IN AND ABOUT CHRISTCHURCH. THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 423, 27 November 1889, Page 4

IN AND ABOUT CHRISTCHURCH. THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

From the railway station, which you enter almost immediately after passing Opawa, it is but five minuted duve to the Cathedral. Though passing through that part where the streets are most broken and intersecting, still a visitor from the thiee other chief New Zealand towns cannot but be struck at the long peeps and vistas which open up on each side as he goes. Everything seems co orderly and on the rule of square. On alighting at the foot of the Godley station — a sadly nonical tribute to the memory ot a public benetactor — the new arrival tinds himself looking directly into the Cathedral door, and with almost every building or object of urban interest around him. There is the soft grey Gothic of the Cathedral, the dark grey classic of the Bank of iNew Zealand, the dark brown domestic of the Hereford block, the red brick Italianesque of the Post-office, and the elegant mixed of the A.iVJ.P. Building in its pure white Oatnaru stone. Turning about from the Cathedral so as to look past the Godley statue along Worcester-street, he can see near the tiees which mark the course of the Avon the red Elizabethan villa of the Town Council, and a quarter of a mile beyond that lie the scholastic piles of the University and the Museum. Behind these lie those characteristically charming "lions" of Christchurch — the river, the garden?, and the Park. Walking down in that direction to the Town Council building, he catches his first glimpse of the Avon, a tortuous stream on which you are always unexpectedly coming, and which will meet you again further on. ! Just to the right here is the old Provincial \ Council House -a sort of curiosity and { antiquity in its way, now chiefly devoted to the purposes of the dance rather than of debate. In the hall of the University beyond, you have a vei'y truthtul counterpart of some of the fine English college halls or dining halLs of the Inns of Court. If you pass across the pretty avenue in Antigua-street into the Museum you will see the largest collection of moa skeletons in the world, and other objects of .scientific interest.

ITS REFINED BEAUTY. Round here extends the best residential quarter within the city, chiefly villa houses with tasteful gardens, and a striking aspect of gentle ease and refinement. It is much tho same on the opposite *ide of the Cathedral in the direction of the East Belt, only in a rather less degree. Those who give Ghristchurch a reputation for monotony can have an eye for only a certain kind of beauty. To appreciate it one must see its stieets towards the close of a calm summer day, under a sky of cloudless turquoise blue. The air is so pure and clear, everything is so distinct, and over its long vistas of mingled houses and trees an exquisite peacefulness seems to be descending. To stand on such a Sunday evening where the park, the gardens, the river and Armaghstreet m^et, as the sun is setting and the bells are calling to prayer, is, perhap?, to enjoy the most sweetly religious picture presented by any town in phe world.

CHRISTCHURCH A PROTOTYPE. It is, indeed, astonishing thatsuch various phases of natural and artificial beauty should be met in a place which has been entirely created by the hand of man within the space of a generation. It shows what an extraordinarily giftedland New Zealand i«. With its glorious sky and ita bountiful, bub nob vexatious moisture, you have only to tickle and plant its empty plain, and your city is smiling with a mature beauty ere your last- born has well had time to grow his whiskers. And this is bul a mild earnest of the wonderful things to come, as our land develops. Given the pood taste of the Christchurch architects and gardeners, and nob only the whole Canterbury Plain, but all over New Zealand our great grand-children will see towns and landscapes which will be miracles of beauty. When our chief cities number bheir quarter of a million or more, what are but 'small towns or hamlets, or mere names upon the map, will then be more than what Christchurch is now, and as closer cultivation and population incease, the intervening country will become bub one continuous par.k and garden land, dotted with, happy villages.

