Camp Fire Yarns of the Lost Legion

by G. Hamilton-Browne

I had not used my tomahawk on the previous day, except to blaze the first tree, therefore there must be some way of getting back without using it—if I could only find that way. I was making for the west. Suppose after a time I should be certain I was going wrong, I could return with ease along the blazed track back to my camp, and start a new line, which I should also blaze, using a new tomahawk cut on the trees, and if that line failed, return and try again, always using the tree under which I had camped as a starting-point. I might fail half-a-dozen times or more, yet, with patience, I had a good chance to come out right in the end. Again, although I did not reckon on it in my case, as I had no hopes of a search party coming to look for me, if you should ever be bushed, and you think it possible for a search to be sent to find you, it is a very good thing to carry out the above plan, and always return to your first camp, as most probably it will be the nearest spot to help; and if you pass your time in blazing lines (being careful to keep your lines distinct) the party looking for you will most likely strike one of your tracks and easily follow it to your assistance.

Knowing all this, I started, taking a course due west. I had no compass, but as a trained bushman I wanted none, and with all my senses on deck I began blazing trees on my line, taking care to spot every noticeable thing en route, and frequently looking back to see my track ran straight. Sometimes I fancied I was going right and I felt the impulse to run; but this feeling I at once suppressed, and determined I would play the game to the end. Past midday I knew I was wrong, as I came to a steep cliff descending perpendicularly into a deep valley, so I knew I could not have crossed it before. I was disappointed but by no means disheartened; so after a good look around I turned in my tracks and easily regained my camp, where I cooked more birds, had a good supper and slept without any bogeys coming to trouble me.

On the morning of the third day I started again and blazed a new line, in a north-west direction; but again I met with disappointment and returned to my base.

You may ask how it was that, as a trained scout, I did not try to follow my own spoor back to my starting-point. I will tell you at once. I was far too old at the game to waste my time by doing so. Of course I was always on the look-out for any trace I had left; but there is very little soft ground on the top of New Zealand ranges, and although I was in a daydream on the first afternoon, yet I knew that, instinctively, I should have avoided any soft or damp ground, also the gloom in a bush is not a good light to track by. An Australian black fellow might have been able to follow my spoor, but no one else, so I did not try to.

On the morning of the fourth day I started on what I thought to be a hopeless line nearly due north, as I expected to be shut off quickly by a deep valley I had noticed on the previous day; still it was the right game to play and I played it. Strange as it may appear, I was not shut off as I had expected, but continued on till I came to a couple of large trees growing so close together that they seemed to spring from the same root. These attracted my attention, and although they were out of my line I went to them. I seemed to remember them in a dim sort of way, and I examined the ground carefully, going on my hands and knees to do so. I also took a good steady look at the country I had just passed over, to see if any glimmer of remembrance would dawn on me; and it did, but so faint that I feared the wish was father to the thought. But yet, those trees! A certainty came to me that I had seen them before, and I crawled round to the other side of them, scanning every foot of ground, and found what might be the spoor of one of my boots.

At once I began to feel elated, and again the mad impulse to run came on; but I crushed it back, marked the spoor and forced myself to sit down and smoke a pipe. When I was quite cool I again examined the spoor, determined to restart my line from there and use the trees as a base.

I started a new line and had not gone very far when under a tree I saw a lot of pigeon feathers. I at once went on my hands and knees and after a few minutes’ search found undoubted spoor; so I knew I was on the right track; and again the desire to run came on, but I squashed it and, blazing the tree well, had a good look round, but could get no certainty as to my route, so went on with my line and during the afternoon found myself blocked, and had to turn back. That evening I shot three birds, and camped at the tree where I had found the feathers.

Next morning I was off, after a good breakfast, taking a new line west of north, thinking it would only be a short one; but yet I got on farther than I expected, and with my eyes glancing everywhere, all of a sudden I spotted something in the stunted fern, and going up to it found a dead pigeon. Looking up, I noticed a fork in the tree close by and recognised it, as the one in which my bird had lodged. I at once tore the feathers off the bird. Yes, there could be no doubt, it had been killed by No. 4 shot; and now I was certain I was more than half-way out of the fix. Again the crazy desire to run, this time crushed with more difficulty and requiring a pipe. Then more blazing, until I began to think I must again be wrong and found myself unduly hastening my steps, and had to use the curb of my will to rein in. I had reached a place where I was thinking seriously of turning back, as I was convinced I had gone wrong, and had in fact halted when I noticed something waving in the wind about 150 yards away to the south. I could only now and then catch a glimmer of it through the trees, but I went towards it. I lost sight of it in the bush, then saw it again, and in a few minutes was standing in front of a blazed rata-tree with six pigeons hanging on it.

Here was my starting-point; but I was so convinced I had gone wrong that for a minute or two I could not believe my eyesight, and fancied I had gone mad, in fact was so surprised that I had to argue with myself that someone had not moved the tree and the birds. This folly did not last long, and I was quickly in the bed of the creek, descending to the lake. I had just reached the foot of the hill when my foot slipped on a boulder and I came an awful cropper. In a moment I realised I had sprained my left ankle badly and had hurt my left side and shoulder. Groaning and cursing with pain, I managed to crawl the remaining way to my canoe, untied the painter, crawled to the place where I had hidden my paddle and blankets, and with much agony got my right shoulder to the bow of the canoe and launched her. It made me shudder with pain to use the paddle—for a Maori paddle requires both hands—but it had to be done, and I slowly worked out of the inlet, when to my horror I found I had a strong head wind to contend against.

I could never do it, and was painfully turning my canoe to get back to the beach when I heard a deep-chested Maori shout come pealing over the water, and looking in the direction from whence it came, I saw a large canoe with a dozen sturdy paddlers bearing down on me. In a few minutes I was in it, lying down on a heap of fern; and I must have fainted, but soon came to, to find the canoe tearing through the water, while fourteen stalwart warriors howled a canoe song to bring me back to life and give time to the paddles. We soon reached Wai-Tangi, and I was carried up to my hut, all the Maoris holding a big tangi (weeping match) over my accident and blaming themselves for the misadventure that had happened to their guest.