Through South Westland/Part 1/Chapter 7

by A. Maud Moreland

CHAPTER VII.

THE HAAST PASS.

Gone are the forest tracks, where oft we rode
Under the silver fern fronds climbing slow,
In cool, green tunnels, though fierce noontide glowed
And glittered on the tree-tops far below.
There, ’mid the stillness of the mountain road,
We just could hear the valley river flow,
Whose voice through many a windless summer day
Haunted the silent woods, now passed away.

W. P. Reeves.

My ferryman rode with me half a mile along a bit of newly-made road. He stopped in front of a house with wide verandah; a path led up to the door between gooseberry bushes and rambler roses, and immediately across the road the bush closed in once more, but for several acres round the house it had been burnt, and rich green grass grew between the blackened stumps. Here and there a giant totara or a rimu that had survived the fire, threw a pleasant shade for the cows and the many calves that strayed about. The house itself was scarcely finished, just a farm in the making, wrenched from what had been a few years back, dense bush. At the gate my guide, as a matter of course, lifted me off my horse; his brother Mr. Cron came to meet me from the house, while his wife stood smiling a welcome from the verandah. Introductions don’t take long on the Coast, but they were exceedingly interested to know how we had got over the Haast—and then I was led into a fresh sweet room, all hung with white. In a few minutes my hostess returned with a dainty tray, some strips of toast, and a welcome cup of tea. I remember the impression the d’oyly on the tray made on me, and that cup of tea was just what I was longing for. Then she brought me hot water and some thick cream (which she said would cure my mosquito bites), and left me to get into dry garments. I was surprised to find my pack was dry, though it had been under water. It was very late when we finally sat down to supper—a supper to be remembered! There was roast goose, beautiful bread and butter, cream and cakes—and I really think that for once our appetites did not disappoint our hostess! And when I laid me down that night in the cool clean sheets, with a mosquito-net arranged over my head, I felt it was worth all we had been through in the hut and on the road, and better than resting “weary limbs at length on beds of asphodel.”

Next day I spent with my hostess. There were some necessary washing and repairs to be done for both of us, and Transome was busy putting the camera to rights (which he did not succeed in doing) and exploring along the Haast.

My hostess was a marvel to me. She was the only woman in the settlement, and besides her husband she had several men to “do” for. Everything was orderly. Cows milked, pigs and calves and chickens fed; the children attended to and taught, and brought up to take care of each other and themselves. Even the baby of two years old sat up at table and fed itself solemnly. Busy from morning till night, yet never hurried; and her low rippling laugh broke out unexpectedly over the least thing. Her big husband could scarcely bear her out of his sight, and appealed to her over everything. All her life she had lived far down the Coast (she had been born only eight miles off)—she had never travelled anywhere; and many a chat we had.

It was a delightful place to stay at. Just enough sea in the air to make it invigorating; and a sense of remoteness, as of a world apart, filled one with a great peace, and forgetfulness of the minor worries of this life.

I was bent on going farther—there were those olivine rocks and Cascade Point, and even remoter solitudes farther south; but Transome had been making enquiries: there were seventy or eighty miles between us and the farthest possible point; time would not admit of it, and he promised he would bring me back another year. So I had to content myself with one more stage of the Main South Road before we turned our faces homewards across the pass.

There was a breezy joyousness in the air as we set out for Okuru next day—even the horses seemed to feel it. We rode, first through the cleared land, then through swamp and sand dunes to the shore, and the tide being high our progress was but slow in the soft sand. At high tide there is a long string of pools, into which the big combers rush with terrifying force; they kept poor Tom in a desperate state of nervousness as we splashed through. I was glad when a post directed us to a lovely woodland way, under high spreading trees and welcome shade. It was really a “made” bit of road, and we cantered off gaily, glad to be off the shingle of the beach. Quite suddenly we came on a deep, blue river, whose waters were backed up by the high tide—we could see the waves breaking in sheets of foam over the bar at its mouth. It was a lovely scene, this lonely blue water, as it curled and rippled under the trees and varied growth of the banks; but we could see no further road, nor ford, nor post to mark one. Reluctantly we retraced our steps back to the beach, and rode on until we came to a shed; and in the shed, oh! surprising Okuru, a telephone. Of late these useful inventions for summoning help to cross the rivers had usually been defunct, so it was with doubtful eagerness we rang. We waited five minutes—ten—another ring and this time an answering one came, and we went down through sand hills to a landing-stage. There, across the lagoon, lay the little settlement, shut in by bush and backed by purple mountains. A river empties itself into the lagoon at either end, and Okuru lies between them. I cannot describe the peaceful loveliness of that spot. The water lay calm and blue at our feet, with the forest, the tree-ferns, and wooden buildings on the farther shore mirrored in it. A jetty, built on black piles, ran out into the water, and one or two boats were drawn upon the clean yellow sand. Some children were playing in the ripples at the edge, and a boat was just putting off from the landing-stage. It seemed the embodiment of peace. Years ago this place was surveyed, and a town mapped out; but it came to nothing, and the clearings have mostly gone back into bush, and only a few houses remain. Yet it is one of the few harbours a small steamer can enter on the Coast. Well, one day that little railway will come even to Okuru, and it will grow fast enough then!

