South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1882.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2766, 3 February 1882, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1882.

We have received from the Government printer a pamphlet published “ by command,” containing, as its title-page sets forth, “ Papers relating to the sale of the township of Rotorua, with maps and plans of the district and township, together with information relating to the Hot Springs districts, and a report on the mineral waters.” The compilation of the pamphlet is apparently the work of Mr F. D. Fenton, Chief Judge of tne Native Land Court, and it must be said that he could scarcely have given a greater variety of useful and interesting information in the same compass. A-.good portion of it

Consists of popular or scientific, des. . criptions of the scenery of the district! by Sir W. Fox, Dr Hockstetter, and | Miss C. F. Gordon-Cutnming, which are very readable. From a surveyor’s report we learn that timber for building purposes abounds in the neighborhood, while considerable quantities of a gray stone deposited by extinct hotsprings are available for the' same purpose. The springs are beyond numbering, and their waters are very varied in temperature and chemical character, ranging in temperature from cold to boiling hot, and being variously acid, alkaline, and sulphurous,* affording moss luxurious bathing for the bale, and valuable medication for the sick. Some of them are of great service for domestic purposes. “ All the ordinary cares of housekeeping,” says Miss Gordon-Cumming, “ are here greatly facilitated by nature. She provides so many cooking pots that fires are needless—all stewing and boiling does itself to perfection. The food is either placed in a flax basket and hung in the nearest pool, or else it is laid in a shallow hole and covered with layers of fern and earth to keep in the steam. In either case the result is excellent, and the cooking clean and simple. Laundry - work is made equally easy. Certain pools are set aside in which to boil clothes, and one of these, which is called Kairua, is the village laundry par excellence. Its waters are alkaline, and produce a cleansing lather ; and they are so soft and warm that washing is merely a pleasant pastime to the laughing Maori girls.” Sir William Fox, while much impressed with the value these springs may bo as sanatory agents, (writing in 1874) does not seem wholly to like the idea of their being popularized. They are so beautiful in their present state, that to him “the idea that these majestic scenes may one day be desecrated with all the constituents of a common watering place has something in it bordering on profanity ; —that they should be surrounded with pretentious hotels, and scarcely less offensive tea-gardens:; that they should be strewn with orange peel and walnut shells, and the capsules of bitter beer bottles (as the Great Pyramid and even the summit of Mount Sinai are), is a consummation from the very idea of which the soul of every lover of nature must recoil.” That is true enouigh, but in order that lovers of nature, in any numbers, may gratify their love of this particular kind of nature, arrangements must be made that include by unavoidable necessity the hotels, if not the tea-gardens, and the orange-peel, walnut shells and capsules must follow almost from an equal necessity. The tourist is an animal that invariably leaves traces of his passage in the shape of orange peel, et cetera, and visitors to the Hot Springs must be prepared to overlook them, and think of the immense balance of pleasure the opening up of so delightful a country must produce. There is one thought suggested by a perusal of this pamphlet that seems of that kind that “should not willingly be let die,” The proposal to reserve a considerable area in the hot springs districts for the purposes of a national recreation ground on account of its natural beaQty, commends itself to everyone, but it is clear that only a very small proportion of the people of New Zealand will ever be able to recreate themselves upon it. Ninetynine out of a hundred will never see it, and yet the ninety-nine will certainly comprise a great many who are equally ardent lovers of nature with the fortunate one, whose circumstances will permit him to visit the more famous scenes. There will be few, indeed, among them who do not love “ to sit cn rocks, to muse* 1 o’er flood and fell,” and “alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean,” but for the gratification of these tastes in the majorities of the future we are making no provision whatever. Whatever arguments are available in favor of making a large reserve in the Hot Springs district, would be available, in proportionate degree, in respect of reserving for the same purpose of interesting spots in numerous other parts of the colony. There are several wildly picturesque spots in South Canterbury, for instance, which, if reserved from sale and made free to all, would be much resorted to and found an immense boon by pleasure seekers. We have no Rotoruas, no Pink Terraces, no Niagaras, no Yellowstone wonders, no Yosemite Valleys, no sea caves, but we have dark deep gorges, rugged precipices, dashing cascades, (a few), and some fine geologic sections. Some of these the country could as well afford to preserve for the pleasures of the inhabitants of the neighborhood as it can to preserve in larger areas the greater wonders of the North. Such spots as we refer to are almost or quite valueless for industrial purposes, but they have been or are being sold along with the adjoining land, and the lover of nature is debarred from gratifying his tastes by the fear of an action for trespass. To ask an owner’s permission to ramble in wild places destroys all the sentiment of an excursion of that kind, consisting, as it does, so largely in a sense of freedom from all restraint. Reserves of valuable land have been made near each centre of population to form parks and recreation grounds, but these are only made attractive at considerable expense, and the trouble and cost of maintaining them in that condition renders it necessary to impose many restrictions upon the freedom of those who visit them. The wild places we refer to Nature has herself prepared, and she may be entrusted with the whole, or nearly the whole care of them. We would suggest that where it is not too late some of them should be set aside to form “ happy hunting grounds ” for the present and future generations, and that, if neceasary,'in special cases they be recovered for this purpose from those who may have become, possessed of the fee simple of them.