THE LAKES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 427, 24 June 1870, Page 2

THE LAKES.

(from our own CORRESPONDENT.

Queenstown, June 21

Never was such a season of wet weather experienced before. That most venerable individual, the Oldest Inhabitant, cannot coax his memery into recollecting anything of the sort ; so, after that, we may safely infer that such aj wintef has never been known before. The roads, of course; are bad, though not so much so as lower down the country. As for the mails, we never knoW when mails will arrive. Our epistolary correspondence is upside down, and, where matters {are pressing, the wires of the electric telegraph have to be called into requisili n to ss'st > s. The re-litting of the little steamer Vifltoria was finished on Saturday last; when she steained away for the residence of her owner, Mr. Howarth, at Half-way Bay. It was thought by many that, when fast in the sand in the Kawarau River, she wuld ever remain there ; and in all probabilitv such would have been the case but for the pluck of the brothers M ‘Kay, who boldly warped her up over the Falls into Lake Wakatip again. With the largely increasing trade on the Lake theYictoria should handsomely pay ker owner dufirig the coming summer months.

To show you how the district is improving I havo only to instance that the ratepayers’ roll 1870-1 shdwS art increase of eighty ratepayers upon the last year, while the amoiirtt of rites actually collected has increased during the same period by onethird? With the municipality 6f Queenstown so prosperous there is ample proof that the district is exactly so in proportion. Our gold escorts are larger than they have been for the last four years past, while we produce grairi in the district sufficient for ourselves and also our neighbors for sixty miles around.