A FLYING VISIT.

Patea Mail, 30 November 1880, Page 3

A FLYING VISIT.

( Continued.) (Bv a Rovix<; Writer.) So behind a team of which no man need be ashamed to handle the ribbons, we bowled along the road on the second morning from my arrival in Patea on my way to Hawera. This township is one of the collecting agricultural centres in which some day a valuable trade may be done ; and already a stirring, active little place of about 700 inhabitants in as fine an agricultural district as any in New Zealand, beautiful plains and gently undulating land extending on cither side to the densely wooded hills, along nearly the whole road. We passed through two small townships between Patea and Hawera, each reckoning itself one of the wonders-to-be, though each had a certain amount of trade of its own ami a number of surrounding settlements. An hour or two in Hawera made mo acquainted with the dismal fact that the high road to the nearest railway station on the line to Taranaki, a place called Ngaire, about 14 miles away, was a hopeless bog, impenetrable by Cobb or anything wheeled, and only to be passed through on horseback or on foot. It is astonishing what a number of kind friends 1 found to assure me Hint if they were me they would certainly “ pad the hoot.” “Thank yon, my kind Christian friends,” I thought. “I am only sorry that you are not me, but as I must go to Ngaire to-morrow, rain or shine, I think 1 trill *' pad the hoof,’ ’’and I did so. About four miles from Hawera is another rising town that may be a success some day, but it is in a slate o! early youth at present; and near to Normauby is the Taranaki end of the West Coast trunk railway, approaching completion. I was advised logo by the new cutting as the most easily passed. It was raining hard and a frowning notice warned one at every hundred yards that all trespassers and vagrants such us myself would bo punished with the utmost rigor of the law, I was in a state of mind that used to be designated by a dear departed friend as a “shirty” state The “ permanent way ” was formed for long distances, but here and there would come a gap of rough bush, with gullies to bo crossed or rolled down, creeks to bo forded or passed over by a slippery trunk of tree, where one false step would mean perdition or a smash. All day long 1 tramped along with only a drink of scalding Hot tea from a gang of laboring men on the line (why do laborers always prefer boiling hot drinks?) and a bile from another laboring man’s bull dog by way of refreshment, and towards evening I came to where the trams had been laid, and some trucks had boon brought, and were to be fetched by an express engine from Ngaire in time to catch the train for Taranaki. On these trucks I took a seat, determined to ride by them or die in the attempt. 1 didn’t die, but in due time was covered from head to foot with an outer coat of soot and lubricating oil, laid over a coat of yellow clay already furnished by the walk, and another coat of perspiration, besides the inner coat of the previous day’s Hawera dust. Then to my joy and everlasting gratitude, the trucks reached Ngaire, and thence I was carried by train into Taranaki, amid psalms and hymns and spiritual songs chanted by myself in praise of myself, and the kindest wishes of No. 1 for the success of No. 1 in any course of life in which No. 1 might think fit to embark.