ade us leave off even then, though we had not
tasted food all day. The gentlemen took an old ewe, who could not stand,
though it was not actually dead, up to the stable and killed it, to give
the poor dogs a good meal, and then they had to get some more rails off
the stock-yard to cook our own supper of pork and maize.

The next morning was again bright with a warm wind; so the effect of the
night's frost soon disappeared, and we were hard at work directly after
breakfast. Nothing would induce me to stay at home, but I armed myself
with a coal-scoop to dig, and we made our way to the other "mob;" but,
alas! there was nothing to do in the way of saving life, for all the
sheep were dead. There was a large island formed at a bend in the creek,
where the water had swept with such fury round a point as to wash the
snow and sheep all away together, till at some little obstacle they
began to accumulate in a heap. I counted ninety-two dead ewes in one
spot, but I did not stay to count the lambs. We returned to the place
where we had been digging the day before, and set the dogs to hunt in
the drifts; wherever they began to scratch we shovelled the snow away,
and were sure to find sheep either dead or nearly so: however, we
liberated a good many more. This sort of work continued till the
following Saturday, when F---- returned, having had a most dangerous
journey, as the roads are still blocked up in places with snow-drifts;
but he was anxious to get back, knowing I must have been going through
"hard times." He was terribly shocked at the state of things among
the sheep; in Christchurch no definite news had reached them from any
quarter: all the coaches were stopped and the telegraph wires broken
down by the snow. He arrived about mid-day, and, directly after the
meal we still called dinner, started off over the hills to my "nest of
Cockatoos," and brought back some of the men with him to help to search
for the sheep, and to skin those that were dead as fast as possible. He
worked himself all day at the skinning,--a horrible job; but the fleeces
were worth something, and soon all the fences, as they began to emerge
from the snow, were tapestried with these ghastly skins, and walking
became most disagreeable, on account of the evil odours arising every
few yards.

We forgot all our personal sufferings in anxiety about the surviving
sheep, and when the long-expected dray arrived it seemed a small boon
compared to the discovery of