nd ride was much longer, and if possible a more disagreeable
one. It began just in the same way; we were again decoyed out by
sunshine and soft air for a ride round the run, starting about half-past
ten. The scenery was beautiful, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.
The track lay along our own boundary fence most of the way, and we had
ridden about ten miles, when we stopped at one of our shepherds' huts,
technically called an out station, and accepted his offer of luncheon.
He gave us capital tea, with an egg beaten up in it as a substitute
for milk, cold mutton, bread, and a cake; the reason of these unwonted
luxuries was that he kept fowls, and I was very jealous at seeing two
broods of chickens out, whilst mine are still in the shell. This man
is quite an artist, and the walls of his but were covered with bold
pen-and-ink sketches, chiefly reminiscences of the hunting-field in
England, or his own adventures "getting out" wild cattle on the Black
Hills in the north of the province: he leads an extremely-solitary
existence, his dogs being his only companions; his duties consist in
riding daily a boundary down the gorge of the river, which he has to
cross and re-cross many times: and he has to supply the home station and
our house with mutton, killing four or five sheep a week. He is employed
out of doors all day, but has plenty of time in the evenings for reading
I found him well-informed and intelligent, and he expresses himself
exceedingly well. We rested here an hour, and as we went outside and
prepared to mount, F---- said, "I really believe there is _another_
sou'-wester coming up," and so there was: we could not go fast, for
we were riding over a dry river-bed, composed entirely of loose large
stones. Every few hundred yards we had to cross the river Selwyn, which
was rising rapidly, as the storm had been raging in the mountains long
before it reached us; on each side were high, steep hills, and in some
places the river filled up the gorge entirely, and we had to ride in the
water up to our saddle-girths. All this time the rain was coming down
in sheets, but the wind grew colder and colder; at last the rain turned
into snow, which speedily changed us and our horses into white moving
figures. Eight long weary miles of this had we, only able to trot the
last two, and those over very swampy ground. In your country a severe
cold would probably have been the least evil of this escapade, but here
no such consequence fol