Early the following morning we were piloted over the river, and in the afternoon made the Ashburton, where was a very superior house of entertainment, conducted by a Mr. Turton, a man above the general run of bush hotel keepers, and who, I believe, subsequently became a rich squatter, as he well deserved.

The third day’s ride brought us to our destination.  There was a comfortable rough dwelling house and the usual adjuncts in the way of station buildings.

The situation was pleasant, at the opening of a wide gorge at the foot of the downs, and a fine stream ran along the front of the enclosure.  A considerable portion of the run was hilly, and was at that time one of the best in the province.

It was on this journey that I first came across the most wonderful optical illusions, called mirages, that I had seen, and there is something in the atmosphere maybe of the New Zealand plains that lends itself specially to the creation of these beautiful phenomena.

We were riding over the open plain on a clear morning, near the Ashburton river bed, more than twenty miles from the nearest hills, when suddenly within fifty yards of us, appeared a most beautiful calm lake, apparently many miles in extent, and dotted with cabbage trees (like palms), whose reflections were cast in the water.  Neither of us had seen the like before, and for a while really believed we were approaching a lake, although how such could possibly exist where a few moments before had been dry waving grass, was like magic.  We rode on, and as we went the lake seemed to move with us, or rather to recede as we advanced, keeping always the same distance ahead.  The phenomenon lasted for about a quarter of an hour, and then cleared away as magically as it came.

In the same district I subsequently observed some extraordinary optical illusions of a like nature—­once, in the direction of the sea where no hills or other obstacles intervened, I saw a beautiful inverted landscape of mountains, woods, and other objects like castles.  The picture or reflection seemed suspended in the air, and extended a long way on the horizon.  It must have been a reflection of some scene far from the place where the phenomenon presented itself.

I spent a month with Smith, but as it was the slack time of the year there was little routine work on the station, and much of our time was passed in amusement.

The best fun was pig hunting, in which we were frequently joined by neighbouring squatters.

CHAPTER VIII.

     WILD PIG-HUNTING.

It is said that Captain Cook introduced pigs into New Zealand.  They were at the time I write of, the only wild quadrupeds in the land, except rats (for which I believe the country is also indebted to Captain Cook), but together they made up for no end of absentees by their prodigious powers of breeding.

Most of the middle island was infested with pigs; they principally inhabited the low hills and river bed flats and swamps, and would come down on to the large plains in herds for feeding on the root of a plant called spear grass, to obtain which they would tear up the sward and injure large tracts of grazing land.