We watched the boat slipping silently across, sending long lines of ripples wavering over the glassy surface. As it neared we saw it contained a passenger, who stepped ashore, and introduced himself as the schoolmaster. His coat was slung at his back and he carried a knapsack, and explained that in the long summer-vacation he spent his days tramping, thus visiting all his acquaintances. And whether it was 200 or 500 miles he covered in his six weeks’ walk, I can’t remember: he spoke airily of vast distances and scorned a horse. We chatted for some time; he told me of his school-children, whom he loved, and lamented that, now they were all growing up and leaving him, his school could no longer boast of nineteen, its maximum. This man, who had travelled all the world over, was content to till this small corner, cut off from all the world. I thought I should like to teach school in Okuru!

Then we put our saddles in the boat, the two horses followed willingly, and swam behind us to the opposite shore. Near where we landed was a large house—once the hotel. Some beautiful dark-haired children were playing about—one, nursing a very brown baby, might have been a southern French child, and indeed I found they were descended from a French settler. She led me up to the house, chatting all the way, as the West Coast children do: telling me of her six sisters and two brothers (the boys who had rowed us over). Here we had some lunch and then walked to the house of another settler, whom we had already met. He had sent a letter by us to his wife, but it did not need that to ensure us a welcome from Mrs. Powell.

It was washing day, and the lady stood surrounded by kerosene tins, each one boiling on its own little fire; she received us stir-stick in hand, and pressed us to come in—if only for a cup of tea. She also pressed us to come back, and indeed I should have loved to stay there. But time was flying; we had still one more visit to pay—to the oldest settler in the district, Mr. Nolan. We heard he lived a mile up the river, but it was a very long mile, and the heat was very great. For the first part of the way we were hemmed in by bush, then we came to clearings. There were good grass-paddocks, with big trees left at intervals, and sleek cattle standing and lying down in the shade. Beyond that was the forest, closed in by purple mountains, and in the foreground some substantial outbuildings, painted red. Then the homestead, with the original little cottage standing close by. I walked up to the door, where flowers grew bright and gay on either side; and when I knocked, it was opened to me by a lady with a very puzzled face. But in a moment it changed to one of welcome, and she was pressing us to come in, and bustling about getting tea ready. She sent for her husband—Irish like herself. “What’s this you’re giving them?” said he; “where’s the whisky? Is it tea ye would be setting before them?” However, I was allowed to have my tea, and we sat for half an hour, hearing of the old days when they took up the uncleared land, and how they brought up their large family, all now married and settled. We talked of the old country, too, but they both said this was the better—yet there was a wistfulness as the old man spoke of that other green west coast so far away. “A man has a chance to better himself here,” said he, “and something besides his name to leave his children when he’s gone. I wouldn’t go back to the old country if I could—to live there.”

Transome left me here and returned for the horses, as we found we could cross the river now the tide was low. My host insisted on walking to the ford, talking the while of those early days, and the hard fight with Nature; when stores came down at rare intervals in a coasting vessel, and they had to be very self-sufficing. One learns to reverence such lives—lived thus in the wilds, yet keeping fresh and clean the ideas of home and religion, honesty and justice. Then the horses came round a bend and we said good-bye; his last little act of courtesy was to cut me a riding switch of supple-jack, and hand it to me as we rode away. When we entered the Okuru there was but a foot of water, and at the point we had reached in the morning we found a sunny stream, rippling over shingly shallows, where then it had flowed a deep, blue river.

I did so want to go farther—not to have to turn homewards; but it was not to be—and perhaps after all it left a glamour over this last day—the glamour of the unattained; always the thing longed for is greater than the thing achieved, as the seeking is an intenser pleasure than the finding.

The people of the West had welcomed us everywhere, had bidden us come back to them; but would we ever come?

Ah! little Okuru, lying in the sun by your lagoon, where the daily rise and fall of the tides is the chief event; with your children playing by your sunny waters, and the big mountains sleeping around you; will you ever draw us all these leagues again?

