James Inglis

“ Peerless Sydney has her liege votaries, whose ardent homage naught can quench—and yet, in many respects, Auckland harbour has a beauty of its own, which in some measure exceeds that of any other spot of earth I have yet seen.
Its charm seems to me to lie in its wide diversity, the vastness of its extended embrace. Every charm of landscape blends together into one magnificent whole. ”

“ Your eye is on the dusky glistening hide and the stiff erect bristles in front; the shining tusks and foam-flecked chest are your goal, and the wild excitement culminates as you feel your keen steel go straight through muscle, bone, and sinew, and you know that another grisly monster has fallen. As you ease your girths and wipe your heated brow, you feel that few pleasures of the chase come up to the noblest, most thrilling sport of all, that of pig-sticking.
The plain is alive with shouting beaters hurrying up to secure the gory carcase of the slaughtered foe. ”

“ Leaving the empty circumference, with its background of steam and ferns, and spouting gouts of boiling water, we descend the terraces, seeing the heavens in every pool; and in a retired nook to the left, under an overhanging canopy of scrub, we come upon three silently overflowing hot wells, pouring their scalding libations over three crested structures of great beauty, to which fancy has given the names of Queen Victoria's Crown and the Prince of Wales's Crown. The third Kate appropriates, and calls it Kate's Crown.
Through a leafy arcade we now thread our way. ”

“ The natives call it the 'Muddpenah' or drinker of honey. There are innumerable butterflies of graceful shape and gorgeous colours; what few birds there are have beautiful plumage; there is a faint rustle of leaves, a faint, far hum of insect life; but it feels so silent, so unlike the woods at home. You are oppressed by the solemn stillness, and feel almost nervous as you push warily along, for at any moment a leopard, wolf, or hyena may get up before you, or you may disturb the siesta of a sounder of pig, or a herd of deer. ”

“ A piercing wind comes whistling over the Taieri plains, and lashes the lake into mimic mountains.
Oh, could I but transport this wealth of water to poor drought-smitten Australia. "Water, water, everywhere" here. Lakes, streams, standing pools. Great shallow meres, with crowds of wild ducks, stocks standing in water in many of the fields. The bare brown hills, and cheerless stubbles, all dank and sodden with the plashing rain. All the noses in the carriages are blue. Our feet feel like lead, and it is very hard, indeed, to resist the depressing influence of the cold. ”

“ A spirit has moved in the valley of dry bones, and has clothed with living flesh the gaunt skeletons produced by ignorance, disease, and want. The energy and intelligence of the planter has breathed on the stagnant waters of the Hindoo intellect the breath of life, and the living tide is heaving, full of activity, purging by its resistless ever-moving pulsations the formerly stagnant mass of its impurities, and making it a life-giving sea of active industry and progress. ”

“ The mighty battlements round the lake, with their piebald ridges, and black spots, look like the grim walls of some old Afghan hill fort, riddled with bullets, and torn and rent by fierce onslaughts of the foe.
Close to Pigeon Island there is a very pretty pass between the island end and the main land. The cabbage-trees, green sward, and verdant bush (for there are no rabbits on this island, and grass and sheep are consequently abundant) are charming by contrast with the bare desolation of the snowy ridges. The passage close to the three islands is the prettiest peep on the whole lake. ”

“ The eye is peculiarly brilliant, and when glaring with fury it is truly demoniac. With his bristles rigid, the snarling lips drawn back, disclosing the formidable fangs, the body crouching for his spring, and the lithe tail puffed up and swollen, and lashing restlessly from side to side, each muscle tense and strung, and an undulating movement perceptible like the motions of a huge snake, a crouching tiger at bay is a sight that strikes a certain chill to the heart of the onlooker. ”

“ The chasms and abyssmal depths look the very acme of wild unrelieved desolation. There is not a bright tint. The only signs of motion are the foaming cascades tearing down the gullies, their silvery streaks looking like the white locks of angry furies trailing over the barren jagged clefts. The only sign of life is where a ghostly gull, sated with the flesh of some poisoned rabbits, wings his heavy flight athwart the black-blue background of dripping rock.
We seem to be floating above the clouds, and to be dipping into a sea of mist. ”

