OLD MEMORIES OF NORTH CANTERBURY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18544, 18 August 1928, Page 23 (Supplement)

OLD MEMORIES OF NORTH CANTERBURY.

MR MARK BARRELL WAS BORN IN CH’CH. IN 1856,

Described by MARK BARRELL. Written by H. Beattie. (PART II.) In the former instalment, Mr Barrell gave some recollections of his school days in Rangiora from the year 1861 onward for several years, and incidentally of the life lived by the pioneers. Boyish memories impressed on the brain in its young and plastic state retain freshness right through life, and many a one who was a child in the pioneer days in New Zealand can give a better description of the everyday state of affairs that existed than could those who underwent the experiences as adults. Plain Far*. The question of food looms large to a hungry boy, and Mr Barrell well remembers that there were no sweetmeats then, and to the fact that there were no chocolates or lollies for them to eat, that generation can attribute their better teeth. What food they got was plain, wholesome and simple. Bread was home-made, and was baked in a camp oven as a rule. There were very few vegetables in those early days, and for a reason not commonly suspected by later comers. His father was a practical gardener, and gave the vegetable patch a good trial, but for four or five years in succession before sparrows were liberated and became common he could not raise a cabbage of any sort because the blight was so bad. This is a good word for the anathematised and despised sparrow. In the sixties, pork and bacon were more usual on the table than butcher’s meat, which in some cases would be provided once a week as a treat. One thing that there seemed to be no lack of was cheese, and it assumed an importance in the daily dietary out of all proportion to its relative use to-day. Other Foods. In addition to the foods enumerated and others which could be bought at the grocer’s, such as rice and sago, etc., the larders of the early days were stocked with an abundance of what may be called natural food—-that is, food not introduced by the white man, but produced by the country he found himself in. What was called Maori cabbage grew like rape alongside watercourses, and was good eating if boiled. It was very abundant along the banks of the Cam, but has long since died out. Wild pigs were not found in the vicinity of Rangiora, but some could be got about ten miles away. If caught wken young, the wild pigs could be trained to come when called, and to follow their owners like dogs. The pioneers used to eat plenty of silver eels in those earlv days, as they could be caught in any stream or lagoon, and were the only fish available besides whitebait. As a general rule, the small eels were better eating than the large ones. A friend who was *' bobbing ” for eels caught a nice one, weighing 101 h. and gave to the narrator’* mother. She boiled- it in two or three waters to get the oil _ out of _ it, and then put it in a large jar, salting each layer and covering the whole with vinegar. “It ate beautiful,” says the narrator, and he smacks his lips as he thinks of his boyish relish for it. The present scribe has also tasted eel prepared by a pioneer lady, and is prepared to vouch for its excellent qualities and delicious flavour, yet we find existing among most young New Zealanders an unreasonable prejudice against eating eels. Table Birds. The native birds were numerous then, and provided many a succulent meal. . Jvakas and tuis were in great numbers in the Rangiora bush, but, strange to say, there v/*.re very few pigedns. Aquatic birds thronged the waterways, and could be got without much trouble. Once the narrator shot three swamp hens with one shot not that he intended to, but the birds were so thick that he could not help himself. He only saw one bird, and shot at it, but when he advanced to pick it up he found three dead birds, to his intense surprise. The paraciise ducks bred in the flax beside the creeks all round the Southbrook district, and near Tuahiwi was a favourite haunt of these b lrc *s. After the harvest, the birds would come on to the stubble left by th*s sevthe and sickle cutting of those days, and would eat the grain dropped by the harvesters On one of these occasions his father shot a drake which weighed 91b. It was as big as a young goose, and, needless to add. was given an honoured place in the culinary deparment. Plover and stilts were also numerous in the and, as the young ones provide good eating, they

