VAGRANS VIATOR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4939, 20 January 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

VAGRANS VIATOR.

«ill© ot nbique”- -Any avtiiob you choose. I am writing of ;i journey commenced on Wednesday lust, and which it flatters me to know there are a few hope may terminate at the bottom of a river. The ri-ing »'"> •'“' 1101 gild the horizon as I set out from W.l ington on a horse, but 1 have no doubt had I been a reporter for an evening paper he would have gilded the horizm oven though the time were midnight, so that I might have said something about the ground being 11 calcined by his incandescent rays.” It may he mentioned that I received negative directions as to the road I should travel, a friend hailing me to tell me that I was not on the way to the tauyard. At O’Malley’s contract my horse whom X have called X?iscator, m order to show that all of that name need not necessarily bo asses, entered a dignified but earnest protest against the Public Works policy and the present Government, as indicated by a passing railwav engine. He stood on his hind legs, and with his fore paws, in pantomime, denounced the whole performance. Fortunately, presence of mind did not desert me, and I whispered in his light ear that lie was conducting himself like Sir George Grey or one of his followers. Being a horse with a proper pride, he at once abandoned his protest, and proceeded quietly. A little beyond Ngahaurauga on the Porirua road I was joined by a settler. I registered a mental bet, and then proceeded to win it off myself. A few questions, and the settler expressed his opinion that the only use for Highway Boards was to make roads to the properties of favored individuals, — members of the Board, or friends of members of the Board. He had been paying rates for I do not know how many years, but could not get the road to his own property made, A casual remark : Whenever you meet a settler in New Zealand, the odds are ten to one that the above is his opinion. The road between Johnsonville and Pahautanui has plenty of houses close to it. In all cases, whether picturesque homesteads or small cottages, the number of children in their neighborhood seemed to argue the happiest domestic relations on the part of the inhabitants. The sun began to make objects cast long shadows as we got to Porirua. Sleek cows walked homewards on the fringes of grass bordering the ha.-d road, and stopped imw and again to bite off a few blades, with which they went munching along. A string of turkeys came through a meadow. The gait of a turkey in such circumstances is not giacefnl. In Ireland it is not uncommon to hear it said of a young woman who lifts her feet too high. “ She walks like a turkey in long grass.” About a dozen ducks come down a bill-side towards a farm yard. They waddle as they walk, and hold a conversation in “quacks,” in which all of them talk at the same time. Their walk reminds rne of , their conversation of the discussion over the prneural of a chairman for a m=eting to protest against the expenditure of £IO,OOO on a Town Hall in Wellington. There is an hotel at Johnsonville, another at Porirua, and a third at Pahautanui. The perfect novelty of this announcement may be somewhat detracted from by another. In each hotel is a placard. The language in each placard is different ; the purport the same “ No credit is given under any circumstances.” I present this fact to the New Zealand correspondent of the Queenslander. What he said was true. There is a fearful financial crisis at hand. There is also a slate in each of the hotels under notice. The publican conies the bank manager, who at certain periods professes to refuse accommodation to everyone in order that he may really refuse it to a few. The principal summer amusement at Pahautanui is a picnic. One person lends a paddock and the guests bring their own eatables and drinkables. This would not have suited the Rev. Boland Gray, of Cork, Ireland. He liked to be asked where a good dinner was provided. Once he was asked to come to tea, but was not asked to a pleasant dinner which preceded it. He returned this simple answer, ungrammatical but unique— Where I dines I takes my tay. Your humble servant Roland Gray. Pahautanui is a pleasant place to spend an evening. Of two of the residents with whom I passed my evening I can safely say that I do not want to meet jollier company. If I may judge from a little incident which came under my notice, I might also say that the inhabitants are all inoffensive people. A few of them were playing devil’s pool. One gentleman was pursued by bad luck. He was always knocking down the devil and “ bursting.” At last, exclaiming “ I’ll knock down something better worth hitting than the devil,” he dropped a spectator in the most scientific manner. Everyone cheerfully recognised the extreme provocation he had received, and the spectator who had suffered for the devil asked all present to drink. I have seen rows over oven more trivial circumstances in other places. Up at four o’clock in the morning, and a long gentle ascent until suddenly I come out from amongst wooded hills and running streams to be aware of being some thousand feet in air, with an ocean lying at my feet. Paikakariki, sheer down from the road, without seemingly any slope, falls the mountain, and at its base on a fringe of beach which, from the height I view it at, looks hut the breadth of a thread, run in in long lines of rollers the ceaseless waves that have no limit or check between where I stand and Australia. To the north, through the cool air as yet undimmed by the haze of noon, is seen the far distant peak of Mount Egmont, and running away towards it is a sandy beach in a curve apparently curved by hand, so smooth and regular is it, whilst the flat land lying inshore of it seemingly might any where be reached with a thrown stone. Nearly opposite to where I stand is Kapiti, of fishing memory, and to the south is the high coast line of the Middle Island. There is not much scenery worth looking at during the ride up the West Coast, It all is concentrated in this one view from Paikakiriki, but this one view compensates for lack of interest elsewhere. I have visited most “scene" places in the old country, and have done the same in Australia. Per grandeur the view from the Illawarra range overlooking Woollongong, that over the Valley of Burrogorang, and that from the Blue Mountains are the most magnificent. The sight from where I stand is comparable with all. A couple of miles or so from the top of the hill, and I reach an accommodation house, which, by a signboard, claims to be called a hotel. Having been warned that the accommodation on the road was very bad, it was pleasant to find the exact reverse to bo the case. The hotel at Paikakariki is not the magnificent fabric which Mr. Moody would have put up had he landed and started cooperative companies there, instead of at Wellington, but it is very neat and pleasant, gives a good breakfast, and entertained PiacaAor in its stables hospitably. That animal quite differs from his namesake. He is of easy temper, shapely form, and does not arouse by his appearance a continual desire to use a cutting-whip. His disposition is generous, and he is not continually eating his heart out with envy and hatred against all beside himself. When I return to Wellington I am going to lend him to a gentleman on whom a contemplation of his many estimable qualities may have a salutary effect.