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Updated: May 31, 2025
There was no such thing as getting one's sea-legs; for we were seldom more than a few hours outside, and had no chance of getting used to the horrible motion. Timaru was reached next day, but we had suffered so frightfully during the night from a chopping sea and an open roadstead, that we went on shore, and entrusted ourselves once more to the old coach.
Strange to say, this did not make him any wilder in manner that he could not be; but after we started again he became extremely friendly with me, addressing me invariably as "my dear," and offering to "treat me" at every inn from that to Timaru.
Timaru was reached very late, and the best accommodation at the inn placed at our disposal. Still, in those distant days there was no such thing as a private sitting room, and we had all to eat our supper in the same rough-boarded little apartment.
What more natural, therefore, than that Cappy presently should find himself caught in the maelstrom, even though he told himself daily that, come what might he would keep out of it. The first indefinite evidence that he was about to be engulfed came in the form of a newspaper story, ex the steamer Timaru, from Sydney, via Tahiti.
However, his head was turned in the right direction; there were no obstacles in the way, and before he got tired of his pace we had left Timaru a good many miles behind us. F looked complacently at the "Hermit," and observed, "He'll carry you very nicely, I think." I could only breathe a sincere hope that he might. It was a beautiful day, warm but not oppressive, and delightfully calm.
Whenever we came to a little dip in the road, or a sharp turn, as we were nearing Timaru, he would get the horses under control as if by magic, and take us over as safely as the soberest driver could have done; the moment the obstacle was passed, off we were again like a whirlwind!
It was some time before the terrified women could be induced to get into the coach again; and it was only by Jims asseverations, couched in the strongest language, that if they were not "all aboard" in half a minute, he would drive on and leave them in the middle of the plains, that they were persuaded to clamber in to their places once more. How thankful I was when we saw the lights of Timaru!
I fully expected them to blow away, for I could not spare a hand to hold them; but I watched my opportunity when he was punishing the unfortunate fresh team, and pounced on them, thrusting the dirty heap back into his great-coat pocket. At the next stage a very tidy woman came out, with a rather large bundle, containing fresh linen, she said, for her son, who was ill in the hospital at Timaru.
This eccentricity delayed us very much; but we got him into a better frame of mind, and accomplished our early drive of sixteen miles in safety, reaching the accommodation-house, or inn, where the coach from Christchurch to Timaru changes horses for its first stage, by six o'clock. There we had a good breakfast, and were in great "form" by the time the coach was ready to start.
During our few days sojourn at Timaru we made another addition to our party in the person of a man named Fowler, whom, at his urgent request, we permitted to accompany us in our now proposed expedition to the gold diggings.
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