THE PLEASURABLE ASPECTS. But Christchurch has other pleasurable aspects. One can linger in its handsome gardens or Domain on a fresh November morning, wandering round along the willow-hung banks of the Avon, which divides them, or lying under the trees listening to the songs of countless birds. Or one can as sundown closes and the blustering nor'-wester sink 3 to rest in the atill warmth and starry beauty of an almost Australian night, take a boat and row the one you love best up the limpid stream — courting, yes, courting — the shadows before and. the sweet reality at tho back of the vessel. Or as summer is on the v/ane, you cau walk through the pleasing suburb of Fendalton, and coming back through the Park when the afternon sun is low, note the expansive meadow-land fringed with trees in every direction, and naught indicating the presence of man, bub the slight grey cathedral spire rising gracefully in front.

THE SOUTHERN ALPS. Or when at mid autumn the leaves are in their decay, the early snows have fallen npon the distant ranges, and a balmy nor' west breeze ia caking the edge ott the frosty morning air, go out into the Park and watch the glorious sunlight flashing on the leaves like gold, and gleaming white on the Alps as on mountains of powdered sugar. Or if you think Chnstchurch is too flat start from the Cathedral south along Colombostreet on an August morning. In half anhour you will be at the foot of the Porb Hills, in another twenty minutes you will be up a thousand leet or more overlooking the Canterbury Plains. What are England or Scotland to this? It is Piedmont over again. Beyond you is the Gulf of LytteltOD Harbour with its deep blue waters and the peninsula of Akaroa rolling away seawards ; at your feet the noble plains with a tinytiny Christchurch dotted on them, an endless expanse of greenish-brown melting away north and south into indistinguishable haze, and bounding all, a giant wall of white, irregular along its crest and bulging buttress like along its sides. Those are the Eternal Ranges sixty miles distant and thousands of teet in height.

ECCENTRICITIES OF CHRISTCHURCH CLIMATE. But, to be fair and give the devil his due, we must pa nfc some leverse to tfte medal. You should see Christchurch in its sloppy and flatulent (its. It has a way of becoming occasionally, in winter time, characteristically English. In its best moments itis too light and bright and rectangularly beautiful to resemble anything other thau itself ; but when its sky gets influenza and weeps for a month at a stretch, the damp, muddy and bedraggled look of it is not a bad imitation of the face which our venerable Mother Country turns to her children with depressing fiequency. Then in some summer* it getd a terrible attack of the wind, vthich has given it an evil name. The nor'-westers will rage for months with varying violeuce, several times a week tilling your house and yourself with duet, spoiling your food and soiling your clothes. It may be said, however, that they scarcely ever blow after sundown, and the evenings which follow them are those most luxurious and suited for water parties in the whole year. A season of mildish nor'westers is, indeed, rather desirable that* otherwise, and they are yearly losing some of their virulence.

LIFE OF CHRISTCHURCH. The average of height in Christchurch people ot both sexes i8 considerable, the average of good looks is also high, and that of tasfce in dress noteworthy. Whether the accumulated wealth around Canterbury is great, as the number of fashionable suburbs in Chiistchurch would setm to indicate, ie is certain there are shops in all lines on a ecale out of all proportion to the size of the town. Drapers, mercers, tailors, hardware men, booksellers, photographer, and music-seilers,all thingsinastyle worthy of a place of double the size in England. The business centre is around what is known a& " The Triangle," just before you reach the Bank of New Zealand, where the five chief streets intersect, forming a natural focus for that purpose. In consequence of its flatness and convenient design it is one of the most accessible places in which a stranger can find himself for the first time. Standing heie on the morning of Saturday, the market day or of a holiday, you get the concentrated life of the place passing before you — bicyclists, cricketers, boating parties, horsemen, tramcars laden with holiday-makers, for Lyttelton, Sumner and New Brighton, and tennis enthusiasts. They are a pleasant, prosperous, happylooking community, and take their pleasures with becoming cheerfulness.

