Dunedin To Christchurch In 1888.

I Want to describe my first impressions of New Zealand— nothing more—and to say how the country and its people struck me after a long visit to the Australian Colonies.

It is a curious fact that nowhere in Australia did I meet any one who spoke to me of Dunedin Harbour; also that all through my pilgrimage in the Land of the Giant Myrtles (better known, perhaps, as gum-trees) no one gave me a hint of the sumptuous fertility of these beautiful islands. As far as I could gather, New Zealand was the knuckle-end of Australia. There were Maoris and moa-bones, and curious natural phenomena of a volcanic and unreliable sort, but page 227apparently nothing else worth mentioning. Not a word about the astonishing soil, so catholic in its fertility that it will grow everything worth growing, and so rich that it grows everything well. Not a word about the harbour—a kaleidoscope in its beautiful combinations—along which the train carries you, giving you as you go ever-changing glimpses of inlet and island and cliff. All along, facing the sea, are charming residences, many in their own grounds of garden and orchard; while on the other side of the harbour, indented with alternate headland and bay, the Peninsula, beautifully green and dotted with white-walled homesteads, stretches out towards the ocean, and helps to enclose one of the finest waterways ever cut by British keels, one of the finest havens that ever sheltered British ships.

On we go, past Port Chalmers, with room enough and to spare for the commerce of many a European capital of trade, but not roomy enough for ambitious little Dunedin; and round Blueskin, with a foot of roadway to the good between safety and the sea-beach hundreds of feet sheer below, where we can look from the railway-carriage plump down on the backs of the gulls as they reconnoitre the patches of brown sea-weed that lift and fall on the swell of the waves. The train sweeps round a noble curve of sea-line, with the Pacific showing in front between the Heads—finely contoured bluffs chequered with the light green of turf and the dark of the bush. Past Waitati, whence comes that estimable person the flounder; through a pleasant reach of wild country, the undergrowth more varied in a mile than in all Victoria from frontier to frontier; a wilderness of pretty ferns, the familiar broom all ablaze with flowers, grass land spangled with marguerites just as in English meadows, and whole choirs of the Old-country song-birds—laverock, mavis, and merle, thrush, blackbird, and skylark—all singing their matins together: and so to Seacliff. The great grey stone Asylum stands up from the hill-side, chill-looking even in the middle of so sunny a landscape. In front are the sea-ripples glittering in the bright morning light, and stretching a warm deep-blue from the heads opposite away down the long reach of harbour. The meadows lie basking in the early sun as we pass. To the right continues the same matchless page 228panorama of sea and shore—headlands sloping green with grass almost to the water's edge; to the left, fat pasturage and close strong crops of grain. The rich cocksfoot grass escaping out of the paddocks runs riot on the banks; and the clover overflowing grows along the line. Then, on a sudden, we are out on a level of tussock-land that stretches to the sea; on the other side billow after billow of meadow, with plump cattle, sheep, and horses grazing, and cornland, rolling away in hill and dale right away back, so it seems, to the very foot of the distant hills.

And so past Palmerston—the same undulating land, ruled out by well-grown hedges into parallelograms, the formulas of cultivation; and beyond, the same snowy ranges, holding up on their white peaks the perpetual promise of abundant water, and the sea still on the right—levels of green shallows stained with broad patches of brown kelp. Yonder is the Shag Rock, and close down by the water's edge is a coal-mine, and of good coal too. Here right under the train on the sea-beach is a man sifting the sand—for gold. Then the land breaks out into hummocks—treeless, except where bush remains in the kloofs or gullies, or where a patch of fir and gum marks the homestead. The gorse here makes splendid hedges, and in the bare landscape the wonderful excellence of the country roads can easily be seen. Public money, I am told, has been "wasted" on these rural high-ways. But I do not think it has; and of this I am quite sure—that the sons and grandsons of the present generation will not think so either. It is an old story, that of the man who objected to do anything for posterity, because, he said, "posterity had done nothing for him." But, after all, is not the whole system of civilisation concentrated on the effort to do the best "for posterity"? In what country not inhabited by savages is the present as important as the future? New Zealand may have borrowed and spent money extravagantly, but prosperity is written, in round hand, in capitals, in italics, all over the country, and those who now grumble may live to confess yet that, after all, the money was not wasted. The harbours may to-day have no commerce, the railways no intelligible destination, the high roads no traffic; but a score of years hence these very harbours will have attracted commerce, and the railways have made the markets that will keep the roads busy with traffic, The page 229burden, no doubt, falls heavily to-day, but the foundation of national prosperity has been well and truly laid, and the reward will come.

