WAYSIDE NOTES.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2721, 6 November 1871, Page 2

WAYSIDE NOTES.

(By our Special Reporter out for a Holiday.) Your readers will doubtless remember Clyde, or the Dunstan, is almost in the centre of the widest part of the Middle Island. It is on thejsame side of the river as Alexandria, and on the opposite side to Roxburgh. It is at the foot ot a large gorge in the stream, which extends to Cromwell and Hartley’s celebrated beach, and the ground on which it stands seems to be formed from the silt that has been scoured out of it, and as valuable as scourings generally are. Adjacent on both sides of the river it possesses an abundance of flat laud surrounded by fail s, but land so arid, sandy, and worthless that the grass even refuses to grow on it. On the Dunstan commonage a cow should be allowed 100 acr»s over which to roam to preserve life—double that amount certainly to entertain a remote hope of butter and cheese. Cattle appear to walk about looking lor bladsg of grass —a tussock would be an unimagined luxury. Even in the spring time, when grass should be abundant, the common is as arid as a South Australian plain in January, and dry as a limeburner’s throat. It is all sand and shingle—the rain percolates through it like a sieve—and it has evidently been inhabited and stocked two thousand years too soon. To heighten the charms of this prospect, the flat land is surrounded by a tier of hills unlike anything f have yet seen in my not limited sphere of observation. They are neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring. I can understand a good-sized mountain, like Earnslaw, Egmont, or Aspiring, being rough and rugged—they have the decency, you know, to cover their irregularities with a white garment, but for those pettifogging eminences to out-Hered Herod seems ridiculous. They look as though some huge fellows, a hundred feet high or thereabouts, had been carefully employed during several generations dropping hugh masses of roeks all over their summits and slopes. 1 can find no simile because I have seen nothing like them, but if you can imagine—I confess I connot —a hugh batter pudding some miles square, mixed with yeast, containing lumps of suet about the sizes of pigsties and cathedrals, and which, by the process of fermentation are all thrown to the surface projecting in all shapes irregularity can devise—you may have some faint idea of what the hill sides are like i hey look as verdant and charming as the level land. Like some other portions of the island among the glaciers, they look unfinished, like a bear—a human one I mean—wanting rubbing down. JS either Clyde nor its surroundings by any means lack character, but their characteristics are all outre , destitute of grass, scrub, or timber, arid as a Sahara. The town is situated at the mouth of a gorge, on a sandy soil; the gorge acting as funnel for the northerly winds, which I am informed prevail for several months at this season of the year, blow well and steadily most days, reminding one forcibly of hot winds in Melbourne, or a brickfielder at Wolloomooloo. The rainfall is small at Clyde, and dust abundant—you may imagine the remainder. The inhabitants at times have to shut up all their doors —not a great loss to tradesmen, for the amount of business done here seems wonderfully small. There are scarcely any miners in the neighborhood, the land precludes agriculture, and save the Resident Magistrate the district surveyor, and the police stationed here, I really canuot see what the inhabitants have to live on. There is no lack of hotels however— eight in number—one to about every twenty inhabitants, the general average through the Colony. Visitors are not numerous I can assure you, and they add an additional complexity to the considerations of the publicans’ profits, how they manage to live, the the fools men are to patronise them, and the waste force extended in vending liquors throughout the Colony. When I again come to town I purpose trying to find out how people are engaged in the liquor traffic in the several Provinces, and find out the least thirsty and bibulous locality. Clyde glories, however, in being a municipality, with a full-fledged mayor and town councillors. The town is composed of one street and a half, so their field of surveillance and jurisdiction cannot be considered extensive. *Yet even thus far from Duuedia there are op-

posing elements and conflicting parties. Law and physic are both doubly represented—and a resident clergyman has at length been appointed, belonging to the Church of England ; a Scotch Presbyterian minister was starved out of the district some time since. I hope better things for his successor. This, you will remember, was the scene of Mr Rennie’s midnight expedition when he caught the police napping, and walked away with some few ounces of gold and two or three bank notes. Unless my memory plays me false, this locality has been rather unfortunate in retaining custody of precious metals ; but as our peelers do their duty so well as a rule, it is no use recalling past mishaps. Tluir />ose, however, seems strong enough to protect all the alluvial wealth in the Colony. The noble St. Vincent resides here—multifold as ever— R.M., lay reader, secetary, horticulturist, stouter than of yore at Castlernaine, but enduring well. Vou will remember some time since he informed the commonalties that he had not yet been raised to the peerage, but he could not say how so n he might be. There has been a noble Clyde, your readers may remember lang sync. Why not another ?

(To he continued. )