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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 75

Towns

Towns.

Napier is pleasantly situated on the peninsula known as Scinde Island, which is joined to the mainland by a narrow shingle-bank of several miles in length. It is a busy town, with a population of 9,300. The business part is on the flat, land at the foot of the group of hills that take up the greater part of the peninsula. These hills, formerly barren and waste, are now occupied by numerous private residences, and the very general tree-planting has given the upper town a distinctive and pleasing character. There is an excellent water-supply, derived wholly from artesian wells of large size, and pumped by machinery to reservoirs on the tops of the hills. The shipping trade, as the large exports show, is especially active during the wool and frozen-meat season. It is at present carried on at Port Ahuriri, about a mile from the town; but will, before long, in a large measure be transferred to the fine breakwater which is now advancing towards completion.

Gisborne, the trade-centre and port of what is known as the Poverty Bay District, is a prosperous town of about 2,300 inhabitants, rapidly increasing in size and importance, as the large quantity of unimproved land in the Cook County is fast becoming settled and made productive. There are nearly 700,000 sheep now in Cook County.

Clyde, the county town and port of the Wairoa County, is picturesquely situated on the Wairoa River, about three miles from the mouth. The river is navigable for small craft as far as the village of Frasertown, twelve miles further up.

With a few exceptions, the towns and villages to the south of Napier are all situated on the line of railway running from that city to Palmerston North. The principal are: Hastings, a rising town of 3,190 inhabitants, Waipawa, Waipukurau, Dannevirke, and finally Woodville, about three miles from the Manawatu Gorge, and distant ninety-eight miles from Napier. It is at this end of the district that the Crown has, in the last few years, successfully planted settlement, and, in place of the continuous forest known as the Seventy-mile Bush of earlier days, there are now prosperous townships, with various thriving industries established.