“The Empire By Rail.”

In an interesting article on “The Empire by Rail,” which appeared in a recent issue of the “London Times,” the writer, after journeying in imagination over the various railway systems of the Empire, describes a journey by rail in New Zealand as follows:—

“Except to those who take their pleasures statistically, the abiding memory of railway travel in New Zealand is undoubtedly the first sight of the Southern Alps. Christchurch—delightful Christchurch nestling like a grey cathedral city transplanted from an older world—is left in the morning, and Dunedin is a day's journey ahead. The train wanders without undue haste through green fields and neat dairy farms. Suddenly, as the mists lift, the horizon seems bounded by a distant wall. ‘Aotea Roa—the long white cloud’—was the description given to the mountains by those desperate founders of the Maori race 600 years ago, who, in their canoes far out at sea, scarcely dared to believe that land was in sight at last. And like a long white cloud indeed the peaks of the range, culminating in the majesty of Mount Cook itself, may be seen from the train at Timaru as an eternal memory of those happy islands in the South.”