HARD TIMES 139 



tion. Sheep stringing closely to one another, especially if alarmed, are 

 apt to blunder in the leaping of what appears an insignificant crack. Out 

 of Newton's 4000, death would have reaped its harvest piecemeal in 

 other ways. Fires constantly lighted to open up the surface of the 

 country would have destroyed a certain number, some blinded by 

 the flames, others losing their hoofs in the scalding heat. A few 

 would have been snared by their wool in thickets of lawyer (Rubus 

 australis), a few would have been caught by the foot, or, like Absalom, 

 by the neck, in forks of low stiff scrub. Some would have died from 

 the effects of ergot on certain of the coarse native grasses. During 

 spring and early summer many would have poisoned themselves on the 

 shoots of the tutu (Coraria ruscifolia). Landslips would have accounted 

 for not a few, some actually caught in the moving masses, others stuck 

 in the glutinous streams that exuded from them. With the arrival of 

 winter, conditions would have become increasingly adverse. By reason 

 of change from a dry to a wet locality, from rich to poor land, and 

 because of constant dogging and shepherding, these conjectural 4000 

 sheep even in autumn would have lost condition. The grass about the 

 old Maori cultivation-grounds, the slips, the marl outcrops, would have 

 been eaten bare by mid-winter; stock would have been forced by 

 hunger into spots where hitherto they had not ventured, spots where 

 there were still additional risks to be run. 



To make a long story short, if Te Kuiti's raid had not caused the 

 clearance of Newton's 4000 sheep, 1200 or so would have died in rivers, 

 pitfalls, slips, under-runners, cliffs, deep pot-holes in the ground, marshes, 

 boggy crossings and ravines, or would have been poisoned, trapped, or 

 burnt ; about 200 of them would have become what we used to call 

 " bushrangers" ; from 500 to 700 would have straggled off the run, most 

 of which would never again have been seen. Out of this first draft, in 

 fact, not much more than half would have passed through the hands of 

 the shearers. 



In early times there were similar difficulties with horses and cattle, 

 shortage of feed in winter and absence of sufficient fencing always, but 

 just as the run had to be forced to carry stock without grass, so pack- 

 horses and bullock -teams had to be somehow kept alive to work the 

 place. The former fed on the rich marsh -land that extended along 

 the margin of the lake. Thereabouts in summer - time grass was 

 plentiful, for at that season of the year the merino, startled by 