So, past Hillgrove, with sunny, green grass-land sloping down to a sunny blue sea, as beautiful as Italy, as English as Ilfracombe; past Hampden, a charming hamlet scattered about in a confusion of little hills and sunny dales, the homes perched on the eminences or nestling below in firs and willows—a delightful sub-alpine glimpse—out into a reach of fertile bottom lands; on the one side cattle and horses as they feed overlooking the Pacific; on the other, sheep dotted over the whole country almost back to the snow. Then the hills close in, and we come to a patch of uncultivated land—tussock-grass with clumps of cabbage-trees—a fine trout stream through it running down over its pebbly bed to the sea; and then fertility again, and the splendid levels of Maheno and Totara. What land! What stock! The fat, huge-framed, straight-backed cattle literally wade in sweet grass, and the horses are "pictures" both in breed and condition. Wheat and potatoes in larger fields than we see them at Home fill up the intervals between the pastures where the polled Angus and the Devon live in plenteous ease. Here, too, we come upon the white Oamaru stone, which they say cuts in the quarry like cheese and yet hardens by exposure into finest building-stone. It lies close upon the line, and crops up here and there in terrace-like formation, as if Nature were in kindly conspiracy with man to save him trouble. The stone bridges have a comfortable, substantial look, and the sheds and houses, all of white stone, are pleasant and satisfying to look at. But just one moment here to look at the view. On the left there is line after line of hills—the first, vivid green with young crops; the next, russet-brown in naked barrenness; beyond these, others—blue with distance; and again beyond and above, the snows glittering in the sunlight. Turn in your seat and look to the right—broad meadows of grass and clover; and lo! the blue sea with its white-sailed ships. Where under the British flag will you beat it? Little houses are dotted about in the verdant landscape, the many hedges and clumps of foliage giving a cosy English look to the country. There is a strange relief after Ausiralia. How clean and good the farming is here: no waste page 230lands, no slovenliness. Even the trimness of the hedges,. the sound fences and gates, the admirable order of the roads tell of a country that is doing well.

And so to Oamaru, past rich growths of English trees— a park, I take it, well planted with willows and oaks and pines—into the white-stone town. How well ib looks, this Oamaru that jealous neighbours pretend to make fun of! Oamaru knows what it is about, and knows, too, that its very appearance is a credit to the colony, with its broad streets handsomely flanked by solid orderly stone buildings, its substantial stone warehouses and stores. There is nothing flimsy or superficial. The town is all sterling; and behind and around it is such country as guarantees prosperity—let the rates be what they may. Timaru men, I find, do not pay these compliments to Oamaru; but so much the better. If it were not for rivalry there would be no progress. Look back at the town as the train passes out through levels of exquisite pasturage, knee-deep and clovered—Aldcrney kine and Shetland ponies are here in addition to the other stock—and grand paddocks sheltered with double and triple rows of gum-trees, and see Oamaru lying upon the hill-slopes and spreading out over the level between the hills and the sea. Is it not a perfect site for the central town of an agricultural and pastoral district, with its far-spreading verdure of grass and corn, broken only by phalanx and column of pine and fir and gum?

A very pleasant formation of country here. Spurs, as it were, of softly-rounded hills run down parallel to each other towards the sea, enclosing delightful little valleys— the miniature "Sewaliks" of miniature Himalayas, but cultivated as far as the eye can reach; and the flash of young green crops catches the sight on the hill-tops twenty miles away. And then out and away over flat low-lying meadows warm in the sunlight to the lake-fed Waitaki, the boundary of the provinces, a mile-long bridge spanning the broad reach of shingle, over which in a dozen streams the summer waters of the snow-river find their way to the sea. Full of trout, too, though the water is icy cold. Some day the story of trout in New Zealand will have to be told; and it will be one of the most curious and interesting chapters of natural history ever written. Who could recognise in the silvery-grey roach-shaped monsters of New Zealand streams page 231the red-spotted game-looking trout of the Old Country? And by what process of fishy reasoning does the Antipodean fry consent to rise to the effigies of insects which it never saw? My friend "Red Spinner" is wanted over here again for another volume of trout experience.

