On His Tour Through New Zealand.
Town and Country, Mountain, Lake and Geyserland.

The stranger's lasting impressions of a country are influenced greatly by the manner of his entry into it. Probably the pleasantest way of approaching the front door in New Zealand is the leisurely entrance to Auckland, through the island-strewn waters of the Hauraki Gulf. There is nothing abrupt or stern about that ship highway to the Dominion's largest city-Coming from Australia round the North Cape, the stranger is gradually prepared for his arrival by the sight of island after island, dark and mountainous or gentle and softly green; hills and capes, and quiet seas well guarded by the Barrier Islands and promontories; and at last a wide sweep around a verdurous dome of headland, and there the city lies spread out for miles along its easy slopes and fronting an often glassy harbour.

But His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, when he enters the Dominion on the morning of December 15 will have a bolder landscape to shape his first impression of these islands. No gentle, symmetrical hills like green buttons here; but rough-edged ranges that ring Port Nicholson about as if set there to ward off the gales of the Pacific and the Tasman Sea, No outer gulf of soft blue to lead one into the inner shrine. It is a quick dramatic transition from tumbling windy Cook Strait, between rocky gateposts, into the sea-lake on which Wellington City has built itself. The contrast is sharp to the navigator or the passenger, from the tossing sea that parts the two islands through a splendid straightforward channel into a perfect haven that widens out on each hand.

Travellers who have reached Wellington by sea have been charmed with that quick change of scene, and with the Italian-lake-like character of the harbour and the protective irregular ramparts of blue ranges.