LONG BUSH.

Southland Times, Issue 1665, 19 November 1872, Page 3

LONG BUSH.

(FBOM OUR OffiN CORRESPONDENT). O ! well may poets make a fuss In summer time, and sigh " O Em .'" Of city pleasures sick. llood. I have, most fortunately, no reason for sighing and making a fuss about rural pleasures. Summer, with her mantle of green, and her garland of flowers, lias now come, and all who are lovers of nature hail the advent of her reign. The trees are now beginning' to assume their varied tints op verdant beauty, anA the little birds flitting about in the cool bosky thickets " rejoice on every side." The crops, whether autumn or spring sown, are lookiner well, and show no signs of suffering from the ravages of the caterpillar, which I notice has been so destructive in some other parts of the country. Notwithstanding the failure of last year, a good breadth of potatoes has been planted ; most of the settlers who have the advantage of the bush have avoided the open, and planted them where they may be secure from both the late and early frostß. Garden produce is in a very forward state; in one I saw peas in pod, in another, potatoes which will no doubt be ready long before i Christmas either for the tahle : or haply [ to rake the wind out of some of the Waikivites at the January exhibition — I and everywhere fruit of all sorts 19 seti ting well and promises a most abundant crop. In a sparsely peopled district, the events deserving of being chronicled are very few. True, there is any amount of gossip such as is to he found everywhere else, hut that is usually of too local a character to merit a place in the columns |of a newspaper. We caunot, boast of I being a township, with a church, a mause, a school, a hotel, and last, though not least, a post office. If we could, we might be able to send you a weekly report of the sayings and doings of our fellow-townsmen — of their meetings of "quadrille assemblies," of " musical associations," and of everything which marks the onward flowing of the stream of town life. The mention of the post-office and quadr/lle assemblies reminds me that these require a special notice. Our postal arrangements are sadly deficient, and attended with great inconvenience. The mail coach passes here twice a-week with our letters and papers, which it carries to Woodlands, two miles farther off, from which they are brought back either the same day or the next by any stray cbanee which may offer. On the occasion of the arrival of the last San Franciscan mail, they were entrusted to a little boy, and during the day a letter and a paper were picked up by a passenger from the mud i on the roadside. This is not as it should i be, and surely if the settlers were to bestir themselves and send a representative to headquarters, it would be attended to. After the close of the entertainments, the young men of the place resolved to open — both for instruction and amusement — a weekly quadrille assembly. Accordingly, the proper steps were forthwith'taken, a committee of management appointed, a suitable and able Master of Ceremonies elected, and — the most necessary of all— the patronage of the ladies

secured. The assembly was opened with great eclat. To secure its being select, no one is admitted except by the special invitation of the committee. The aeaembly takes place every ¥»-idav evening, and shows no symptoms of dying of a galloping consumption. It is a positive pleasure to look on and see the enjoyment and happiness which beam in every eye as the dancers gracefully wend their way through the intricate labyrinths of some of the fashiouable quadrilles. In short, our assembly lias been a great succes*, and promises f<>r a long time to come to he a source of rational relaxation from the toils and turmdls of everyday life.