1 TOere killed to help fill the pioneer cooking pot. • Bird Life. Not only were wild ducks in abundance through North Canterbury, but hawks, which seemed to live principally on ducks, were very numerous also. Among the small birds, robins were extremely plentiful,, but now they seem to have gone altogether. A little brown bird used to play among the raupo, and the boys called it “ little tweets ” or “ tweedles,” but he has not seen one for many years. The narrator has seen the New Zealand quail, but very few. The introduced pheasants became very plentiful in the seventies, but later died out. He once found three nests among the peas in the garden, and, as the eggs of two of them were fresh, his mother made a cake with them. They were very rich, and the cake was cjuite a treat. He put the remainder of the eggs under a hen, and hatched out nine chicks, which he kept under a coop for a month and then liberated the little pheasants, fondly imagining that they would stay around, but, to his disappointment, the call of the wild was too insistent, and the birds disappeared. His father stopped the children from touching the eggs of* the wild duck, as he was a gunman, and not an egg collector.

Another memory connected with birds is that in the early eighties there was an invasion of parrakeets for which he never heard any reason or explanation. At the end of harvest the birds literally descended on the district in thousands and devoured all the .fruit and. everything edible they could get hold of. Next year one or two paid another visit to the locality and then they vanished, never to return. At the height of the invasion they made a chattering noise that was almost deafening. Short Commons. About fifty years ago Mr Barrell passed through the experience of living on woodhens (or wekas) for three davs, when no other meat was handy. This was about the month of May, when he was in the Waterton district, near Ashburton, assisting a Rangiora man who was running a threshing mill there. There were no swamphens (or pukaki) in the vicinity, so a start was made on the woodhens, which _ were lured with a red rag and snared in the Maori way. “I did not like them,” says Mr Barrelh “They were too oily for my taste an 4 it was the one and only time I ever ate them.” Speaking of that edible waterfowl, the swamphen, it was reported through North Canterbury many years ago that a nugget the size of a small pea had been found in the crop of one of these birds, shot at Cust. As a result the Cust creek was searched from end to end by men who had visions of a new gold rush, but no traces of the precious metal were found. A Fish Tam. Most districts have traditions (or legends in some cases) of big eels caught in the waters within their boundaries, but the heaviest eel ever taken in North Canterbury, as far as Mr Barrell knows, was one weighing 281bs. The pioneers used to tell of some labulous monsters taken at this or that place, but it was done in a jesting spirit. One such yarn concerned a huge eel said to have been caughl at Lake Sumner. All hands and the cook pulled it ashore, but unfortunately there was no weighing machine in the district capable of recording its tremendous weight. So that posterity would not fail to have some idea of the dimensions of this great eel, those telling the yam would say, “I am sorry I cannot give the exact weight of this eel—l only know the lake went down a foot when it was pulled out.” The Clothes They Wore. In the early sixties men wore as a rule white moleskin trousers and blue serge jumpers which came to the waist, while the head was covered with a low-crowned black, wide-awake hat. The police wore practically the same clothes as the ordinary Civilian, with the exception that there was a red stripe on the shoulder of the jumper to distinguish them. Dungarees did not come in till the eighties, as far as Mr Barrell remembers, but corduroy was a material used in the very early days, with Bedford cord for Sunday wear’. Boys were often clarl in the of father” and they went iiito long trousers at an age that would not be dreamed of now. When the narrator was a small boy he recollects the women wearing the celebrated crinoline, and took boyish notice of the fact that they hampered rapid movement and were very awkward when the wearers were going through narrow doors.

Draught Animals. “You scarcely saw a horse in the early days,” says Mr Barrell, “as bullocks were so much used. My father ploughed with two bullocks, and I drove them. The first animal I ever rode on was a bullock and it was veryrough riding. The biggest fright 1 ever remember was when I was five or six years old. I saw part of an ani mal’s head and two long ears sticking up over the edge of a gravel pit. I bolted as fast as my Legs could carbine. hut on looking round I saw a clonkev coming up out of the pit, and I was soon all right again. The gravel from that pit went to form the first roads in Rangiora.” (To be concluded).