When we reached the shore the tide was out, and the horses set off at a gallop. Behind us a squall was working up from seawards, and in front the distant headlands, one behind the other, looked blue and unreal, their trees seeming to hang in the air, unattached to earth—a curious effect I had noticed once or twice before. Soon the first drops of rain fell, and in a few minutes it was lashing us fiercely, with the wind driving the sand in clouds along the beach, and when we got in we were as wet as though we had been in the Haast. There was a nice old man sitting in the kitchen, as I went in to leave my wet riding-things to dry. He seemed very pleased to see me, and reminded me we had met him a long way back, when he had been journeying on foot to make application for his old-age pension. “And I hope you got it,” I said. “Oh, aye, they gave it to me right enough,” and went on: “D’ye know a place they call Newtonairds?” I assured him I did. “Aye, it’s a fine town, and the Airds is a fine country. Scrabo Hill’s a fine hill, whiles I wisht I was there.”

“There’s Newtonairds that bonnie toon
That sits aboon the sea.
An’ Scrabo Hill, o’ high renoon,
Wha hides my luve frae me.”

Afterwards I heard how he had saved a good sum of money for his old age. Then came some smart speculators, who floated a bogus company to

prepare flax-fibre—even sent down machinery and engaged men to cut flax. When they had cleaned out the savings of many a trusting West Coaster, they decamped. No one was ever brought to justice, and my nice old man from Newtonards lost his all. He was living with the ferryman and his brother, and everyone was very kind to him. We had engaged the ferryman—Ted, as I must call him—to guide us over the pass. It did not seem to matter at all about the ferry; our old friend would take charge, and nobody but the mail-man was likely to want to cross in the next fortnight.

That was a gala night. Another goose was cooked for us. Some of the men from the Survey Camp up the Haast came in. One of them (whom I found to be the father of the beautiful children at Okuru) brought me a handkerchief full of exquisite ferns, some of which 1 had not seen before. He had a passion for ferns, and promised me a dried collection. I have it still, a reminder of that night. We sat late talking, while the storm raged outside. This man, with his love for ferns, and for the untrodden mountains where he had climbed and prospected in years gone by, described for us in vivid language the practically unexplored region west of Mount Aspiring. He spoke of wonderful ice-falls, of great glaciers, of a river that shot full-grown from beneath an arch of ice; of ice-caves, and a vast blue ice-fall where thousands of tons plunged into an abyss with deafening roar. “Aye,” he said, “and the finest sight I ever saw was the top of Mount Aspiring, where it rises up like a great silver cone against the blue.” We questioned him eagerly, could we see it? “Yes,” he could take us there, but it meant camping, with stores and outfit. The idea remained in our heads—the idea of the Silver Cone.

Next day the storm was past, a serene blue sky spread overhead, and we gathered, a little group at the gate with the waiting horses, till Ted should appear. We bade farewell to our kind host and hostess, who were greatly concerned that there was no whisky in the house to tender us a parting glass, and at seven o’clock, no Ted appearing, we rode away down a long green alley in a bush-grown swamp. The going for us was slow, with mud holes every few yards, but in about an hour’s time we heard the pad of horses’s hoofs, and Ted came cantering up. As usual he said little, merely remarking he had heard we were at Okuru, storm-stayed, and then took command of the expedition. He quickened our pace, and I rode after the big, stalwart figure sitting straight and square, legs dangling, only toes in the stirrups; and how that mare of his could cover the ground! She was unshod, and but a three-year-old, caught a short time back in the river-bed—where the mares and foals run practically wild. Ted could talk when it came to talking about his mare! And he told me in three weeks he had broken her in, and ridden her in the Christmas races on the sands, where her great strength had carried her far ahead of lighter horses. Now she was his willing slave. She would stand all day where he left her. She loved to snuff at his tobacco smoke, and if he stood talking on the track, her big velvet nose was continually poking him in the back, demanding attention.

“Don’t you ever shoe the horses?” I asked.

“They’re better without shoes—those of yours will be about worn off by the time we get through, and this mare’s hoofs are as hard as iron. They run in the river-bed all the time when they’re foals,” Ted answered.

The going, when we got out of the swamps and among the foot-hills, was of the worst: a constant succession of sudden dips into peaty bottoms full of interwoven roots, up stony, steep ascent—always under the dark, heavy bush canopy. For a short way the track would be fairly dry and even, then more ups and downs, and a sudden plunge into the river-bed below. Sometimes this gave us half a mile of good going on sand or grass, but more often the long grass grew rank, and the horses forced their way through it breast high. We passed"“Mosquito Hill” on the opposite shore, heavily covered with trees; it was somewhere below that we had tried conclusions with the Haast. Looking back now from the entrance to the gorge it looked a beautiful, fertile valley some miles wide, and little sign of the cruel river that has taken more toll of wayfarers than almost any other on the Coast.

