After bagging nine or ten brace of godwit and plover we turned for home, quite satisfied with our day's shooting, and anxious to fetch my place before the tide had receded from the beach. This we succeeded in doing, and had barely reached the house with our load of birds when rain began to fall, and was soon descending in torrents. As the next day was Sunday, and of course a day of rest for the surveyors, we easily persuaded Mr. J—— to sleep at our house. All the evening and through the night the downpour continued, and on Sunday morning, when it was still raining hard, Mr. J—— told me he felt rather anxious about his men, as they were encamped close to a stream in a valley, with high hills on either side. His anxiety turned out to be well founded, for on that Saturday night, as Mr. de C——, the assistant-surveyor, and the three men were fast asleep, the stream overflowed its bank, and the water gradually rising at last washed their tents away, and they awoke to find the flood level with their beds, and a bitterly cold rain pelting down on them.
A surveyor's camp bed is constructed usually as follows:—
Four tea-tree stakes for legs are driven well in the ground, and cut off at a convenient height above it. A couple of sacks with holes cut in each corner of the bottom are then stretched on two six foot stakes passed through the holes, and these stakes are nailed securely on the top of those driven in the ground, thus forming the bed, on which is laid either dried ferns or Mongi-mongi as a mattress. The tents that were washed away were recovered uninjured, and beyond the loss of a tin pot or two, and the wetting of some boots and clothes, no great damage was done, as Mr. J—— had luckily planted his tent, containing the instruments, maps, &c., on high ground beyond the reach of flood.
Being flooded out, I am told, is by no means an uncommon occurrence in the lives of Zealand Government surveyors. Compelled to camp near running water, as of course they cannot spare the time to sink wells, and have no water tanks, sudden floods often overtake even the most wary. Indeed, being flooded out, working up to the knees in mud and water, swimming rivers, climbing almost impossible mountains, subsisting on the pith of the Nikau palm when provisions run out and cannot be renewed, rheumatic pains, fevers and agues, may be all said to fall within the usual experience of the New Zealand Government surveyor, and to become qualified to enjoy these experiences a special training is required, and a stiff examination has to be passed. There is no guarantee of the permanency of the appointment, and no retiring pensions are granted.
A young man may waste several of the best years of his life studying for the post of Government surveyor, which he may obtain only to be dispossessed of on the plea of retrenchment. The colony being so young, presents few openings for educated men to make a start in life. I sincerely trust, however, it will have something more promising to offer the rising generation when their time comes to go forth into the world.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE KAURI GUMDIGGER.
I am going to commence this chapter by confessing that I find myself in a difficulty. All my endeavours to secure an appointment had proved abortive. I am anxious to stick to fact, and at the same time to interest my reader, but how can it be done, if I simply relate the details of my humdrum life as a country settler!