AS OTHERS SEE US.

Evening Star, Issue 4225, 11 September 1876, Page 2

AS OTHERS SEE US.

The following chatty description of'a recent visit to Dunedin is from the pen of “ The Loafer in the Street,” the well-known contributer to the Christchurch ‘Press’

I went in company with a sporting gentleman than whom no better traveller exists under the canopy of heaven. Before he has been half-an hour in a town he knows where the best beer is, which is the best hotel, what time the trains and'busses start, .and where they go to. He knows what’s best to see, and how best to see it. I’ve known him more than once to be in a position to-tell me what the lock-up was like before he had been in a city twenty-four hours. .We left per Taupe. We didn’t ship as cargo. I mention this because I recently saw a shipping report which read somewhat as follows “ Passengers—Mrs Smith, Brown, Jones, and Robinson; 120 tons of cargo,, and seventeen Chinese.” I shouldn't wish your readers to imagine that I was shipped on board like a cask of ale. There were several other passengers. One was a very nice yonng lady. Light other nice yonhg ladies came to see her off. There was a lot of sweet—very sweet—sorrow about their parting, li'ach of the eight young ladies gassed the departing yonng lady twelve times, making upwards of 100 kisses in all. Not one offered to kiss me, not even on behalf of my mother. There’s been some very fine writing about the ocean. You’ve read Byron, I expect. He remarks as under: Ob, who can tell ? Not thou, luxurious slave Whose sold woul l sicken o'er the heaving wave.

The exulting sense, the pulses mnildAtniiffT.W That thrills the wanderer of that tameless way,” &c. Who can tell? I can. I can tell you that when I go aboard any boat I’m just the ideal of the luxurious slave described about. I can heave with any wave that ever hove. I’ve only got that far though. The exulting sense and pulses maddening playare outside the pale of my experience. ’ .The' scenery down the coast is, especially about the Peninsula, very beautiful. There are scales there that Salvator Rosa would have lived to depict, and if he was short of brigands to put round his inevitable fire he could now get a score or two easily by telegraphing to Christchurch. I should like to as it were limn a scene or two myself, but the editor of this paper says my descriptions of scenery are so much the same that he will not pay for them any more. Under these circumstances, I shall not attempt to limn. There was a gentle youth on board of about ten autumns (summers are used up.) I discoursed with him on education. I said I thought our system was ahead of any in New Zealand. He said “That be blowed for a yarn. Why,,you charge bachelors LI a year for schooling other people's kids ; we do’nt do them things in Dunedin.” Such was his remark. We fet to Port Chalmers about breakfast, cenery up the harbor—beautiful. The port itself is, 1 should say from a cursory observation, much the same as other ports. There is a family likeness about sea ports. Also about public-house ports. We see the Dry Deck, which is worth seeing, and which I understand pays well. The railway station is not big enough to lose yourself in more than twice in the hour. I think our’s ahead of it. Mr Dodson’s hotel is a very good one. While waiting for the train my friend the sporting G. interviewed eighteen'people all captains, and had a drink with each of them. What a good and great thing it is to have a large nautical circle bf~ acquaintance. We go up to Dunedin by train. More scenery—wooded bills, and Larnach Castle in the distance. I forget the names of the stations we pass. You can find them in any Dunedin directory. The pace was good. We arrive in Dunedin. It's a bit different from Christchurch. It’s a mountainous city, ours is flat. In Dunedin you can’t go one hundred yards w thout an Alpine experience. Thus it was thatljoad frequently occasion to dwell a good bit over my sight-seeing. The buildings are-stone and good, not wooden shanties like you see in some parts of New Zealand. I don’t allude to Christchurch, because it is our proud boast that for antique piles of mips piptnresque rotten old weed ruins—whip any town around. Look , it' our Gothic Post Office, glance at, bur com-

