HOW I WENT TO THE WAIRARAPA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4249, 2 November 1874, Page 2

HOW I WENT TO THE WAIRARAPA.

(BY A BOHEMIAN.) I write from Greytown, having accepted an invitation to visit a station somewhere in what is here known as The Valley, but which I shall reach, if Providence favors my intention, in a day or two's time. This delay is to be accounted for in divers ways. I asked several Wairarapa settlers when the particular coach I wanted to go by left Greytown, and they gave me varied answers. I inquired at the Police Station, but with not much better success. I then asked the two capital drivers of Mr. Hastwell's coaches, running daily to Greytown, and they both gave me wrong information. So I am stuck up at Greytown for what appears to me an uncertain period. The coach I am waiting for may leave tomorrow, but it may or may not reach the station that night. However, this is not much, to the point. Of the ride from the Hutt to Mungaroa I need say little. My equanimity was not disturbed when I was told by the driver that a waspish-looking grey off-wheeler had bolted with a cart a day or two previously, thrown out the driver, and converted the trap into smithereens. My opinion was, on crossing the Mungaroa mountain and the Rimutaka, that horse has something to leam if the particular twenty-three miles allotted to Mr. Hastwell's horses per diem are performed by him for three months. No bolting with carts after that. Of the crossing of the Rimutaka I need say little. No wonder the Wellington insurance offices thrive, if passengers are daily taken over it. To insure is a duty every man who has given hostages to society owes to these hostages. If a leader should happen to trip and fall at a critical corner, down a precipice a thousand feet .deep the coach might go. If a rein should break, and the horse should, on turning a perilous corner, miss the steady grasp on which he doubtless relies as much as the passengers must,, he might take the coach down the said thousand feet, and some of the passengers might go lower still. It is due to the management of the line to say, that every coach and its appurtenances are closely examined every morning before starting, lest there should be a fault in the harness. The freedom from accidents on a line, the leading horses in the coaches of which seem, for about seven miles, ever and anon as if they were about to take a plunge into eternity, is a proof of what, care and foresight may produce. On the road from the Hutt to Mungaroa, I was struck with the number of teams we met. These were loaded either with timber or goods of various kinds, and the conclusion one could not but arrive at was that the public works policy of the Government was doing much for New Zealand; and the Government seems to be taking aforethought and providing that only seasoned timber may be used. Quantities line the road that are not of this year's growth. The Provincial Government also deserves a meed of praise for the caution it is displaying. The General Government is executing vast public works, and the Provincial Government keeps about ten surveyors or engineers, between the Hutt and Pakuratahi to inspect them. Three of the said surveyors or engineers passed" the coach, full gallop, before it reached Mungaroa. Subsequently they were discovered inspecting the progress two men with one wheelbarrow made in constructing an embankment to be about half a mile long and twenty feet high. Afterwards they were seen inspecting a cutting and embankment at which there were three men, two wheelbarrows, and one overseer. When I saw the paucity of the means employed, and the vastness of the work undertaken, I could not but think of Dame Partington trying to mop up the Atlantic. In other parts of his contract Mr. McKirdy has tramways and trucks, and, as we saw numbers of men, many of whom were evidently new-comers, footing' it to the works, it is fair to suppose he will push these on as vigorously as possible. But why the provincial surveyors, &c, need visit works which in all human probability the Provincial Government will never have anything to do with, is rather puzzling. There is a general opinion that " John Bull keeps more cats than catch mice ;" and the action of the Provincial Government would lead one to suppose that the failing is not exclusively his. The coach stops at several houses on the road, and I would guarantee that the takings at some of these would compare favorably with those of many houses in Wellington. They are ports of call for the teamsters and others. These make to one house for dinner and to another for supper and breakfast. Besides, there are callers in abundance. . After traversing the fourteen miles of the Hutt Valley road, and then crossing the mountains, about which I must say one word more, you are soon at Featherston. But that crossing of the Rimutaka ! On arriving at the crown, where it sometimes must blow almost fiercely -enough to scalp'a man, and where some person built an hotel, which it is scarcely needful to say he deserted (indeed I should not have been surprised if after doing such a deed he had suspended himself slick off the reel), the driver got down and made an examination, to see if all was taut. It blew a little, we had been told as we ascended, on the other side of the mountain, and we found it blew a good many littles. But down we went, sometimes at the speed of thirteen or" fourteen miles per hour, I was informed, and into Featherston we bowled. The name for the town strikes me as being singularly unfortunate. We connect with the idea of feathers something smooth and soft. The driver of the coach assured me that the wind at Wellington is but a patch on that at Featherston, and I believe him. It literally roared across the plain. But Featherston is a go-a ; head little township. There is a large amount of building going on privately, and the Government is erecting a very neat row of detached houses for the reception of immigrants. At the hotel where the coach changes horses, the landlord—whether one of Fox's martyrs or not this deponent sayeth not—has lost his license, and the trade of a shebeen looking bar, to which a fine house is being added, has been, probably, much improved thereby. There is also another hotel in the town, which is admirably laid out. The road thence to Greytown is over the plains, and the paddocks of the sheep farmers abut upon it. A visitor would not be favorably impressed with a first view of Greytown. There is some building going on in it, but not much of the right sort. The main street is not above ten feet from the crown to the side. There are hollows by its side that are not useful for drainage purposes. And the people, evidently, do not believe in footpaths: There are not many more than half a dozen nice residences in it. The prevailing form of architecture is a low two or three roomed house. It is astonishing how fashion takes in architecture," and how people do build their houses like those of their neighbors. My idea would be that the first house in Greytown was built by a Maori, and settlers went and did likewise. Nor are the people much more particular about their gardens. Many of the sections on which cottages stand have not the form of an enclosure, and in most of those that can boast this, the sod is as yet unturned, and the stumps of the rata, totara, birch, pine, and other trees once growing there, still remain. There are a few orchards planted with fruit trees, that appear to be thriving nicely, but, on the whole, the people of Greytown are not floriculturally or horticulturally inclined. Perhaps a reason for this and for the wretchedness of the cottages they have built—it would take half adozen of them to make a decent drawing-room—is to be found in a sort of uneasy feeling that their Waikanae River may some day play them strange pranks. A bridge was built for it, but it rejected the compliment and went away in another direction. It has just recently taken possession of a man's paddock, and made it the bed of a stream. During the past few months floods, on one occasion, caused-its water to be teninches deep in nearly every house in the town. All this causes a sort of insecurity that militates against improvements being effected. And yet, it is a lively enough little town, and there are people who have great faith in its future. Town sections, formerly worth £4O to £SO per acre, now readily command £2OO to £300.' House-rent is very high. A little two-roomed Bhanty—one room and an apology for a kitchen —is worth Ss. per week. And the Greytown people support their public institutions liber.' ally. Their reading-room is very well patron /

