West Coast

“ Fishermen along the coast see things sometimes the description of which rouses envy in the breasts of less fortunate listeners. Not long since a man was rowing out to his nets in the early morning just outside the bar of a small tidal river in the West Country, when he saw a raven sweeping slowly along the hill-slope near by—the grassy side of a long promontory stretching far out into the sea, muttering to itself at times with that deep voice that, happily, is still familiar to the long-shore dwellers on that coast. ”

“ Everywhere it is beautiful, and if it is so in the winter, what is it in its summer glory? I repeat it is the culmination of all the beauties I have seen, and the traveller who fails to make the journey to the West Coast misses the grandest sight of its kind in the world. ”

“ By the west coast is meant the whole of that wondrous succession of far-penetrating fiords and bays, cliff-guarded shores, and sea-washed mountains from Bantry Bay to Malin Head, a distance of over four hundred miles. There may be wilder scenery on the coasts of Norway, Labrador, or Scotland, but for wildness, sublimity, and beauty combined, there is hardly in Europe, or in the world, another four hundred miles of coast equal to it. ”

“ Improved steamboat communication, and increased facilities for inland travel, now offer inducements, which tourists are beginning to understand and appreciate. Every succeeding summer witnesses an increase of visitors, who go away, at once delighted and amazed, to spread in widening circles their tales of this wonderland. It would be no extravagant prediction to assert that in a few years hence the West Coast will become a recognised stage in the grand tour, which to miss will be to mar all pleasurable recollections. ”

“ The joy of having crossed the ice-cap and the prospect of successfully passing the inland ice to the more congenial soil of the western coast caused the little band to meet cheerfully [408] the most arduous labour in a perilous descent over crevasses and glacier, mountain, and valley into the promised land, of which old Ravna spoke with enthusiasm:—
“I like the west coast well; it is a good place for an old Lapp to live in; there are plenty of reindeer; it is just like the mountains of Finmarken.” ”

“ Fewer and still fewer of her people return East, to spend their hard-earned fortunes; and the generation now growing up there regard the Coast as their natural home, and love it dearly. Proud of the soil and enamored of the climate, they expect great things of the future, and surely all the world should wish them well. There are no better or braver men, than our citizens there generally, and the Pacific slope is safe in their hands and brains, beyond peradventure. ”

“ The situation of the West Coast is particularly favourable for the development of any disturbance of law and order, owing to the difficulty of access. At times the entrance to the river from the sea is entirely blocked. ”

“ Under the term WESTERN COASTS, is comprehended the space from the western extremity of the northern Van Diemen's Land to the North-west Cape of New Holland; and from thence, southward to Cape Leeuwin. The first is usually termed the North-west, and the second the West Coast: Taken together, they present an extent of shore of between seven and eight hundred leagues in length; lying in the fine climates comprised between the 11th and 35th degrees of south latitude. ”

“ A land of stupendous mountains, roaring cataracts, silvery cascades, fantastic volcanic formations, magnificent landscapes, noble forests, and picturesque lakes,” meeting the tourist at every turn, in a thirty hours’ journey. This West Coast road must be seen to be appreciated and enjoyed. The stupendous grandeur of the scenery in many places is beyond description, and is such as can only be realised by actual vision and experience. ”

“ The tui, too, sounds some smaller bell notes, and fails to comprehend the solemnity of the situation when he whistles and chuckles, in his own queer way, in expression of his own enjoyment. One morning's experience of such music—to drop from the sublime—is an excellent antidote for the bane of boarding and lodging in even the best hotels on this West Coast. ”

“ The ocean too smooth for sea-sickness, we strolled about the deck by twos and fours, or lolled for hours on the settees, inhaling life and vigor at every breath, until we almost seemed to be navigating fabled seas or voyaging into paradise. The Coast itself, never out of sight, rose generally in abrupt hills or mountains, and these were now green and gold to their summits. In places, whole hillsides seemed alive with wild-flowers of every hue, while here and there flocks and herds dotted the landscape far and near. Now and then an adobe house gleamed out of some sheltered nook ”

“ First, the mountain ranges run north and south parallel with the coast, and the natural lines of interior travel lead to the outlets through the Coast Ranges traversed by the Sacramento and the Columbia. The second and more general reason is that, owing to the warm currents in the Pacific, the portion of the west coast most favourable for a high degree of civilization is situated farther north than the similar belt on the Atlantic border. ”

“ If you ask a modern steamboat captain he will usually tell you it is to save time, a statement that the majority of the passengers on a West Coast boat will receive with open derision and contempt, holding him to be a spendthrift thereof; but I myself fancy that hugging this coast is a vestigial idea. In the old sailing-ship days, if you ran out to sea far from these shoals you lost your wind, and maybe it would take you five mortal weeks to go from Sierra Leone to Cape Mount or Wash Congo, as the natives called it in the 17th century. ”

“ Far better is it for the young Coaster not to try, but just to collect all the anecdotes and information you can referring to it, and then lie low for a new Coaster of your own to tell them to, and when your own turn comes, as come it will if you haunt the West Coast long enough, to peg out and be poor so and so yourself. ”

“ As the basins of the larger rivers naturally divide the Coast Districts into areas having characteristic differences, they may be best considered separately, and, as the principal settlements are on the West Coast, it may claim priority in description. A line of about 300 miles, from the sources of the Blackwood to those of the Irwin, may represent the South-Western watershed of the Colony. ”

“ Few dwellers of the west coast visit the east coast: in fact, except among the white creoles, who represent but a small percentage of the total population, there are few persons to be met with who are familiar with all parts of their native island. It is so mountainous, and travelling is so wearisome, that populations may live and die in adjacent valleys without climbing the intervening ranges to look at one another. Grande Anse is only about twenty miles from the principal city ”

