James Inglis

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How the city seems to open out the higher we ascend among the gorse and rocky spurs. Every valley is now seen to be full of houses. The harbour opens out into numerous long bays. The calm ocean (for, wonderful phenomenon for Wellington, the winds are lulled and the day is placid) lies spread out before us in all its bewitching beauty, flecked only here and there with a few small craft, lying idly rocking on the glassy surface. The long grey sweep of the rocky peninsula terminates in a busy swarming scene, where the gangs of men are lustily working at the fortifications. ”

“ Steam everywhere, and an all-pervading sulphurous stench, apprise us very forcibly that we are now in the hot lake country. After a luxurious half-hour spent in the warm natural bath attached to the hotel, we take a languid stroll down by the beach, and survey the native settlement. The evening meal—potatoes and whitebait—is being cooked. The sound of incessant ebullition is at first almost awe inspiring. One realizes what a thin crust alone intervenes between one's shoe soles and the diabolical seething cauldron beneath. Naked children are bathing in a deep pool by the lake. ”

“ Hotels, which so far as outward appearances go, are immeasurably superior to the usual grog-shops which in an Australian, country town are dignified with the misnomer, hotel. The streets are planted with shade trees; and rows of poplars and willows, clumps of firs and alders, and hedges of gorse and hawthorn, with the broad fertile pastures of home grasses, give a wonderfully English look to the place.
After Hastings, the train runs past miles of bare brown hills, with a long winding valley at their feet, raupo growing on its swampy bosom, and there is little of interest for the tourist. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We arrived off Napier, in Hawke's Bay, very early, and caught the first launch. The offing here is too exposed to south-east winds; but here, too, the Harbour Board is vigilant and active. It is indeed pleasant to see the signs of so much enterprise and public spirit. The sea-shore here is fringed with shifting banks of shingle, which has been carried down from the main range by the swift rivers that tear through the gorges and denude the hill country, on a scale which is, perhaps, paralleled nowhere else on the face of our globe. ”

“ The cloudless blue of the Australian sky has here given place to the exquisite variety of ever changing hue and form, which gives such animation to the New Zealand landscape, and forms one of the chiefest charms to the visitor from the bigger island.
Yes, Sydney harbour is lovely. But Auckland, with its wider sweep, its greater diversity and bolder features, has a beauty of its own which makes her a not unworthy rival. ”

“ Christchurch has stirring times, and a bright busy future before it yet, beyond a doubt, else the Anglo-Saxon is played out, and there is no more virtue in beef, wool, and grain. So long as grass grows and water flows, and industry merits success, so long will Canterbury flourish, and the cry of bad times from lazy croakers will have as much effect as the idle wind that wastes its energies on the sands of the desert. ”

“ The Mountaineer, I should mention, is not the least wonder in this region of wonders. It is a perfect little craft, clean as an admiral's launch, comfortable as a first-class hotel, and one marvels to find a steamer of such elegance and pretensions so far away from salt water. Captain Wing, a son of the old harbour-master of Hobson's Bay, is a debonair and pleasant cicerone, and takes a kindly pleasure in showing the beauties of the lake to any passenger who betrays an interest in his surroundings. ”

“ Here we come to warm caves and terraces of broad flagstones, where Maoris once lived. Moko's Cave is a natural Turkish bath, where I forget how many generations Kate said were born and reared. They must have had a hot time of it. The fires are burning out this side the hill, surely. Here is a deserted terrace, now getting cold and moss-grown. Below it, and near the lake, is a boiling pool of some extent, and of an exquisite deep blue, in which a poor Maori nurse-girl and her charge—a helpless infant—were boiled. The bodies were never recovered. ”

“ Away at the far end lies a small islet, like a waterfowl at rest, and yet farther away, looking soft in the blue haze of distance, beyond the low green hills that bound the farther extreme of Rotokakahi, rises a mighty crest, beneath whose ample shadow reposes another, and yet another lake. Words utterly fail to depict the magic beauty of this wondrous region.
At our feet, nestling amid willows and fruit trees, and cheered by the babble of the noisy brook, lies Wairoa.
What noisy, jabbering crew have we here? They are dirty, ragged, boisterous, uncivil, rude. ”

“ The quarantine-station is bright and gay with houses and gardens. The town runs its open streets up the steep hill and the houses overflow into every nook on the hillsides and jostle each other almost into the water. A great area has been reclaimed. Old stone warehouses have been pulled down to make way for the railway and locomotive sheds, and a blackened, smoky archway, low down near the great graving dock, shows me the sea-end of the famous tunnel through the towering mountain, which Moorhouse projected, and which had not long been begun when I arrived in the colony. ”

“ Apples by the ton in the long low lofts and cool spacious granaries; apples and almonds of the choicer sorts in the verandahs and in sweetly-scented rooms. In the orchard a lovely pond, green with mosses, lustrous with the sheen of sun and water, and fringed with loveliest ferns, was well stocked with fish, which are here acclimatized, and from which the streamlets are being stocked. From the spacious verandah we look right across the fertile valley to "Rest Down," the earliest settlement in the island, so called because the first people "rested down" here in old Governor Collins's time. ”

