A short time after I got up to the Rangitata,I had occasion to go down again to Christ Church,and stayed there one day.On my return,with a companion,we were delayed two days at the Rakaia:a very heavy fresh had come down,so as to render the river impassable even in the punt.
The punt can only work upon one stream;but in a heavy fresh the streams are very numerous,and almost all of them impassable for a horse without swimming him,which,in such a river as the Rakaia,is very dangerous work.Sometimes,perhaps half a dozen times in a year,the river is what is called bank and bank;that is to say,one mass of water from one side to the other.It is frightfully rapid,and as thick as pea soup.
The river-bed is not far short of a mile in breadth,so you may judge of the immense volume of water that comes down it at these times.It is seldom more than three days impassable in the punt.On the third day they commenced crossing in the punt,behind which we swam out horses;since then the clouds had hung unceasingly upon the mountain ranges,and though much of what had fallen would,on the back ranges,be in all probability snow,we could not doubt but that the Rangitata would afford us some trouble,nor were we even certain about the Ashburton,a river which,though partly glacier-fed,is generally easily crossed anywhere.