NOTES ON A RECENT TOUR THROUGH NELSON AND MARLBOROUGH.

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 130, 15 August 1868, Page 4

NOTES ON A RECENT TOUR THROUGH NELSON AND MARLBOROUGH.

BY THE BISHOP OF NELSON. r.uiT ii. I find much must be omitted if I am to get to the end of my journey before your next monthly summary, and therefore start at once from the Wairau, by the Taylor Pass, into the Awatere, a long and very singular valley, in the middle of which flows a rapid and generally turbid stream from the same source as its neighbour, the Clarence. Both these valleys are singularly destitute of trees, but contain several well planted stations, where fruit trees flourish luxuriantly. The peculiar feature of the valley is its flat terraces and the abruptness of their banks, so that you have no idea, till you are just on the edge, that the ground falls away; the banks too of the river are steep blue clay bluffs, and present a singularly wild and barren appearance. The grass is in tussocks, and as regular as if it had been planted by a nursery gardener. It seemed a pity that so much tine country as this and the adjoining run of Flaxbourne should be given up to sheep, but it is probable that the country will be more enclosed and formed into large paddocks; I was very glad to hear many talking about farms and villages, and the breaking up of the large runs into smaller and more manageable properties. There is land in the Awatere which could carry a large population, but timber is.very scarce. Some of the stations, ho we vex’, are planting English forest trees. At Starboi’ough I had a service on Sunday evening in the woolshed, in which a very suitable pulpit was kindly improvised for me in the wool press lined -with new bale sacks. It was shearing time and the shearers formed a large addition to the congregation. It will be very desirable to be up the country in shearing time as many may then be met with, and they seem always pleased to listen. Flaxhourue is a clean and well kept station, and Messrs. Clifford.and Weld have an indefatigable manager, Mr. Lovegrove. I was told they are planting extensively. On the way here I passed the saltwater lagoon called Grasmere, which is the habitation of a large number of black swans, and myriads of paradise ducks and ducks of other kinds; on this coast lower down I saw the beautiful blue crane, while the great variety .of sea birds much enlivens the journey by the sea shore.

The telegraphic wires, too, are company for the traveller. As long as they are in sight there is still one link to civilisation left.

The view of the inland Kaikouras, or Tapuenaka, is very grand as. you- turn into the opening of the Awatere, and also of the Clarence ; and the seaward Kaikouras is a grand feature as you get South. No wonder that Captain Cook was impressed with them. The mouth of the Clarence is very striking—Mr. Trolove’s station on the one side, and Mr. M'Hae’s on the other, both rich in fruit produce. The Clarence gives us, in February, much trouble; we crossed it one week with ease, not up to the horses’ knees; the next week at the same place it was thirty feet deep, trees and heavy stones rolling down. I was here a witness of the courage and intrepidity of Father Sauzeau, the Homan Catholic priest at Blenheim, he encountered great danger on his return, to keep an engagement. At the Ferry, a service is held by Mr. Porritt, who comes over from Kekerangu (Mr. Tetley’s) once a fortnight. This station of Mr. Tetley’s shows the advantage of married gentlemen living on their stations; a little school house and chapel, neat cemetery, and cottages, reproduce here more than anywhere else an English village, with its squire and resident family. It is a great loss to all along that road and in that neighborhood, that was sustained in Mrs. Tetley’s removal. Certainly station life has its disadvantages, but in a place like Mr. 'Tetley’s, one sees how much of them may be done away, and with a little extra outlay and riding, a gentleman need not be more out of the world in such a place than many that I know in various parts of England and Scotland.

A beautiful coast ride leads to Kaikoura, which consists of a few smaller stations, and a central township of stores, courthouse, and schools, and I hope shortly to add church and parsonage-house; the timber is ordered. The district is a difficult one to work, for the distances are great, but they are very anxious to got a clergyman, and will, I am sure, not rest till they succeed. I know not of a pleasanter sphere, if the right man be found; on the other hand, it has its peculiar difficulties, and they will be at once understood when I say that Kaikoura was an old whaling station, and a man unfitted for the place would soon apply to me to post him elsewhere. There are many small farmers here who have been successful diggers, and in ten years’ time, it is safe to predict, it will be a well-settled place. Thence the road lies along the coast to the Kahutara, Mr. Pullen’s station, and as it rises, enables the traveller to obtain one of the most beautiful views, as he looks back, that I have yet seen in any part of the world. Looking northwards, the Korth Island and entrance to Wellington bai’bor, the mouth of Cook Strait, and the high lands over Port Underwood are in full view ; then successively Cape Campbell, the mouth of the Clarence, and the Kaikouras, with a number of smaller promontories, lie immediately before the eye, one behind and above the other. This coast line carries the eye up to the colossal masses of snowcovered mountains, the Thor and Odin, of 8,000 and 9,000 feet elevation; on one of the afternoons on which I saw it, a beautiful golden mist hung magically over the whole; it seemed a fit illustration of some recent lines of our Poet Laureate Round the North, a light, A belt it seem’d of luminous vapour lay. And ever in it a low musical note Swelled up and died; and «g it swelled a ridge Of heaven issued from the belt, and still Grew with the growing note. A full tide l!ose with ground swell, which on the foremost rooks Touching, upjettt-d in spiiits or wild sea smoke, And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and tell In vast sea cataracts, I never saw any view so approaching my ideas of dream land, or King Arthur’s country. -Turner would have revelled in it, and 1 am glad to know that our talented fellow-citizen, Mr, Gully, is able to do justice to such a scene. We passed old Kaikoura’s pah ; he had recently died—a fine specimen of a Maori chief. When he was asked to be content with one wife, he pointed to two women who were practically slaves, but who both claimed to be wives, and said of one, “ That is my breakfast;” and, turning to the other, “That is my tea.” “I am an old man, and cannot do without my ‘ tea’ and 1 breakfast;’ ” and so he continued to have two slave wives. Peaches and Indian corn are much cultivated by the natives on this coast at their pah; and they live in a sheltered bay, where the dark-green karaka makes a handsome background in the bush. Eough travelling took us to the mouth of the Conway. I should like some of our English friends to be set down in a New Zealand river bed, and told, “ That is the way;” with the usual addition, “ You axe sure not to miss the road; you cannot mistake it.” We pushed on, but it was quite dark, and were within a very little of having to spend the night on the river side,

