HURSTHOUSE'S "NEW ZEALAND THE EMIGRATION FIELD OF 1851." [From the "Edinburgh Advertiser."]

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 646, 23 June 1852, Page 2

HURSTHOUSE'S "NEW ZEALAND THE EMIGRATION FIELD OF 1851." [From the "Edinburgh Advertiser."]

The natural features of the country arc on the* grandest scale. An intelligent writer has justly said, that New Zealand presents scenes of almost every clime, and exhibits a world in miniatui'c. It would seem as if nature, isolating the country from the great continents, had chosen to concentrate within it all the varied features and resources which lie so widely apart in the more extensive surfaces of the earth. It has its Alpine districts, snow-clad, aud bristling with glaciers, and its lower ranges crowned with lofty woods. Its table lands and gra c sv plains, sometimes flat or undulated by rounded lulls ; its dells and valleys overspread with the ncliest verdure; its moun'ain-streains and ship-receiving rivers j its coasts glittering with bays and haibours. Jn a country larger than Great Britain, there are, of course, various descriptions of soih The poorer clny of the northern tracts, the light volcanic soil of tlio interior, the rich loam of the Taranaki districts, the deep alluvial of the valleys ; but, even on the poorest soil, the genial nature of the climate coveis every spot with a luxuriant vegetation, and gives the land an aspect of unequalled freshness and fertility. It is a remarkable fact in the natural history of NewZealand that it does not possess a single wild animal. In fact, save a small rat, lhere"'is no quadruped whatever indigenous to the country — a deficiency well balanced by the entire absence of all reptiles. With the exception of a rare land of fly, there is not even a single stinging insect ; and, although mosquitoes and sand-flies are troublesome at first, yet even these seem to partake of the mild nature of the climate, and are harmless as compared with those of America and New South Wales; and this utter absence of all savage animal':, cunning serpents, and veaemous reptiles, is no small point in its favour. It appears rather strangp that in a country so rich in | vegetable giowth as New Zealand, there should be no wild fruit. Many trees yield bctiiei> in profusion, but the best of these cannot fairly be ranked as fiuit. In this respect, however, New Zealand is pre-eminently a country for introductions. All English vaiieties will soon be most abundant — whilst in the warm and shelteied valleys of the interior it is not improbable that such fruits as the fig, olive, loquat, orange, and cition, would ripen in pei lection. All our familiar garden flowers, too, bloum therti in increased size and beauty ; whilst no woids can describe the rich luxuriance of the forest. Birds are rather numerous ; and as they are generally of active habits, as tome are fine songsters, and others seem rivals in making the greatest possible noise, they give an air of pleasing liveliness and amnation to the woods. The numerous lakes and stieaus afford but four varieties of fish, of a\ hich the principal is the common eel, attaining a large size, and of fine flavour. The coasts, however, abound with fish, many ol which are of excellent quality. The geographical position of New Zealand, also is one of the highest importance. Planted about mid-way between the continent of Australia — now the seat of flourishing and gold-pro-ducing colonies — and the numerous clusters of the rich Polynesian Isles to the north ; — within a few weeks' sail of the South American countries and California on the one side, and China, with our Indian possessions on the other, — having, at the same time, a sea-board of some 3000 miles, indented with safe and easily-approached harbours, — New Zealand possesses qualities which will render it unrivalled as a central scat of naval power and commercial enterpiise in the Antarctic Seas ; destined, perhaps, to be in future ages, the Britain of the South,-?-" the Canaan of the exiles," as Pisistmtus Caxtcn says, " an Ararat to many a shattered ark ; fair cradle of a race for whom the unbounded heritage, of a future, that no sage can conjecture, no prophet divine, lies afar off in the golden promise-light of Time." There is one point in which New Zealand holds an incontestilile pic-eminence over any of our other distant colonies — we mean in the position, temper, and habitt. of the Aborigines, The native inhabitants of New Zealand, indeed, constitute one of its most interesting features. In thehistory of Anglo-Saxon colonization, it has. been unfortunately, but invariably, the ease that, the aboriginal races have been trodden down or swept utterly away before the progress ov hostility of the white man. Their extermination or degradation, both morally and physically, seems ever to have followed upon the occupation of their country by the new races, But in New Zealand the case has been different. The philanthropist will there rejoice to see that the aborigines will not bo exterminated, nor — while they will make good servants and able assistants — will they ever be degraded inloincre " bowers of wood and drawers of water." Their numbers arcroughly estimated at .about 100,000 ; and My. ilursthouse, in describing their personal ap-i pearance, .says — " They are a very superior race, especially the men, having fine, powerfully-built figuies, intelligent features, and well-formed heads. In complexion they arc somew hat darkey

ccl by nature, and possesses varied and valuable rcsouiccfa, — agricultural, pastoial, mineral, and manufacturing-, — .sonic partially, others wholly, undeveloped at present, but which needs only a common degree of good government, and the magic touch of capital, to spring into vigorous progress and lasting importance. Unlike all other new colonies, New Zealand possesses the advantages of a u ell-supplied labour-maiket. The hundred thousand intelligent natives of the country will be found one of its most important elements of prosperity, for while they are yearly alibi ding a better .supply of labour, they are also great aiul increasing consumers of our home manufactures. And what a proud satisfaction it will be to the New Zealand colonist to find that he is extending the laws, the religion, the agriculture, and all the social institutions of Britain to the uttermost ends of the earth, and that, too, without drawing from his native land almost any of that " — bold peasantry, their country's pride, Which once destroyed can never be supplied ;" that while he is subduing the land, and coveringit with the solid marks of his laborious industry, — unlike his fellows in America and Australia — he is not exterminating his brother man, but, on the contrary, is elevating him in the scale of existence by means of the blessings of Christianity, and the humanising- influences of peaceful civilisation.