to the M.C. the advisability of posting up a placard such as is need in the backwoods of America :—: —

Gentlemen are requested not to shoot the Orchestra. He does his beat.

The people in the country seem to take a fiendish delight ' in misleading the confiding wayfarer, "flow far is it to Naseby?" you ask. " Ob, about five miles. Straight road ; you can't go wrong." You ride on for about an hour and you jneet a man on the road, and he replies to the same question in much the same way. Yet another half hour and you arrive at a hotel. It is now quite dark, and this time they tell you that you are on the wrong road. " This is Eweburn, and, you are on the road to Kyeburn." Then they re-direct you. "Perfectly straight road ; you can't go wrong, sir." After you have gone about a, mile you find your perfectly straight road branch off at right angles into i two. You remember the advice of bushmen» to let your horse take his own way. You give your horse his head, and he, without a moment's hesitation, takes — the wroug road, and you find yourself ultimately in Wedderburn, 12 miles from Naseby. Then there is another trouble. The district of Waihemo is supplied with finger-posts. The posts are put up at any junction of road where it is almost impossible for tho traveller to go astray, but in the places that offer a real difficulty there is no post, and although you go astray you cannot, urge a post hoc, propttr hoc. Then, again, one P-'&t just half-way from Wedderburu to Hill's Creek bears the legend on one finger '•• Hill's Creek," and on the other " Palmorston." *To be" consistent it should either read " Hiil'a Creek— Wedderburn," or "Palmerstou — Clyde." As it is it might just as well be " Wedderburn— Wanaka," or "West Coast," or even Tasmania for that matter. But possibly my country readers are better posted up in this subject than we are, so I shall postpone any further remarks until such time aa we set in order the third chapter of our book of the chronicles of Thomas and me.