Now we follow up one branch of the Ashburton,and commence making straight for the mountains;still,however,we are on the same monotonous plains,and crawl our twenty miles with very few objects that can possibly serve as landmarks.It is wonderful how small an object gets a name in the great dearth of features.Cabbage-tree hill,half-way between Main's and the Waikitty,is an almost imperceptible rise some ten yards across and two or three feet high:the cabbage-trees have disappeared.Between the Rakaia and Mr.M-'s station is a place they call the half-way gully,but it is neither a gully nor half-way,being only a grip in the earth,causing no perceptible difference in the level of the track,and extending but a few yards on either side of it.
So between Mr.M-'s and the next halting-place (save two sheep-stations)I remember nothing but a rather curiously shaped gowai-tree,and a dead bullock,that can form milestones,as it were,to mark progress.Each person,however,for himself makes innumerable ones,such as where one peak in the mountain range goes behind another,and so on.
In the small River Ashburton,or rather in one of its most trivial branches,we had a little misunderstanding with the bullocks;the leaders,for some reason best known to themselves,slewed sharply round,and tied themselves into an inextricable knot with the polars,while the body bullocks,by a manoeuvre not unfrequent,shifted,or as it is technically termed slipped,the yoke under their necks,and the bows over;the off bullock turning upon the near side and the near bullock upon the off.By what means they do this I cannot explain,but believe it would make a conjuror's fortune in England.How they got the chains between their legs and how they kicked to liberate themselves,how we abused them,and,finally,unchaining them,set them right,I need not here particularise;we finally triumphed,but this delay caused us not to reach our destination till after dark.