260 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



toboggan, and a level drift by its side was a montagne 

 russe. A home-made sledge, roughly put together 

 with a board six feet by one, two battens nailed on 

 it, a sheet of iron nailed under it and curved upwards 

 in front, and brakes made out of bits of wire-fencing, 

 connected ■with an iron chain. On this frail vehicle, 

 well poised at length, down they flew at a pace of a 

 thousand miles an hour, writes Lady Barker, draAving 

 on her imagination, the descents " showing every variety 

 of mishap," save broken bones.* 



As old a recreation as either skating or tobogganing 

 was and still is at the command of the squatter in certain 

 provinces. On one of his voyages Captain Cook, in- 

 tending a service to the inhabitants, present or future, 

 liberated a number of pigs in both islands of New 

 Zealand. Like all domestic animals that have been bred 

 out of savagery, and new characters fixed in them by 

 human selection, they gradually reverted to their original 

 state when the process of selection was withdra-v^n. 

 They then became the prey of the colonial huntsman, 

 and, were the New Zealand bush as close at hand as 

 the Harz forest, might afford sport for an emperor 

 or an archduke. Called pig-sticking in New Zealand as 

 in Lidia, because the boar is oftener killed with the 

 spear than with the rifle or the revolver, it is termed 

 pig-stalking by Lady Barker, who often bravely took 

 part in it. Quite as difficult as deer-stalking and in- 

 comparably more dangerous, for the wild boar is as keen 

 of scent and sight and hearing as the deer, it tests the 

 courage and tasks the endurance of the sportsman, who 

 may have to ride some miles in pursuit of his game 

 and then stalk him through a densely tangled under- 

 growth. The trained dog may bale him up against a 

 tree and get ripped open for his pains. Then the hunter 

 will close in on him, stab him with the spear, or end 

 his days with a revolver. Sometimes a single rifle shot 

 from an opposite hillside will bring down a " fierce old 

 * Baekeb, Station Amusements in New Zealand, ch. v. 