Leaving this open part, the track once more became a narrow path, lined by tall ferns of many kinds; the high trees met overhead, and every space was filled by loops and twisted ropes of creepers and lianes. Everything was climbing upon something else, struggling upwards for its share of air and sunlight. It seemed almost dark coming from the blaze without. Ted was some way ahead, Transome had stayed behind in the river-bed, and I rode alone in this shadowy forest. Suddenly I heard voices, and I could see Ted had dismounted, and standing by the track were four or five men, drawn up to welcome us to the Haast and invite us to a repast at the Survey Camp. Two of our friends of the night before were among them. They said they did not mean the only lady to cross the Haast should go through the pass without being entertained! So dismounting, I was led to a clearing. They had only shifted camp that morning, the swags were still rolled up, and the tents had not been pitched—a picturesque medley of bundles and cooking thing lay about. They made me sit on a roll of tents, and Transome, coming up, on another. The cook was recklessly tearing open his stores searching for delicacies; another man tried to open a tin of pears, and failing that, attacked one of pine-apple. In a few minutes we were grouped about, sitting and standing, lunching off girdle scones, currant cakes, pine-apple, and “billy” tea, and everyone was anxious to talk, all so keen, so interested. Some of them

Photographed by kind permission of the Authorities, from specimens in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, N. Z.

had been in camp for months without a break; others had been on this Survey for several years. It is a hard, rough life; felling trees, making tracks through the unknown mountains, fording and swagging on foot, shifting their camp from place to place. Yet all but one seemed full of life and cheerfulness.

“All that he has in camp or homestead proffers
To stranger guest at once a stranger host,
Proudest to see accepted what he offers,
Given without a boast!”

But I saw Ted furtively looking at his watch and I knew that we must not linger. Transome was deep in a discussion over the miracles at Lourdes; and there were so many things these men could tell me, that I was loath to go. I asked them about the kiwis—those strange wingless birds whose feathers are more like coarse hair than those of feathered fowl. They told me in the early days they were common everywhere, but that the stoats and weasels (introduced to kill out the rabbits on the east coast) have spread into the woods, and the kiwis get scarcer every year. They are night birds with immensely long beaks curved downwards, made for probing in spongy moss or soft earth. They only hatch one egg I believe, because it is nearly as large as the body of the adult bird! Of wekas or Maori hens there were plenty. They are very fearless, and often will come into camp, stealing anything they find small enough to carry off. Once a man had laid his set of teeth beside him on the grass, and a prowling weka snatched them up, and ran away with them. There was a hue and cry, but the weka had the best of it, and he saw his teeth no more. They have curious eyes, red like rubies, and the wings are but weakly developed—they often reminded me of a hen pheasant whose tail had been plucked out, and they can run quite as fast.

By this time Ted was making signs that we must go, so we bade farewell to the hospitable camp, and went back to where we had left the horses by the narrow track. I found here one of the loveliest lace-like ferns I had seen—full two feet or more in height, and tapered to the point from ten inches at the base, and was so fine, it was like a fairy network. It was past eleven o’clock, and for nearly two hours we journeyed on. The gorge was narrowing, the mountains getting steeper. In some places they were quite precipitous, and glorious waterfalls came leaping from the rocky heights above. A mid-day rest was called on a grass flat in the river-bed, where the horses could eat their fill. Then on again, and towards evening we were coming down a descent above a clearing. Ted had dismounted to let down some bars, when suddenly I saw smoke arising through the trees. I called to him that someone must be camping in front of us. He said nothing audible, but with a perturbed look went off to investigate. I followed more slowly. In a little clearing stood a hut no bigger than the Blue River hut, but more dilapidated outwardly—

for this one had no door at all—Ted’s head was inside, and he was gesticulating and enforcing silence on someone within. I heard the words “Lady, Shush—hush!” repeated many times, so I forebore to go on. Presently Ted’s head was withdrawn, and an elderly man came out half-dressed, who gave me a scanty greeting, and disappeared round the hut. I dismounted, wishing Transome was not so far behind. There was still somebody else inside, and that hut could not hold five—at least I hoped I should not be one of them if it did! And now the second occupant came out. He was attired in riding breeches and an old Norfolk jacket, and carried his stockings in his hand; he was completely stuck over with “biddies”—the hateful little hooked seeds of a species of acæna, that cling so persistently nothing but scraping with a knife will dislodge them. He greeted me cheerily in a broad Scotch voice, and held up his stockings for my inspection. They were a veritable mat—he said he was thinking of hanging them in the sun for a fortnight, perhaps then he might get the biddies out of them! His great solicitude was to give me tea. Soon he and his man had the billy boiling and had foraged out some mugs, and when Transome rode up we were drinking tea, and chatting on most friendly terms.

