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Through the Manawatu Gorge.

The serene restful character of the landscapes on the Tai-Rawhiti side of the ranges that make the Island's backbone, the tall lines and avenues of English trees and other thriving exotics, the easy eye-satisfying lines of hill and valley, the numerous streams, sometimes low-banked, sometimes winding through steep little gorges; a long raupo-edged lagoon, famous eel-lake of the Maoris, giving a glint of bright water to the picture, a frequent flock of sheep, a mob of cattle on the move to the freezing works—all these give interest to the changing view from the railway carriage windows. Long ago the great scenic feature of the day's train run from Wellington was the forest-robed beauty of the Manawatu Gorge. That primeval loveliness was ruined by fire, but the bold contours of the range remain, the abrupt terminals of the Tararua and the Ruahine highlands, abutting on the rapid river that wore a rocky way from east to west through a fissure created by some violent earth-movement in remote ages. And to some extent the forest is being restored by natural regeneration; the devastated hills are clothing themselves again with many-tinted young bush and softly-fronded fern trees.