“ Never to be effaced from my memory a sight worth a journey over land and sea—worth a voyage from the old world—worth hardships and discomforts—worth a king’s ransom—and yet which is within ten days of Melbourne or Sydney, and can be enjoyed for a trifling cost. New Zealand is a country of surprises in the beautiful; the southern and northern lake districts have each their admirers; but none can say they know this country thoroughly till they have been this drive to the West Coast. ”

“ Gold, the all-potent agency of civilisation, at last lured hither expectant and self-reliant thousands, the waste places were inhabited, towns sprang up as if by magic, migration from all parts of the Australasian Colonies came henceward, and settlement on the West Coast became a mighty factor in the work of colonisation. ”

“ The nature of the winds upon the North-west Coast, that is, between Cape Van Diemen and the North-west Cape, differs very materially from the regularity of the monsoons in the sea that divides it from Timor and the islands to the northward ”

“ Taking Australia from east to west, we find a high range skirting the coast on the east, and supporting a dense sub-tropical vegetation, and giving rise to an extensive but uncertain river system. Next comes a more sterile interior, composed of desert, of shallow salt lakes, and of higher steppes in unknown proportions. Approaching the west coast we meet ranges again, and rivers and fertile country. ”

“ The West Coast man is generally the taller, much darker in colour, and with smaller features, especially a smaller and straighter nose. He is as often “good looking” as is the Arab, and that perhaps, is the most generally appreciable difference between him and the negro. ”

“ It is so in our way when traveling on the North-west Coast, as not only not to be avoided, but to seem as one of our own proper belongings. The ocean steamers from San Francisco and Portland, though they no longer make this a point of destination as they did in the times of mining excitement on Frazer's River, still call here. ”

“ Tourists who desire to visit the West Coast of the Middle Island would do well to travel overland from Christchurch, and thus secure the opportunity of driving through the magnificent scenery of the West Coast road, the passage of the Otira Gorge being inexpressibly grand and beautiful in the variety of its effects. ”

“ To attempt a minute investigation of the whole coast upon data so indefinite would be of course unreasonable, but on this western side at least the similarity is sufficient, we think, on every ground to establish its identity with the west coast of Australia. On the eastern side the discrepancies are much greater. ”

“ The two sides of our great sprawling continent, the East and West, differ from each other almost as much as day differs from night. On the coast of southern California the dominant impression made upon one is of a world made up of three elements—sun, sea, and sky. The Pacific stretches away to the horizon like a vast, shining, gently undulating floor. Its waves are longer and come in more languidly than they do upon the Atlantic coast. ”

“ The West Coast forest extends for three hundred miles between the sea and the Southern Alps, and to the north of the Alps as well—a narrow strip of country varying in width from fifteen to thirty miles, and I think that the further south you go the more beautiful it becomes. ”

“ The sun was reaching the horizon, and its evening light enhanced the comparative liveliness of the foreground, for, even here, the vegetation partakes of the characteristic richness of the northern parts of the West Coast, and the cliffs present a picture with which nothing on the East Coast can compare. ”

“ This island is where the Maoris kept their prisoners and was the scene of the last cannibalistic feast on the West Coast. From time to time, in later years, many greenstone ornaments and weapons have been found here, and old-time Coast natives asserted that much fighting had taken place in the vicinity.
On January 30th, Brunner made the following entry in his diary: “This is the lake frequented by the natives on their way to the East Coast. ”

“ The eastern coast, in particular, is provided with little more than a few imperfectly protected roadsteads. The southern portion of the west coast is distinguished by a series of back-waters, or lagoons, parallel with the coast, and affording a safe and convenient waterway for small vessels when the season of high winds makes the ocean unnavigable. ”

“ When you shall have explored the Gulf of Carpentaria and the parts to the westward thereof, you are to proceed to a careful investigation and accurate survey of Torres' Strait, and when that shall have been completed, you are to examine and survey the whole of the remainder of the north, the west, and the north-west coasts of New Holland, and especially those parts of the coast most likely to be fallen in with by East-India ships in their outward-bound passages. ”

“ The east and south coasts show considerable stretches of uniform uninflected coast-line, and except for the Farne Islands and Holy Island in the extreme north, the flat islands formed by ramifications of the estuaries on the Essex and north Kent coasts, and the Isle of Wight in the south, they are without islands. The west coast, on the other hand, including both shores of the great south-western promontory, is minutely fretted into capes and bays, headlands and inlets of every size, and an island-group lies off each of the more prominent headlands from Land’s End northward. ”

“ I am told that the natives of the west coast are the shortest of the different races of Patagonia, and that those of the most easterly and central regions are of an average hight of seven feet, frequently attaining a still loftier growth. ”

“ The abundance of land already available to accommodate the present sparse population, together with the impenetrable nature of the forest growth of the west coast, have caused that region to remain unexplored. ”

“ It is the atmospheric softness, and the rich vegetation, which, on the west of Ireland, covers the valleys, glens, and the mountain-sides, it is the colour of the deep and lovely tarns, of the expanses of heather, and of the distances, and lastly, it is the rugged, rock-bound coast, a coast of many bays, of desolate islands, of solitary sea stacks, of cliffs, of sandy beaches, and wonderful sea caves, a coast that has for ages withstood the attacks of the mighty waves of the storm-driven Atlantic ”

“ HOW CLIMATE AND PHYSICAL FEATURES INFLUENCED THE SETTLEMENT OF THE WEST The story of the exploration and settlement of the Pacific coast, and of the great region lying between the Pacific slope and the Mississippi Valley, offers a most interesting opportunity to study the control which physical features of the earth exert upon the trend of men's activities. The position of the mountains, the courses of the rivers, and the character of the sea-coast have all helped to shape the history of the West. ”