modioos public buildings; wHy Dunedin can show nothing like them, and lots of the boys down there told me they don’t believe they ever will. I state the fact with diffidence, but I like their style of build better than ours. I might also say that their paving is much better. I was told that it rained regularly in Dunedin every daw This is a fraudful invention. It never rained the whole time I was there, but in case it should, I walked about with my new borrowed Ulster until I grew weary of it. 1 still reckoned on a deluge at any moment, so I borrowed, at different times, two umbrellas from the Imperial. They were bloated old segments, of cotton, with bones in them like the masts of a brig ; quite unlike the one I generally use. I lost them, but the owners will, I hope, find one in the Museum and the other at the Police station. If my description of the Otago metropolis seems a bit disjointed, you’ll have io excuse it. My intellect is framed on a disjointed basis. It is perhaps unnecessary to state this to you, but there may be a reader or two of yours who has not yet found it out, 1 have heard it stated that Dunedin is essentially Scotch. I have heard this often, also read it. Further, that no other white man bat a Scot can live there. This is untrue. It is, I believe, a fact that a Celestial Chinaman applying for a contract in Dunedin was under this impression, and signed his name Mac Chin Chin ; but I came in contact with at least two or three Irishmen there—in the Police—not to mention Englishmen \ I’m very cosmopolitan myself. It’s much the best. When you go to the West Coast you should be Irish; in Dunedin, perhaps it is best to be Scotch. When you go into a stable be an ass. You’d find it easy enough. I always heard the Scotch nations were hospitable. I found them so. I shall go and live in Dunedin I expect soon. I went for a drive with Mr Chaplin to the Taieri. It’s all hill work, and turnpikes are, I found, an Otago institution. Talking about pikes, there were two nautical gentlemen elected to ride from Port Chalmers to Dunedin the other night. They called on Bacchus a few times before starring, and then elected to hurry up. They made the pace merry. When they came to the pike the gate was shut. The first man’s horse jumped it, and the rider felt a number of geological specimens knocking about his face. There were and sandstone and slate seams all over his sunburnt visage. The other man saw .the gate and waited! When he rejoined his mate, the latter, who was in blissful ignorance of having jumped the gate, said “I shan’t pay for a stumbling brute like this,” and then rode into town to buy six square yards of plaster, and buy a fresh suit of clothes. The view from the top of the hill, overlooking the Taieri, is superlative. I remarked as follows:—“ Look where far beneath us stretches away a fertile plain; dotted with smiling homesteads, where honest old farmers worship Ceres, and grow rich on beeves. Observe where the river Taieri gleams likes a diver thread through the velvety sward, while the mountains in the back ground glow with, as it were, a purple sheen. On their summits the fleecy clouds shimmer athwart .” Oh shut up, said Mr Chaplin, that’s the way every fool talks when he sees this place. I said no more. I never do get a chance on scenery. Mr Chaplin was going to drive me to Larnach Castle, but unfortunately, owing to a Canterbury summons, I had to return too soon. I should like to have seen Castle Larnach. Not that I’m up in castles. The only castle I’m at all familiar with is the one we see on the stage, wherein haughty barons cast rightful heirs to tame their Eroud spirits, and from whence the rightful eirs escape by means only comprehensible to the dramatist. The Museum m Dunedin is not so imposing as ours. It seems to require amplifying somewhat. It is a bit short of stuffed things. What there is there is good enough, but there’s not enough of it. The only people I saw there were a young couple of diverse sexes, apparently flattening heir noses against a case of stone specimens. As I passed the young lady said, “ Oh, don’t Jim.’ And I observed Jim didn’t. She seemed an amiable dispositioned young lady, with a countenance like a Romney Marsh lamb. I left them finding sermons in the stones, and hoped they would be happy. The public gardens in Dunedin are good. I wandered pensively about them. They possess plenty of native trees, in which respect they are ahead of ours. They are also very well kept. There are some miniature lakes, whereon are ducks of curious plumage. I expect now you think that I’ve given you a very fair idea of Dunedin. Anyone who has not been there could read the above and get a good straight idea of the place, but Fve not half done yet. Fve lots more, only I get so confused when I rive you too much for your money that 1 feel your readers would rather I should leave off now. I feel the same.