We found the Ashburton high,but lower than it had been;in one or two of the eleven crossing-places between our afternoon and evening resting-places we were wet up to the saddle-flaps--still we were able to proceed without any real difficulty.That night it snowed,and the next morning we started amid a heavy rain,being anxious,if possible,to make my own place that night.
Soon after we started the rain ceased,and the clouds slowly uplifted themselves from the mountain sides.We were riding through the valley that leads from the Ashburton to the upper valley of the Rangitata,and kept on the right-hand side of it.It is a long,open valley,the bottom of which consists of a large swamp,from which rise terrace after terrace up the mountains on either side;the country is,as it were,crumpled up in an extraordinary manner,so that it is full of small ponds or lagoons--sometimes dry,sometimes merely swampy,now as full of water as they could be.The number of these is great;they do not,however,attract the eye,being hidden by the hillocks with which each is more or less surrounded;they vary in extent from a few square feet or yards to perhaps an acre or two,while one or two attain the dimensions of a considerable lake.There is no timber in this valley,and accordingly the scenery,though on a large scale,is neither impressive nor pleasing;the mountains are large swelling hummocks,grassed up to the summit,and though steeply declivitous,entirely destitute of precipice.Truly it is rather a dismal place on a dark day,and somewhat like the world's end which the young prince travelled to in the story of "Cherry,or the Frog Bride."The grass is coarse and cold-looking--great tufts of what is called snow-grass,and spaniard.
The first of these grows in a clump sometimes five or six feet in diameter and four or five feet high;sheep and cattle pick at it when they are hungry,but seldom touch it while they can get anything else.