the road lay up the middle of the river bed, crossing and re-crossing the stream almost continually for five miles. Mr. Paisley, of Kincaird, was my guide. We reached Hawkswood, Mr. Caverhill’s station, celebrated for its fruit-trees and extensive nursery grounds, five acres near the house being filled with a very extensive variety of hardy shrubs for planting out. Apples and pears of all sizes grow here ; and, far as it is from towns and the haunts of men, the house is comfortable, and the grounds round it would do justice to many an older homestead in England. Mr. Caverhill is a Scotchman, and certainly in many respects must be reminded of his native country by the scenery of his neighbourhood in the Arnuri.

After a cordial reception here, I travelled on to Mount Parnassus, Mr. Anstey’s, where his manager, Mr. Hartland, kindly undertook to see us over the River Waiu, afterstaying there a day or two, owing to a fresh in the river. He assembles the men on the station every Sunday evening for prayers, and the service is well attended. The Presbyterian minister comes over from Christchurch occasionally, and he is the only minister of religion of any sort who visits the district as far as I could learn. We ought to supply the members of our church with an itinerating clergyman ; but Christian laymen at present do not realize the necessity of raising an adequate maintenance for a clergyman; many wish to enjoy the luxury, for as such they regard it, but as is the case with many other luxuries when it comes to raising £250 per annum, difficulties arise. We shall have to wait a little, and what we wish at the Arnuri will yet be done. Meantime, lam happy to say Mr. Robinson, of Cheviot Hills, intends to have services at his house, and also purposes building a church, the site of which he fixed while I was there. I held services in one of his spacious rooms, recently built, in a house which is I suppose the largest private residence in the colony, and it is certainly very convenient and handsome.

His station is very interesting, and shows how much may he done by judicious expenditure of capital. Forty miles of quick-set hedge is worth going a long distance to see, even in Kew Zealand ; and the bulk of his land is so clear and free from stones, while English grass is rapidly spreading, that all that one has heard of the Amuri can be seen at a glance to be well founded. A jetty and wharf, and an occasional call by a steamer, would soon bring the place into communication, though I must confess it is now too much cut off from the world. Whichever way you turn, the impression on your mind is, how much use might be made of all this country; and the question is suggested, how many years will pass before it is adequately peopled. The two bridges over the Waiau and the Hurunui will be great boons, not useful perhaps in floods, but within a few hours of the fall of the flood enabling travellers to go on without such long delays. The Amuri contains very many scattered settlers, and it would take a man a long time to go round and give a service at each place, while it is quite impossible for the people to go from one station to another for a service, except in one or two cases of proximity. I enjoyed a luxury here that I never had in England ; for on arriving at the Cheviot Hills, I was asked by the hospitable owner, Mr. Robinson, if I wished to communicate with Kelson, and, if so, I was to write itj in full, and to insert in the vnessage that l ', “ hearer would wait" for an answer, and that the “ reply was paid for" Within a couple of hours or so, the return messages came, and thus, after I had been away one month, I was able just to receive the cheering words, “ Cheerful letters from England,” and “ Good news from Kelson,” which enabled me to commence my second month’s journey with lighter .spirits. I regretted very much at every turn I could not stay longer ; all I could do was to make the most of the opportunity, and promise not to be long before I came again. It went to my heart several times to perceive how much valued a clergyman of our Church would be, and yet to feel how little probability there was, just at present, of obtaining one. If, however, I am spared to work here, and am well supported by'the laity of our own body, I am fully persuaded that, ere five years are over, there will be no very extensive area which is not supplied with the ministrations of our Church. It must not be left with the people to wait till they desire it, but it must be supplied and offered, not forced upon them, by those ef us who value it ourselves. If half of our nominal members subscribed but ten shillings a-year to Church purposes, I would undertake that all our wants would be supplied, and we should be able to keep ahead of the increase of population.