A Land of Big Things

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 71, 24 November 1885, Page 3

A Land of Big Things

Writing in the !' Sydney Evening News," on New Zealand, "Maori" has the following' remarks .:->—" Fn._ parenthate, let us just for a moment recapitulate, and array together tli^se 1 biggest in the world' items, of which New Zealand' is so proud. It is, Indeed, a motley catalogue. Pirst, the biggest dredge ; then, the highest water-wheel ; next, the biggest trout ; -the biggest wooden building; the highest wooden bridge ; the biggest calcareous terraces; the biggest bird' (if the moa still lives); the biggest .aj>ple6-~those of the Waikato dis*-' jbictj. the biggest and most luxurious natural warm, baths ; the "biggest fslraoed formation : the biggest j v glacier , -(flutf- of Mt. Cook— though

that is doubtful) ; the biggest tattooing on the biggest reclaimed cannibal, with probably the biggest mouth; the .biggest flax bushes ; the steepest railway incline - r the biggest beds of shingle; the biggest concrete breakwater ; the biggest cabbages— if we accept the cabbage tree as generic ; the biggest proportion of rabbits to the acre ; the biggest artesian water supply (that of Ohristchurch) ; the biggest beds of water cress; the biggest colonial debt ; and as its admirers say, the biggest-hearted people, to which my own experience says amen : and the biggest future of any of Britain's colonies, to which, with a Scotchman's proverbial caution I say, «.Weel, we'll see ?' ' Nous yerrons-' Now then, af tor, this, where are you, . Yankee Sam, or Victorian James?",. ' _ 1^" '