DEATH OF PARKER—­ROYAL MAIL ROBBED BY A CAT—­MEET WITH ACCIDENT CROSSING RIVER.

During our absence a sad occurrence took place, which I will record here.  A Mr. Parks, a Government surveyor, and well-to-do sheep farmer on the Ashburton, had been engaged during the previous year in making surveys on the Rakia and Ashburton, and on his staff was a young man named Parker.  This lad was another instance of the ideas some home people entertain, that for a youngster without intellect, energy, or application sufficient to obtain him entrance to a profession in England, the Colonies are the proper place.  In their opinion he must get on there, or at any rate, he will be got rid of.  The latter may be true enough, but as regards the former, the proofs are few indeed.

Parker was a weak, good natured, feckless lad, about eighteen or twenty years of age, and the only thing he appeared to be able to make anything of was playing the fiddle.  Wherever he went his violin accompanied him.  While fiddling he was happy, but it was pitiful to watch him trying to work at or take an interest in any employment which he could neither appreciate nor understand.

The survey party had proceeded up the gorge of the Rakia, and were absent about a fortnight, when Mr. Parks, requiring to send back to his station for some instrument he had forgotten, and Parker being the least useful hand on the survey, he decided to send him.  The distance was twenty miles, and the route was across the open plain leading for a part of the way along the river.  He was to go on foot, and put up the first night at Grey’s station, about half-way.

Between the Camp and Grey’s the path led along the bank of the Rakia, which was here very steep, upwards of a hundred feet perpendicularly above the riverbed, and occasionally subject to landslips.

A week passed without the return of Parker, and Mr. Parks, getting concerned for the lad’s safety, despatched a messenger for information, when it was found that Parker had not appeared either at Grey’s, or his own station, and for another week inquiries were made for him in every direction in vain.

At about the end of the second week from the date of Parker leaving the survey camp, a shepherd of Grey’s, happening to descend into the Rakia river bed in search of some wandering sheep, came upon a roll of red blankets lying at the foot of a landslip.  Going up, he found it to contain the body of a man half decomposed, and being eaten by rats.  Upon the ground alongside was a pocket-book containing writing and a pencil.

The shepherd, taking the pocket-book, returned speedily to Grey’s.  Upon examination the book was found to contain a diary of five days, written by the unfortunate Parker, before he died of starvation, thirst, and a broken leg, at the foot of the landslip.