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CHAPTER XX. 



THE CHARTOGRAPHERS OF THE STATION. 



IF the principle of the martyrdom of man has held in regard to the 

 pioneers of Tutira, twice over is it true of the Tutira flock, each genera- 

 tion of which has been decimated for the benefit of its successor. 



The sheep of the station are, in sober truth, working out their own 

 salvation. They are returfing the naked windblows, hardening the erst- 

 while dangerous fords, drying the bogs and marshes, building viaducts, 

 shaping sleeping-shelves, exposing pitfalls and chasms. They are re- 

 modelling the run to suit their peculiar requirements. In this good work 

 of reclamation other stock have participated. It is the sheep, however, 

 that has borne the burden and heat of the day ; it is owing to him that 

 for his race the run is more easy to perambulate, more safe to traverse. 



The first newcomer, however, to score a mark on the station was the 

 pig. Swine, however, are but poor surveyors ; they lack all sense of 

 grading, climbing indifferently the steepest slopes, zigzagging in their 

 ascent like man, in descent charging downhill like landslips. At the 

 utmost, pig may perhaps have discovered to us some half-dozen narrow 

 precipitous gorge crossings. Before the advent of sheep, and therefore 

 before the establishment of sheep- camps growing grass and clover, 

 there was nothing to tempt pig from the low grounds. There they lived 

 and bred, trenching and terracing the hillsides in search of fern root, 

 their staple food. Their runs, bored through the overarching scrub, 

 were at intervals punctuated with wallowing pits pig baths ; not in- 

 frequently these runs lapsed into mere wedges in the soil, so narrow 

 as to be scraped smooth by the sides of the animals using them. In the 

 clearance of pig from the station I have travelled miles of these abom- 

 inable tracks on all-fours. Pig tracks, in a word, have been useless in 

 the opening up of the run. 