“ Imagine a wide level plain, with one uniform dull covering of rice stubble, save where in the centre a mound rises some two acres in extent, covered with long thatching grass, a few scrubby acacia bushes, and other jungly brushwood. All round the circular horizon are dense forest masses of sombre looking foliage, save where some clump of palms uprear their stately heads, or the white shining walls of some temple, sacred to Shiva or Khristna glitter in the sunshine. Far to the left a sluggish creek winds slowly along through the plain, its banks fringed with acacias and wild rose jungle. ”

“ It comes roaring, tearing, crashing, dashing down the steep, and plunges like a catapult into the river bed. The force and velocity must be stupendous, and the impact of so many tons of water at such a speed sends the volume of the Kawarau high in air, tossed in blinding spray, and the mighty buttresses of rock seem to tremble again as the water surges to and fro in their cavernous recesses. The swift Kawarau staggers, and its waves, swift as they are, are for the moment dammed back, and rise as a charger preparing for a bound into the thick of the fray. ”

“ When all is still around, and only the distant shouts of the beaters fall faintly at intervals on the ear, his keen hearing detects the light patter of hoof or paw on the crisp, withered leaves. His hawk-like glance can pick out from the deepest shade the sleek coat or hide of the leopard or the deer; and even before the animal has come in sight, his senses tell him whether it is young or old, whether it is alarmed, or walking in blind confidence. In fact, I have known a good shekarry tell you exactly what animal is coming, whether bear, leopard, fox, deer, pig, or monkey. ”

“ On both sides we see stretching away to the far horizon, like gleaming barriers of marble, tier on tier, terrace on terrace, peak on pinnacle, and pinnacle on peak, of the cold, glittering, alpine Cordilleras, every point being glorified by the slanting rays of a declining sun, glinting down from between bars of gold and amber and purple, until at length he sinks suddenly behind a Sierra, and the valley is rapidly enswathed in the sombre veil of a wintry night. ”

“ Not unfrequently we would meet in the zillah of a morning, when we would invariably make for the nearest patch of grass or jungle, and enjoy a hunt together. In the cool early mornings, when the heavy night dews still lie glittering on the grass, when the cobwebs seem strung with pearls, and faint lines of soft fleecy mist lie in the hollows by the watercourses; long ere the hot, fiery sun has left his crimson bed behind the cold grey horizon, we are out on our favourite horse, the wiry, long-limbed syce or groom trotting along behind us. ”

“ It literally sticks to the face of the cliffs in some parts.
Rain! rain. How it patters. Mud! mud. How it splashes. The horses, poor things, look veritable hypochrondriacs, and both driver and passengers look blue as the surroundings. Through a temporary rift in the grey mist, the gaunt hills show their bare, naked, ugly backs, lacerated with gaping scars. All the glamour of the kindly drapery of snow has vanished under the pitiless pelting of the rain. Great landslips have laid bare the blue shale-beds on the mountain sides. ”

“ Were you to shoot a cow, or were a Mussulman to wound a stray bullock which might have trespassed, and be trampling down his opium or his tobacco crop, and ruining his fields, the Hindoos would rise en masse to revenge the insult offered to their religion. Yet they scruple not to goad their bullocks, beat them, half starve them, and let their gaping wounds fester and become corrupt. When the poor brute becomes old and unable to work, and his worn-out teeth unfit to graze, he is ruthlessly turned out to die in a ditch, and be torn to pieces by jackals, kites, and vultures. ”

“ Over the river—what a contrast. If here be life, brightness, intense activity, what have we there? A black, oozy, slimy flat; sulphurous steam, too, hangs over the Stygian, quaking bog; but instead of azure water, only bubbling, lethargic mud comes, with a thick, slab mass; seething, in horrible suggestiveness of witches' broth and malignant wizard spells. One could fancy the flat a fit abode for ghouls, vampires, and evil spirits. While the living stream, the pure white and deep blue of the terraces, and lively pools, might be the chosen abode of spirits of healing and beneficence. ”

“ Some are reluctant to strike out, when they begin to enter the deepest channel, and try to turn back; the mahouts and 'mates' shout, and belabour them with bamboo poles. The trumpeting of the elephants, the waving of the trunks, disporting, like huge water-snakes, in the perturbed current, the splashing of the bamboos, the dark bodies of the natives swimming here and there round the animals, the unwieldy boat piled high with how-dahs and pads, the whole heap surmounted by a group of sportsmen with their gleaming weapons, and variegated puggrees, make up a picturesque and memorable sight. ”