THE CHARTOGRAPHERS OF THE STATION 



187 



reader knows, sheep-paths perforce followed the tops. At a later date 

 the sheep began to pare off the steeper rises on their roads of ingress 

 and egress ; better grades became possible as the bracken-growth 

 retreated downhill. It was an amelioration, however, less rapidly 

 accomplished than might have seemed likely. Sheep dislike sinking 

 their feet into loose fibrous ground even when perfectly dry ; one of 

 their most deeply-rooted instincts is to tread firm land. Long, there- 

 fore, after the vegetation itself admitted of a rectification, after the 

 fern was worn down, the sheep still preferred to climb to a higher 

 elevation on ground hardened by himself than progress at a better 

 grade on unindurated land ; the former was still the line of less resist- 

 ance. Seasons passed before the first faint tracery of a mere feeding 

 deviation became an established track. 

 Shepherds then, following the sheeps' lead, 

 would begin to experiment on the seem- 

 ingly sound track. Often at first, though 

 shorter and better graded, it would prove 

 a snare ; often at first it would be 

 rejected on similar grounds to those 

 upon which it had been formerly con- 

 demned by sheep ; hard enough now to 

 endure their weight, the hoofs of horses 

 still sunk deeply into the soil. At last 

 in dry weather it was rideable at any 

 rate could be floundered through. In 

 wet weather it still bogged the horses 



to their knees ; many were the hasty returns to the harder, steeper 

 path, many the hurried dismountings before it became in all 

 weathers fit. 



Horse-tracks moulded on sheep-paths, when once stamped hard, 

 do not readily alter their curves, once a bend always a bend is the 

 general rule. Sinuosities do, however, change with change of pace 

 in the animals using the track. Two such instances occur to me : one 

 between the Conical Hill and Caccia's Crossing, the other on a line 

 roughly parallel with the present coach-road. Season by season I have 

 seen their twistings straighten, their bendings disappear, in the same 

 manner and for the same reason as have those of the curves and corners 

 of the great main road between Napier and Wairoa. Their alteration 



Sheep-track fretted into hillside. 



