projected
suburbs. Subscriptions were raised for building a Cathedral in
Christchurch; but so dear was both labour and material, that 7,000
pounds barely sufficed to lay its foundations.

The paramount anxiety in men's minds seemed to be to secure land.
Sheep-runs in sheltered accessible parts of the country commanded
enormous prices, and were bought in the most complicated way. The first
comers had taken up vast tracts of land in all directions from the
Government, at an almost nominal rental. This had happened quite in
the dark and remote ages of the history of the colony, at least ten
or twelve years before the date of which I write. As speculators with
plenty of hard cash came down from Australia, these original tenants
sold, as it were, the good-will and stock of their run at enormous
prices; but what always seemed to me so hard was, that after you had
paid any number of thousand pounds for your run, you might have to buy
it all, or at any rate, some portion of it, over again. Land could only
be purchased freehold from the Government, for 2 pounds an acre; and if
a "cockatoo" (i.e., a small farmer), or a speculator in mines, fancied
any part of your property, he had only to go to the land office, and
challenge your pre-emptive rights. The officials gave you notice of the
challenge, and six weeks' grace in which to raise the money, and buy it
freehold yourself; but few sheep-farmers could afford to pay a good
many hundred pounds unexpectedly to secure even their best "flats" or
vallies. Hence it often happened that large runs in the most favourable
situations were cut up by small investors, "free selectors" as they are
called in Australia, and it used to be rather absurd the way one grew
to distrust any stranger who was descried riding about the run. The poor
man might be looking for a stray horse, or have lost his way, but we
always fancied he must be "prospecting" for either gold or coals, or
else be a "cockatoo" disguised as a traveller.

Such was the state of things when my story opens. Shearing was just
over, and we knew to a lamb how rapidly our flocks and herds were
increasing. A succession of mild winters and early genial springs had
got the flock into capital order. The wool had all been sent off to
Christchurch by drays, the sheep were turned out on the beautiful green
hills for ten months of perfect rest and peace; whilst the dogs, who
had barked themselves quite hoarse, were enabled to desist from their