THE CHARTOGRAPHERS OF THE STATION 



181 



Cattle have been equally unhelpful in the mapping of the station. 

 They are creatures of the plain and wide river-bed, unsuited to country 

 like Tutira, where the streams flow confined in narrow gorges. Cattle 

 tracks, moreover, usually lead to trouble, the hoof formation of the 

 great beasts enabling them to negotiate ground where neither sheep nor 

 mounted shepherd dare follow. 



As animals gone wild, horses have left no trace. Driven in pack- 

 teams, they have done work that will be described later. 



It is sheep that have surveyed Tutira. In the early days they 

 worked the tops and upper slopes. Later, owing to the destruction of 

 fern, tutu, and koromiko, it became possible for them to tread a middle 

 course ; at length they were able to circle the bases of the hills. 



I. Sheep-paths in the 'eighties. 



2. In the 'nineties. 



3. As at present. 



Following in the wake of his charge the shepherd's path too has 

 declined in altitude. In the late 'seventies advantage was taken of the 

 hill-top tracks. In the late 'eighties those of the higher sidlings were 

 utilised. In the late 'nineties we followed sheep-paths along the low 

 slopes. Every shepherd's beat on the run is a sheep-path broadened and 

 trodden out. Now, after forty years, the latter number hundreds of 

 thousands. From every camp they radiate like roads from a city. 

 They are, in fact, roads from a city, for to sheep their camping-ground 

 is as his town to man, at once a refuge and a resting-place. 



There are on every station two types of path the one, the line of 

 morning dispersal and evening reunion, beautifully graded ; the other, 

 much more steep, called into being by the instinctive desire of frightened 



