The Scenery.

The scenery (of which the illustrative lantern views shown this evening will give you some idea) includes the best features of Norway, Switzerland, the Tyrol, and Italy, set in a brilliant atmosphere resembling that of Greece. And, in addition, the North Island central volcanic zone displays terrific manifestations of plutonic energy—active volcanoes and solfataras, geysers of steam, water and mud, boiling springs, roaring "blow-holes," blue, green and yellow lakes, underground caverns, vast cliffs and terraces, built by Nature, of sinter, sulphur, lime or scoria, and other wonders, such as can only be paralleled in Iceland or in the less-accessible Yellowstone Park of Wyoming. The magnificent lake, river, forest, and mountain scenery of this colony deserves a Walter Scott to immortalise them in flowing verse; page 26 a Ruskin to describe them in glowing prose; and the brush of a Turner or a Cox to depict them on canvas. The fascination exercised by Nature in New Zealand over the senses and imagination of artists who visit the colony lasts for a lifetime. Foiled, it may be, in his first attempts to portray the forms, colours, and exquisite atmospheric effects of some favourite "bit," the sensitive devotee of art returns to the district year after year in the endeavour to attain his ideal. Photography, also, nowhere in the world finds subjects more grand and striking. But what art has colours rich or varied enough to transfix on a picture the glory of the sunset rays falling on Mount Cook, on Mount Earnslaw, or on Mitre Peak? Come with me, in fancy, for a moment, to one of Earth's fairest scenes. We are camping out, let us say, at the edge of the Tasman glacier in the Middle Island. We are gazing entranced at the pure loveliness of the peak of Mount Cook, poetically called Aorangi, or "Sky Piercer," in the Maori language, shooting up far into the sky, clad in its mantle of virgin snow. As we look, lo! it blushes red in the splendour of the setting sun, while the side valleys become clothed in deep-blue shadow. What brush or pencil can fix on paper or canvas the unceasing play of colours? the wondrous purples of the summit deepening in the alpine after-glow? the dull greens of the forest? the sepia shadows in the ravines and hollows, growing ever darker as evening steals on? and, at last, the gradual fading away of all as the sun goes down, and over everything spreads the grey cloud-curtain of night?

Amid scenes like this the alpine traveller and the enterprising explorer will rejoice; and for the keen sportsman and angler there are even additional attractions provided by the successful science of acclimatisation, which has nowhere triumphed more than in New Zealand. One will now find some of the forests stocked with game familiar to him in Europe, and most of the rivers and lakes abounding in well-known fish. Pheasant, quail, partridge, blackcock, snipe, and teal have all taken kindly to their antipodean home, and breed in the same prolific way that the human race do out there. Salmon, trout, bass, carp, and perch have found a congenial habitat in various parts of the colony. Even deer-stalking and fox-hunting may now be enjoyed in the valleys north of Wellington. By a sensible law the fees for shooting and fishing licences go into the treasuries of the various provincial acclimatisation societies; and fines for shooting game in the prohibited "close season" also aid in defraying the expense of carrying on this very useful work.

New Zealand is now regarded as the holiday-ground of the Southern Pacific. Here the sun-baked Australian, the fever-weakened Anglo-Indian and planter from the Fijis, Sandwich Islands, or Tahiti, and others, find in the cool green shades of page 27 the ferny dells, or on the grassy lawns of delightful seaside resorts like Waiwera, perfect rest, refreshment, and reinvigoration.