“ To get even an approximate idea of the city as a whole, you must mount the fine tower of the yet incomplete town hall, or ascend the steep inclines which overlook the city, by one of the wire tramways, which are a feature of the locomotive life of Dunedin, or, if you are favoured with a fine day, take a drive along the beautiful winding road, which threads the heights of the peninsula, between the firth and the open sea, and you will be rewarded with views of the great city, which give you an idea of its extent and importance, such as perhaps you could acquire in no other way. ”

“ On our left a magnificent cascade comes shooting down over an abrupt ledge, and now we reach the Swift Burn gorge. 'Twould take a Doré to paint this awful chasm. Far below, the Swift Burn dashes. Appropriate name! The abyss is appalling in its inky hues of desolation. It looks as if mortification had set in on all the livid faces of crag, and rotting cliff, and the black-blue tinge of universal dissolution has set its seal on all the surroundings. The Arrow here loses its mud-begrimed waters in the olive-green volume of the swift Kawarau. The canyon is of a depth that makes one shudder. ”

“ Behind, looking away up to the mountain tops, they are literally hidden in "clouds of thick darkness," and so majestic is the whole that the mind is overwhelmed with its grandeur and sublimity, and quite unfit to analyze it into its component parts.
We descend swiftly now into the famous Wairarapa Valley. The great lake now takes on a muddy hue. It is like an inland sea of dull olive green. The dun manuka hills around, and swampy flats bordering the lake, seem very tame after the majesty of the mountains and solemn grandeur of the gorges. ”

“ Now we are entering on the famous Waikato pastures. The cattle would delight the eye of a farmer. Cheese-making is here a flourishing industry. The people all seem healthy, happy, and well-to-do. The air is exhilarating; our spirits rise, our chests expand; and as the train rolls into Cambridge, our halting-place for the night, we feel hungry enough to eat a tailor stuffed with needles. ”

“ Now Storm Bay opens out before us. As if to sustain its reputation, the icy blast comes swirling round the snowy summit of Mount Wellington with augmented force, and chills us to the marrow. We were informed that snow on Mount Wellington is abnormal. Anyway the nightcap was on when we were there, and the weather was bitterly cold. Now we catch the gleam of a white lighthouse on a small island right ahead. Lovely bays open out on the right. The long, glistening estuary of the Derwent, studded with the bleached sails of numerous yacht-like craft. ”

“ Turning a point, with a solitary shag sitting reflectively on a partly-submerged tree-trunk, we enter another long arm or gulf, and find it terminates in a marshy flat, with a few huts dumped down promiscuously on the rising ground at the back, and a strong running creek bisecting the level delta; and on either side white cliffs, draped in part with ferns, and with steam rising up from hot springs at their base. On ahead, amid burnt-looking bleak hummocks, we see more steam clouds, and we are informed, "There lie the Terraces!"
The dream of years is about to be realized. ”

“ She is renowned through all the lake country as a daring and accomplished horsewoman. Can handle an oar like a Beach, and an axe in a style that would make Gladstone envious. Bred and reared amid these rocky pastures and wild solitudes, she knows every foot of the country, and is as free, fearless, and independent as the winds that whistle round Mount Earnslaw. ”

“ Now as we glide onward, the homely old city opens out, backed by the steep bulk of Mount Wellington, whose tawny shoulders are now streaked with drifted snow. A fortress is here also in course of construction, though it seems, to my civilian eye, to be easily dominated by the heights at the back. Here lies Hobart at our feet, shining in the sun, and climbing, in errant and leisurely fashion, the easy slope which trends upwards from the water's edge. ”

“ We have no room for the intemperate idler, the loafer, or incompetent, chicken-hearted, slovenly shirker. We have enow of these, God wot, already; but there is work out here for every willing, capable, self-respecting man, under circumstances of such material comfort, such increased remuneration, such political freedom, such generous fare and charm of climate, with all the accessories and surroundings of community of speech, race, religion, and home institutions, as are nowhere else procurable in any dependency of the Empire. ”

“ As the morning mist lifts we see the deep light, beyond which lies the cathedral city, Christchurch. The tall spire is faintly discernible, surrounded by other leafy spires of poplar and pine, and tiny wreaths of blue smoke rising in spiral columns into the grey air of morning. Behind, rise the silvery spurs of the snow-clad Alps. They glitter like burnished armour in the rosy light. The hills and steep braes of the Peninsula are brown and bare, but the snow has a homelike look, and seems to gleam with a kindly welcome to the returning wanderer. ”

“ A long climb, with steep craggy heights to our left, and the river to the right brings us to the summit of a fern-covered saddle, and far as the eye can reach in front, we look across a great strath or broad valley, all barred and scarred, disrupted, riven, and tumbled about, into ravines, terraces, ridges, and conical peaks, showing what terrific and eccentric forces must have been at work at some former epoch. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In New Zealand, fish-curing is a thriving and lucrative calling. In every hotel delicious smoked fish form a never-failing adjunct to the breakfast table. Large quantities are exported and reach Victoria, and go to other parts. Why can we not do likewise in New South Wales? Again I ask—is it ignorance, or apathy, sloth, want of energy and enterprise, or what is it? Are we so mildewed and emasculated with the eternal molly-coddle of the Government pap boat, that we cannot launch out and start a new industry like this by private enterprise? ”