EFFUSIONS OF AN ECCENTRIC EXCURSIONIST.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 33, 22 August 1863, Page 4

EFFUSIONS OF AN ECCENTRIC EXCURSIONIST.

(from our peripatetic correspondent.) Sir, —Having had occasion, some four or five | weeks since, to visit Maori Point and the adjaj cent localities, and, as a consequence, enjoyed i the pecular feacity of being imprisoned there | at the time auspicious enough for the travelling I observer of men and manners, but one inauspicious indeed, and pregnant with direful consei quences to those adventurous sons of toil, who ! quail not at having their cherished hopes ruthlessly hewed down by the unvanquished might ! of unpropitious elements. I allude to the period of Greet Flood, No. 1. As I believe it is a customary tiling with persons habituated to chronicling their jottings by the way, to preface their remarks with an explanation of the motive or motives they had for

starting on their rambles, and as the same may be expected from me when I choose to rush into print with an account of ray peregrinations, I will merely say that I wish to be made the exception, and crave the indulgence of the reader on this one point; but not being of an over-sen-sitive temperament, I do not scruple to let them know that I was not endowed with a carte blanche from the Superintendent of the Province to do as 1 liked—to override, in the capacity of itinerant dictator, all the established customs of administering the law, and during the interregnum displace and remove the officers of the Government who were obnoxious to my gaze, but who, at all events, had got their appointments in a constitutional way; and create, with all the nonchalance of a legitimate autocrat, successors who, but for having been blown into existence by the sweet breath of an umquhile leader of the Vio torian Demos, would never, I verily believe, have sought an appointment in the prescribed mode. As I have hinted that 1 was not, at the time I speak of, on a mission of strolling surveillance in a governmental way, I will conclude this already too protracted portion of my record, by stating that being of a self-loving turn of mind, and as such, a devout worshipper at the shrine of Mammon, I made my pilgrimage to this Shotover Mecca, with the intention of adding to my dimunitive stock of " filthy lucre," to u put money in my purse ;" and now that I have come to a windup of part the first, and having, as I trust, satisfactorily gratified the curiosity of the over Paul Pryish, in so far as is consistent with the due preservation of my incognito, I crave unlimited indulgence while 1 place before the eyes of the public my unpretending narrative of " things that I have seen" and heard too. To quote the " Doggrel Rhymer" who has lately been sojourning among us, and who, to his uncharitableness be it spoken, after having been as liberally patronized by the Queenstown public as ever one of his calibre dare hope to be, went away with an accumulation of coins that to some would suffice for an independence, and in his intense selfishness never bestowing a momentary thought on the indigence and helplessness of the scurvy-stricken and maimed, whose miseries might be su considerately ameliorated by the judicious dispensing of the results of one night's performance—when getting through what Disraeli (in his " Sybil," I thiuk,) terms, that " melancholy exhibition, a comic song"— " 'Twas on one sunshiny morning," I took a temporary farewell of the tranquil shores of Lake Wakatip, and bid a fond but only temporary adieu to its then placid waters; and when I had embraced my household gods, I started on my journey. As I wended my way up the Gorge going towards Arthur's Point, being of a dreamy turn of mind when travelling by myself, I am accustomed to give loose rein to a species of listless dreaminess, which overpowers me; and in my sanguine expectations I erect airy structures, of as formidable dimensions as ever bewitched the admiring fancy of the most enthusiastic Utopian—in fact, I revel in what has been truly characterized as the "Fool's Paradise of visionary hope," and sometimes in the progress of my musings when a hitch occurred, and a vacuum intervened, I u "Whistled as I went for want of thought." But, oh! mon cher redacteur, a truce to this, and let's to the matter in hand, as Hamlet says—"Let' e'en to't like French falconer^;" or not you alone, but my most lenient perusers, will be inclined to extinguish me as an insufferable egotist. Arriving at that part of the road beyond the first grog-shanty, about one and a half miles from town —where a hundred rippling streamlets keep the track in a perpetual state of bogginess ; and were it not that it lacks a sudden declension a Virgilian might recognize a mundane " decensus Averni"—l indulged in the glorious privilege of a Britisher—the right to grumble, and vented imprecations long and continued on all governments concerned, whether Provincial, Colonial, or Imperial, but to my mind anything but paternal, that could leave, at this advanced period of the year, in a state of such primitive and patriarchal swampiness, the highway to a portion of country unparalleled in the world's history for its wealth, and which has reimbursed to such an extent the outlay of last year, consequent upon the discovery of gold in the Molyneux, and the compact entered into at that time with Messrs. Hartley and Reiily. Sir, I may be accused of a tedious prolixity, but I must dwell on this subject, because I feel strongly upon it; and I will say that it is, and will be, an ineffaceable stain in the annals of the Provincial Government of Otago, no matter what party was at the helm, that a district which has showered, with such unsparing munificence, the means which make the Governmental machinery a paying concern, should be thus shamefully neglected, and the revenue derived from its resources be squandered in making suitable approaches to the properties of those sycophants and their servitors who, lacqueylike, dance attendance in the ante-chamber of the leading parish vestryman of Dunedin. But let's from politics for a time, and I will report progress. After experiencing a few narrow escapes from the dismal consolation of a wet sole, thanks to my being well shod, I emerged from these series of floating quagmires and once more, for a time at least, shook a loose leg upon terra Jlrma,b\it had not gone far when my attention was attracted towards three bipeds, evidently of the genus Tasmanice, who were engaged—one in manipulating three cards, and offering to bet fabulous sums that neither of the others could pick up a certain card of the three; they, after a series of hesitating u barneys," accepting the proffered challenge, in sporting phraseology "covered the money," and to the gaze of one uninitiated in the mystery, won easily. Now,

having done a considerate deal of "swagging" in Australia, I dropped in a moment to the " little game" of this illustrious triumvirate, which I concluded was as follows:—Having seen me looming in the distance, and fancying from the general appearance of mv outward man that I might have a few pounds in my pocket, and I suppose actuated by the apparent simplicity of my physiognomical development, and further incited by my stopping to witness the dexterous exploits of the operator, they thought they had found a real gudgeon, and the one that had been so successful in picking up the winning card told me entre nous that he could do it any time and every time, and tried hard to induce me to go him halves in making up the sum total, but I was impervious and consented not to his soft solicitations. Ruthlessly tearing myself from their captivating allurements, and in a low guage known only to those who have studied the ponderous tomes of the immortal and worldrenowned lexicographer—Mr William Sykes, I cried, "Smoke it;" at the pronunciation of which the one whom I have designated the operator relinquished the performance, and after haviug, to quote the words of the Irish poet, dropped the cards like a hot potatoe, asked me if I was a "D.," meaning, I presume, a detective; and upon my assuring him to the contrary, he coolly put his pipe in his mouth, and peering very cunningly into my eyes inquired if I had ever travelled for the "Point" myself; I merely gave an answer in the negative and hurried on, leaving the trio as I had found them, waiting for a greenhorn. (To be continued.)