We had chanced on the chief surveyor going down to join his camp. He was travelling light with only a swag of blankets and very little food. He and his man had had a hard day: they had found all the creeks and smaller rivers in flood owing to the heat. The usual crossings were unfordable, and long detours had had to be made—climbing through the bush, fording rivers up to their armpits—and they were just getting into a change of clothes when we arrived. Hearing all this, when the surveyor announced his intention of sleeping in the bush, we protested strongly. Here were we quite fresh, so were the horses: we would go on to the second hut seven or eight miles further, and leave them to dry their clothes and smoke their pipes in peace.

But the surveyor only laughed. “I‘m a bushman,” said he; “I haven’t seen my home for four years. I’m as happy sleeping in the bush as in a bed; and I’ll get the best of it anyway, for you’ll get all the mosquitoes inside!”

It was useless talking, so we invited them to share our food; we had plenty of roast goose and hard-boiled eggs, which the surveyor said were quite a treat to him. The accommodation inside was extremely simple. There was just a platform about a foot off the floor filling more than half the space. This was covered with fern, and along the edge of it we sat most amicably, eating our goose in our fingers (but Ted cut slices of bread and butter for me). In front of us was the wide cavern of the chimney, where logs blazed cheerfully. It was getting so cold I was glad to sit within, for we were now among high mountains, where the snow lies all the year round. Mount Alexander, opposite to where we were, runs up to 8,000 feet. The surveyor was a very mine of information. He told me of the tiny, short-tailed cuckoo, whose home is in New Guinea. It is but a couple or three inches long, yet it travels all those weary leagues of sea to nest in these remote solitudes, “and the ‘why’ of this,” said the surveyor, “is raising a very large question. Whether it was all land once, and the birds acquired the habit of flying south to nest; or a succession of islands, where they flitted from resting place to resting place—let the scientists tell us. Certain it is, we bushmen can tell the date of the month when first we hear their long-drawn whistling note—they arrive to a day, year after year, in their accustomed haunts." He told me, too, of the shining, or long-tailed, cuckoo, who also hails from New Guinea. It is a larger bird, mottled brown and white, and both have the habit of laying an egg in other birds’ nests, but neither has the cry of our bird at home. In both species it is more like a whistle. There was so much 1 wanted to know; secrets of the forest that unfolded a little to me now and then, but closed again before I grasped them. But we had all had a long day; the surveyor said “good-night,” and went out to where his man had lit a big fire under the trees, and where, he assured me, they would sleep sound, rolled in their blankets. Ted had a rug with him, and, protest as I might, he insisted on spreading it for me in the corner of the hut; and here, propped against my pack for a cushion, I passed the night. For a long time I did not sleep, but lay thinking of the day’s ride; the dark forest; those sheer mountain walls and the tiny track going on and on between them. The mosquitoes hummed in my ears (though they were not the blood-thirsty terrors of the Blue River hut)—from time to time one of the men knocked the ashes out of his pipe, or got up to replenish the logs; and, between sleeping and waking, I heard their voices in a low-toned conversation, that like the track, seemed to go on endlessly. Then it grew very cold, the mosquitoes stopped humming; and when I awoke again, the hut was empty. A cold, grey light was growing outside; the door-less entry became “a glimmering square,” and I shivered as I collected my hat and gloves, and began setting out the remains of last night’s supper. Then Ted came back, and brewed a billy-full of cocoa; the surveyor appeared—more dishevelled, and still covered with biddies, but cheerful as ever,—and assured me they had passed an excellent night, disturbed neither by mosquitoes nor frost.

Outside, the foliage was delicately frosted with silver, and the hut’s roof white with rime; behind the mountains on the right of the gorge the sun was rising, flushing the snows on Mount Alexander. While the others busied themselves getting the horses saddled and the packs adjusted, the surveyor and I watched the rose turn to gold, then fade, and the peaks glitter sharp and pure against the sky. All the valley below was filled with blue mist slowly drifting along the bases of the mountains. It was all so lonely, so remote. Then the horses were led up and we parted with many hopes we should meet again, and once more we took our Indian-file way through the forest.