animals, with only a few months growth of fine merino wool on their
backs, had endured it all. It was well known that the actual
destruction of sheep was mainly owing to the two days of heavy rain
which succeeded the snow. Out of a flock of 13,000 of all ages, we
lost, on the lowest calculation, 1,000 grown sheep and nearly 3,000
lambs; and yet our loss was small by comparison with that of our
neighbours, whose runs were further back among the hill, and less
sheltered than our own.

Long before midsummer our cloud-shadowed hills were green once more;
and I think I see again their beautiful outlines, their steep sides
planted with semi-tropical palms and grasses, whilst the more
distant peaks are veiled in a sultry haze. During that peculiarly
bright and lovely summer we often ask each other, Could it have been
true that no one knew one mountain from the other, and that hills
had been apparently levelled and vallies filled up by the heaviest
snow-fall ever known. But whilst the words were on our lips, we
could see a group of palm-trees, ten feet high, with their topmost
leaves gnawed to the stump by starving sheep, that must have been
standing on at least seven feet of snow to reach them; and there was
scarcely a creek on the run whose banks were not strewn, for many a
long day, by bare and bleaching bones.



Chapter VI: Buying a run.


Like many other people in the world, I have occasionally built
castles in the air, and equally of course they have invariably