At a New Zealand Dredging-Station

— One of the curious things in a gold country is the widely different manner in which men proceed, under different conditions, with the search after gold. Even the least venturous of us understands by this time something of the characteristics of a “ rush.” Digger stories have at least fairly well acquainted one with the life of a gold field ; but the system of quartz-crushing, and again this patient mechanical dredging, brings in quite a new order of things. Here there is no rush ; nothing is left very much to any individual effort or enterprise. Dredging is decided upon at some orebearing river mouth or lake, and a company is formed to charter a dredge. So many men are employed, so much sand is passed through per day, without pause, without excitement. The old restless business of gold-seeking is turned here into a commonplace rational industry.

Yet, after all, there must be some things not quite commonplace, if one could put them into artistic form, about the life lived amongst such varied and characteristic colonial scenes. I date this from the banks of Lake -, in which our dredge is stationed for the present, with all about it a regular little colony, either working for it, or supplying the needs of those who work. Only ten miles to the south along the sea beach there is another dredge, worked by another colony, which admits of a great deal of Sunday visiting and exchange of politenesses in various ways between our staff and theirs. Further south still there is a third at work, but at such a distance, and so separated from us by rough country, that with this we can hold little intercourse. The men employed are either lodged in the dredge itself, or quartered with settlers in the neighborhood. The officers, if they may be called so, usually chum together in some hut within hail of their charge. Only one, the manager of the lake dredge, is lucky enough to possess a wife, — my cousin Margaret, with whom, in her first Christmas time from home since her marriage, I have come to spend my summer holiday.

Their cottage stands, bleakly placed, on a strip of land between two waters. In front we look out over the lake, with its smooth face churned up daily, by inches, it seems, in that wide space, by the dredging operations, or in bad weather, when work has to stop, all torn and beaten into waves by the storm wind. At the back, it is only a few minutes’ run to the sea beach, down which I myself make continual excursions in search of fine seaweed or shells. How often I have pitied poor Alton Locke, the London tailor, in his nature-starved longing “only once in my life to pick up a shell ” ! This is not, indeed, like one beach I know of in the North Island, near Wellington. To think of that is like a glimpse backward into the ecstatic childdreams which led us straight to an Eldorado of birds’ nests or Elysian Fields of wonderful mushrooms. Seriously, one can pick up shells there by hundreds, if one likes, with the greatest ease imaginable, and each beautiful enough to satisfy even one’s dreams. Here on this southern beach it is different. The shells get scattered only thinly here and there, and often are broken long before they reach us by the great roll of waves upon the reef. Still, some precious things are cast up safely at times to add to my collection, and day after day I search for “ sea-born treasures,” while the dredge goes droning on like some great Tom Tiddler of the lake “picking up gold and silver.” Then there are walks at all times, by the lake or the seashore, with all kinds of beautiful effects of moonrise and sunset, shade or shine ; or through uncleared marsh land, where the path makes its circuitous way through a wilderness of nigger-heads and flax-bush ; or along the inland road, the only good road by which vehicles may come, — watched for very anxiously indeed, sometimes, on the days when we expect stores from the far-away township, and extra visitors or some household miscalculation may have left us on short commons of flour or tea. Often, again, we ride, my cousin and I,

Altogether there never was a holiday so entirely and utterly enjoyable, if only it were not for the wind. But the wind ! There is always some wind in New Zealand, but here it is something too unmerciful. It is the height of the summer, too, but all pretty muslin and print frocks stay in my trunk, and neither indoors nor out have I had the slightest need so far for any change except from riding-habit to a comfortable little walking-dress of blue serge. I go veiled and jacketed down the beach, taking care to avoid superfluous ribbon-ends or streamers, and come in all blowzed and weatherbeaten, and fuming with impatient anathemas against the south, yet so invigorated, all the same, that I begin to see why my cousin, a town-bred being, like Myself, when she agreed to cast in her lot with Hugh and make a home for him in the wilderness, has grown into a new strength and comeliness. Happiness and this aggravating, health-giving fresh air have made a stronger woman of her than ever before, in spite of a little roughing it. We do not forget fresh air indoors, either. The wooden cottage, of amateur building, has warped and shrunk, and now lets the wind in through inch-wide cracks between the boards. This would scarcely be a desirable residence for delicate persons, or for any one to be ill in. But we are well, so we laugh at “rough weather,” and at night vie with one another in ingenious contrivances against draughts and to keep the candles steady, and somehow none of us take cold. Of course it is not cold, at least now in December, only so wonderfully and continually windy.

Should illness occur, there is a doctor only a rather rough twenty miles’ ride away, — a clever man, though, poor fellow, he has fallen a victim, in the way that too often happens, to the hard work and mental isolation of these up-country practices. There goes a saying in the neighborhood about him : “ If you find the doctor drunk, you are all right, — he will be sober by the time he gets to the case ; but catch him sober and he’s bound to get drunk on the way.” Another medical authority in the district is a wise woman, who goes her rounds, staying at one cottage after another to doctor or nurse, as the case may require. Little ones come, helped into the world by her attention alone, and the mothers are washing and scouring as usual a fortnight later. There are some flourishing families about the lake, as I find when I ride round returning calls upon the stranger from Christ Church. One of our visits was paid to the school,—one of those splendidly managed state schools by which the colony now carries free education to the remotest parts of the island, — which collects all the rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed children for miles around.

I have been amused, in these visits, to notice the mixture of race, which I suppose is a natural feature in a country of immigrants. We are south of Otago, the province of Scotchmen, so a large proportion of the settlers in the neighborhood are Scotch. Across the lake there is a Norwegian family; farther on towards the township there is quite a little settlement of Danes. Dan O’Connell, stoker of the dredge, and two more of the men employed there represent the Irish element ; and at the lighthouse the keeper and his wife are Germans, fair-haired and slow of speech. All are so thoroughly colonialized by this time, however, that differences are slight enough, and all, whether in cottage, or sohari, or farmhouse, show the warm hospitality and friendliness which are a fine feature in the roughest up-country life. All, too, I fancy, show a little special tenderness for Margaret, who as a young wife, coming down among them with her town ways and pretty frocks and bridal table furniture, caused rather a sensation both of admiration and pity amongst these kind hearts. “ Not another lady within forty miles ! ” people at home prophesied in horror, when she departed. Well, I suppose it is true that one misses a little community of interest in books, music, town thinkings and discussions ; but I am not Sure it is not good for a time to be compelled, as Thoreau would say, “ to front only the essential facts of life.” Women meet, too, I think, and content one another more easily upon the purely human ground than men ; and if Margaret may have perhaps a little mind loneliness to contend with, I feel sure, at least in any household within a long ride’s distance from the lake, there will be no lack of helpful friends, or of true womanly gentleness and sympathy.