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The last thirty-five miles over fine grassy plains, well adapted for sheep-runs; and water could, I think, be easily procured by digging, as well as from the river. 7th. The three natives ran away this morning, or at least left us without asking leave. We had to keep watch all last night over the horses to keep them from rambling.
Subscriptions were raised for building a Cathedral in Christchurch; but so dear was both labour and material, that 7,000 pounds barely sufficed to lay its foundations. The paramount anxiety in men's minds seemed to be to secure land. Sheep-runs in sheltered accessible parts of the country commanded enormous prices, and were bought in the most complicated way.
It may be that he is the oldest dog in the universe; his origin, his descent, the place where his ancestors first appeared, are as unknown and as untraceable as are the camel's. He is the most precious dog in the world, for he does not bark. But in an evil hour he got to raiding the sheep-runs to appease his hunger, and that sealed his doom. He is hunted, now, just as if he were a wolf.
If he is brought to cold hill-country in Australia his coat at once begins to coarsen, and his wool is therefore not so good. As you pass the sheep-runs in the train you will probably notice that they are divided into paddocks by fine-mesh wire-netting. That is to keep the rabbits out. The rabbit is accounted rather a desirable little creature in Great Britain.
I was bitter against him, and went without trying to say good-bye. 'My son's fortune seems to have been made chiefly out of horse-dealing and what they call "land-grabbing" buying sheep-runs over the heads of squatters, to be bought out again at a high profit.
The occupied and improved portions of the country skirt the seacoast on the southern and eastern sides, which are covered with cities, towns, villages, and hamlets. The country occupied for sheep-runs and cattle-ranches is very sparsely inhabited. The reason for this is obvious, since the owner of a hundred thousand sheep requires between two and three hundred thousand acres to feed them properly.
The number of emigrants increased rapidly, but the new system threatened ruin to the owners of sheep-runs.
Well, so long as all the stations or sheep-runs continued unoccupied, and new settlers arrived, the price of sheep kept naturally very high; but every station that can command a due supply of water, is now in occupation, and consequently the demand for stock has ceased.
It was the custom of the "bushmen," i.e., bullock-drivers, sheep tenders, and the other white hands who worked on the sheep-runs up country, to sign articles by which they agreed to serve their master for one, two, or three years at so much per year and certain daily rations. Liquor was never included in this agreement, and the men remained, per force, total abstainers during the whole time.
But sheep-farming called for the employment of many fewer hands; proprietors dispossessed small tenants to make large sheep-runs; migration from the rural districts to the nascent manufacturing centres was not a simple matter; and thus there was no little distress, and a great multiplication of beggars and vagabonds.
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