Previous - Next

the seaboard. The part known to Europeans consisted of a coast-line
about eight hundred miles in length (affording three or four good
harbours), and a tract of country extending inland for a space varying
from two to three hundred miles, until it a reached the offshoots of an
exceedingly lofty range of mountains, which could be seen from far out
upon the plains, and were covered with perpetual snow. The coast was
perfectly well known both north and south of the tract to which I have
alluded, but in neither direction was there a single harbour for five
hundred miles, and the mountains, which descended almost into the sea,
were covered with thick timber, so that none would think of settling.

With this bay of land, however, the case was different. The harbours
were sufficient; the country was timbered, but not too heavily; it was
admirably suited for agriculture; it also contained millions on millions
of acres of the most beautifully grassed country in the world, and of the
best suited for all manner of sheep and cattle. The climate was
temperate, and very healthy; there were no wild animals, nor were the
natives dangerous, being few in number and of an intelligent tractable
disposition.

It may be readily understood that when once Europeans set foot upon this
territory they were not slow to take advantage of its capabilities. Sheep
and cattle were introduced, and bred with extreme rapidity; men took up
their 50,000 or 100,000 acres of country, going inland one behind the
other, till in a few years there was not an acre between the sea and the
front ranges which was not taken up, and stations either for sheep or
cattle were spotted about at intervals of some twenty or thirty miles
over the whole country. The front ranges stopped the tide of squatters
for some little time; it was thought that there was too much snow upon
them for too many months in the year,--that the sheep would get lost, the
ground being too difficult for shepherding,--that the expense of getting
wool down to the ship's side would eat up the farmer's profits,--and that
the grass was too rough and sour for sheep to thrive upon; but one after
another determined to try the experiment, and it was wonderful how
successfully it turned out. Men pushed farther and farther into the
mountains, and found a very considerable tract inside the front range,
between it and another which was loftier still, though even this was not
the highest, the great snowy one which could be seen from out upon the
plains. This second range, however, seemed to mark the extreme limits of
pastoral country; and it was here, at a small and newly founded station,
that I was received as a cadet, and soon regularly employed. I was then
just twenty-two years old.

I was delighted with the country and the manner of life. It was my daily
business to go up to the top of a certain high mountain, and down one of
its spurs on to the flat, in order to make sure that no sheep had crossed

Previous - Next