ised. I need not tell Wellingtomans, who have been to many a ball in the Town Hal), what that building is like. There are churches and churches, a Police Court and a station without a residence to it. So, we may reasonably suppose the incarcerated are well looked after at night. No doubt, if remonstrance were made respecting this, the old reply would be given, "We have no money ; Mr. Yogel is doing all he can to make the province bankrupt." I ought, in alluding to public buildings, to note the Standard office, the whole box and dice of which might be stowed away in a corner of the New Zealand Times' composing room. The "Girls of the period," in Greytown and around, seem to affect the great importers', establishments in the town, and during an afternoon, a round dozen of their horses may be seen roped to the adjoining fence. Some of these young ladies might be daughters of Nimshi, for they do ride furiously. The coach does the nine to ten miles of good road over level country from Featherston to Greytown in very fair time, but one young lady beat us hollow. She started with us, stopped several times to speak to acquaintances, and then rode into town before us. When she started she was squired by a venerable looking dame, who, after making several efforts to keep up with her, stopped, saying "It is no use." When that young lady rode into town she was squired —accidentally of course—by a totally different party. Such was my impression of Greytown. It looks as if it had been washed here by a flood, and I think the greatest service that treacherous river could do it would be to wash three parts of it away again. Did I live here, I would pray to no river-god—no St. John of the waters—to avert such a catastrophe.