ourse with one
bullock, which we actually did succeed in getting to the stockyard as
night was falling.

Here, unfortunately, we found the yards closed and no one by to open
them, and whilst I dismounted to take down the rails, the infernal beast
once more bolted, apparently as fresh as ever, and notwithstanding all
our endeavours to overhaul him darkness and our jaded horses failed us,
and we had no resource but to wend our weary way to the homestead, three
miles up the river, disappointed, dead beat, and hungry.

We were most hospitably received by Mr. and Mrs. Ben Moorhouse, with
whom for genuine kindness and hospitality few could compare, and they
invited us to stay with them a day or two, which we gladly agreed to do.
It was a real treat to pass any time in such a lovely locality and with
such friends. The homestead was built on the river bed flat, a natural
park covered with shrubbery palms, pines, and forest trees, along which
on one side the turbulent Rangitata rushed in a confusion of waterfalls,
whirlpools, and cascades, amidst huge masses of rock, and beyond which
rose precipitous hills with their lower portions clothed in richest
vegetation. The views up the gorge from this point were enchanting, but
I will take another opportunity of describing some of the mountain
scenery of the Southern Alps, the grandest in its own peculiar form of
any in the world.

Mr. Ben Moorhouse was one of three brothers, two of whom were squatters,
and the eldest superintendent of the Province of Canterbury. They had
all been some years in Australia, and were exceedingly fine men over six
feet in height and built in proportion, good shots and experts at most
games of strength and skill, not amongst the least of which was the
science of boxing. We were treated the morning after our arrival to a
lesson with the gloves, subsequently often repeated, and following this
we had turns each in trying to ride a very clever buckjumper, a late
purchase.

The faculty of buckjumping is, I believe, almost confined to Australian
horses, and seems to be bred in them--perhaps the original rough
breaking was responsible for the vice; but whatever be the cause it was
then a fact that eight out of every ten horses could and did buckjump,
and with many of them the vice was incurable. An experienced buckjumper
will decide as the saddle is being put on him to get rid of it as soon
as possible without any apparent reason for such reprehensible conduct