And all this time we are travelling through the same grand country, flat and rich with homes—no sign of "depression" about them—everywhere, and fat cattle in fat pastures; and so to Makikihi. Australians should come here, if only for a single look at the place, with its wondrous slopes, and cultivation climbing up the hills—wedges of green driven far up into the heart of the brown and barren land. And so past Studholme, and on through the same monotony of fertility; over other half-dry river-beds; countless sheep on one side scampering away from before the train, suggesting in some places the shore-wave which a steamer in the canal carries along with it; on the other, cattle and horses, indifferent to the disturbance, comfortably browsing. Once more the land breaks up into spur-like rounded hills that run down parallel to each other; and away beyond them, on the slopes, the stations of the magnates of wool and wheat lying back among the groves of trees. And so close up to the sea again—running for a while almost on the beach itself, across a narrow full-fed stream flowing through matchless land, past a thickly-planted park, some day to be a rare pleasaunce of undulating garden scenery, of turf and grove and water—into Timaru. There is nothing to be seen of the town from the train, for Timaru turns its back upon the line. And so on without ceasing, through endless fields, thick-hedged, thick-cropped, thick-grassed—everything here grows close and full—and groves of trees and homesteads everywhere. More long bridges, all of stone, span great widths of shingle, with ribbons of water flowing here and there—water enough, however, for countless trout; and then Temuka, with a touch of the Old Country in its thatched cottages; then comfortable cosy Winchester, looking with the sunlight on it as happy and prosperous as place could look; and away again through "distressful" levels of corn and herds of fat kine to Orari, with Geraldine showing far away on the left under the bush beneath the hills. It is worth noting, as you pass, the stamp of horse that every one, shepherd and farmer's boy and page 232postman, rides: many would be fit for Hyde Park, with a fortnight of English grooming. Then comes a reach of poorer land, with the sorrel glowing among the sparse crops, and sheep feeding in dozens where they should be in hundreds. Far back on either side you can recognise in the frequent groves of trees the line of a richer country, where some of the best lands of the district lie; but the train runs over thin, light soil, where cattle are few and far between, and breadths of brown tussock-grass intrude between the fields, and the gorse hedges are dead and ragged. But it gradually changes as you approach Tinwald, and the cattle-sheds, gardens, and orchards, and great grain stores tell you of prosperity and progress. And so on past neatly-planted public lands into Ashburton. There is little to see of the town from the train, but the soil is rich, and here, as everywhere along the line, there are all the most obvious evidences of comfort and substance. Fat cattle, and fat, rosy, well-dressed children, are unmistakable proofs.

The Canterbury Plains! How often I had heard of them, and how repeatedly I had been told that I would find that part of the railway journey "good for sleeping through." So I expected something like the "plains" in India, or the dreary emptiness of the "plains" of the Platte Valley in the United States. But what a surprise was the reality! Flat, of course they are flat—for who ever heard of plains that were not? But "dreary," certainly not—or else half England is dreary. The varieties of crop, the unceasing cultivation, the frequent houses, sometimes clustering together into hamlets, the cattle everywhere, and then all the way the alpine scenery, with the snow-peaks taking all the colours painted in the sky by the setting sun —it was my first journey across the Canterbury Plains, I confess, hut I did not find a mile of it "dreary." Frequent trips, no doubt, make the journey dull, but is it not the same everywhere? The Swiss and Italian peasants go to sleep when crossing the Alps.

And now the hills have got round on the other side, closing in on us in the blues and greys of twilight. English trees of all kinds begin to pass in groves and clumps, and a convergence of roads tells of a city at hand. But look round for a moment at the wealth of the country, page break

Christchurch Cathedral, Canterbury.

page 233and its beauty in the soft evening light, and think what an inheritance it is that the men who have made New Zealand in the last forty years are leaving to the next generation! And, as the evening settles down, the suburbs of Christchurch one after the other pass us in all the decorum of well-laid-out roads, and well-built houses in well-planted grounds, "the state and circumstance" that becomes the adjuncts of a cathedral city; and then, past all the evidences of busy progress—show grounds and warehouses, sale-yards and grain-stores—we steam into the station of the capital of Canterbury.

—Phil Robinson.