AS OTHERS SEE US.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2663, 30 August 1871, Page 3

AS OTHERS SEE US.

The following picture of Dunedin U drawn by a gentleman from Christchurch en route for Melbourne “Dunedin, with its long wharves without ships, its general air of being overgrown and overdone, is big enough and dirty enough not to disappoint one’s expectations respecting it. It looks like Mr Micawber, ‘wading for something to turn up. ’ It is bigger, better built, dirtier, and prettier than Christchurch ; but it matches your city in its general air of dejection and quietude. There is no fear of being run over, or of having one’s melancholy disposition undermined by the sight of smilin'* faces, or the sound of genial conversation. 0 The canny Scots, who came out to make their fortunes, look as though they hadn’t done it, and that their disappointment was weighing on their minds. I saw a Presbyterian church, with its steeple erected, and its walls about half built. It had been like that for a long time, and was likely to remain so, I heard—the reason being want of funds. This tine lookin" structure, and Mr Micawber’s motto aforesaid, would make a very appropriate crest for the city. I wandered into the Cost Office, and admired its capital arrangements as compared with that miserable, draughty building in Christchurch. I also ; aid a visit (not officially) to the Uesidcnt Magistrate’s Court, and noticed that the general public were treated to comfortable benches to sit on, and that the venerable dispenser of justice was seated in a much more imposing position than worthy Mr Bowen. From thence I rambled into the new University building, which was noisy, with the echoes of workmen’s hammers, and seemed a large commodious structure with an imposing exterior, but badly situated for the purpose for which it is intended, being in the busiest part of the town. The same correspondent gives the following account of the last voyage of the Tararua: — “The average from the Bluff to Mel bourne is six days, but it took us nearly ten to manage it, and once or twice it was becoming a rather unpleasantly exciting question whether we shouldn’t arrive at quite another bourne than the one we had paid our passage to, a little sooner than most of us were prepared for. Ihe Capt un, who had been at sea some 33 year’s and had made this same passage about 2.50 times, sa d he had never seen such weather before. As far as I am concerned, 1 don’t wish to give nature the trouble to act out of her usual course when I am at sea again ; ordinary weather is far more appreciable, to my mind; and I don’t think any of us were very grateful for the extraordinary exertions made on on our behalf. We "had a priest on board —fat, jolly', gentlemanlike, and liberal-minded ; an Independent parson —generally sick, and calling plaintively for the steward, but, when the state of his stomach would admit, and the weather was favourable, sitting on deck upon the main hatch, with his back against the engine-house, reading “Pickwick.” One night, when the roa came into the saloon, which it had a nasty trick of doing, this gentleman rushed out of his berth with nothing on particularly, and sat on the table in this airy costume till the water was cleared out. Another passenger, who accompanied us from Canterbury, was of a melancholy turn of mind, and was constantly predicting the speedy end of all things, and quoting texts of Scripture with a view to the conversion of au old well-known horse-dealer, who was returning from Dunedin to Melbourne after a succe sful trip with horses. I am afraid he may be catalogued as a hardened sinner, and that my fellow-coun-tryman did not succeed in his pious efforts. Tire dealer was big, ruddy, and merry, full of good-humoure ,1 chaff, an oracle on sea voyages, and quite an authority as to “when we should get in.” Ho wore a wide-awake hat, a big red neck handkerchief, a waistcoat with large pockets and flaps over them, and his trousers were always tucked up, showing his

fantastically laced bqqks. One was always • expecting to sec him come up with a whip studded with brass ferules, and trot some of us up and down the deck, giving us an occasional cut with tlie whip to make us show our paces. He spoke of the foamcrested waves as “ them white-hacked ones,” and referred with pride to a celebrated entire, Samson, 1 believe, which he had sold to travel in Canterbury. Upon my saying that a shipment of a few really good brood marcs to Canterbury would meet with ready purchasers, he shook his head, and said the Canterbury farmers couldn’t afford to pay the price for good horses. A good mare would cost at least L4O in Melbourne, and 1.12 more to get her to Canterbury, and where was your Canterbury farmer who could pay that, he should like to know ? Why, if a man there gave LSO for a horse he would have it put in tiie papers, that he would. The Qtago

farmers Avere mostly Scotch and liked big horses, and didn’t mind paying for them, hut “ho be bloAved” if he would ever tackle Canterbury. Eor two days avg lay tossing at the mercy of the sea, hove to, with the gr at green Avaves dashing over us, all of us very quiet and pious as really frightened people are wontjto be; hut the merciful Heaven dealt kindly Avith ns, and brought ns through tlm seething Avaste of storm-lashed waters to Port Philip Heads at last.