THE SEASIDE RESORTS. Ifc takes about an hour to reach Sunnier, seven miles away, and a quarter less to reach New Brighton. They are places of an entirely different character, the former lying directly beneath the clifts of the Port Hills, and the latter on the bleak, open sand dunes, some six miles to the north. Sumner is not an uncommon type of watering place, with ics clilis and its beach ; bub New Brighton, with its apparently interminable strand, is cast upon lines to accomI modate a public equal to that of Paris or New York. The sandy " links," with intermittent; scrub, seem to extend for miles, and when the tide is far out the sands look wide enough and long enough to gallop aIL the cavalry in Europe. I wonder what the Londoners would give for half of such a slice as this ? They have to go fifty miles before they reach their first seaside watering place, Brighton, and the favourite ones Ramsgate and J\J argate, are more than 70 miles away, and at most the beach is more of shing c than sand, and not very extensive or very agreeable to walk upon. We have all heard of the water-excursions of Sydney, we know what we have in that line at Auckland ; of the like gifts to Dunedin, you shall hear anon. Melbourne has its Port Philip, Wellington its harbour, and of the advantages Christchurch has in Lyttelton harbour, the Akaroan peninsula, Sumner and New Brighton, I have just told you. Of these places four belong to us New Zealanders—and I judge that in proportion to our size, we Australasians can just about " lick creation " in these lines. Here are what will some day be six large cities seated in the very Bea, with all the pleasures and graces at their doors which the people of ordinary places go miles upon miles to enjoy. There are possibly similar places, as estuaries, bays, sounds, and isthmuthes, where few live and which few go to see. There arc others where great and growing cities are, but you will find they are very much divided among the nations. There is sublime Rio, imperial Constantinople, royal Quebec, princely New York, the queenly San Francisco, Victoria, Vancouver Island, the Clyde, Edinburgh, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Naples, Palermo, and Lisbon. When we look how these are dealt round to mankind, who shall say that among the show cities of the future those of New Zealand will not take a high place ? Knowledge may sadden, and travel shatter early ideals, but I am beginning to doubb whether minds fed upon Walter Scobt have in " Caledonia stern and wild " reached the acme of the sublime, though it only does to express that opinion anonymously where so many Scotchmen are about,

TO THE SOUTH ! TO THE SOUTH! And now, leaving the Christchurch people to the enjoyment of their annual agricultural show and i - ace meeting, we proceed to the greater centre of attraction. We read how "The Pickwick, the Owl, and the Waveiley pen have been a boon and a blessing to men ;'' but what is> to be said of exhibitions ? It may be that the many tuemoiials erected to the lamentod Prince Albert are in token of the share he took in inventing these reunions. At least, he was greatly instrumental in making tho first Great World's Fair of 1851 a success, and every civilised community has shown an inclination to imitate it. There is no doubt they promote intercourse and good feeling, and lead people to take a wider interest in one another. I wonder what the dear old Mother Earth thinks of three such similar eruptions breaking out almost simultaneou«ly on opposite sides of her ? Now that the Dunedinites have decided upon having an Eiffel Tower 150 feet high, she will surely fancy sho has a new complaint, and there its some connection between theso symptoms In ancient days it was the holy places which led to such an amount of surreptitious globe- trotting. Crusade? and pilgiimages forsooth ! They were merely names under the guise of which pet sons bored to death by the monotony of country and conventional life indulged the love of novelty and travel, it was chiefly the men — as being the most miserable sinneis, I suppose — who found this urgency foi their souls' welfare. Or perhaps they seized upon the difficulties and discomforts of pilgrimage as opportunities of getting a ho'iday from married life. When Sir Galahad returned from Rome with a bushel of relics and the Pope's blessing, you may bo sure that if he kept a conscientious diary of his experiences at Paris or Venice by the way, that diary was carefully secreted for hie own private perusal. Those experiences were not of the exhibition soit.

SURPRISES OF THE ROAD. Bub now, if there is an exhibition in the wind and Benedict goes, he must take Beatrice with him, and her boxes, and, perhaps the twins, just to help him enjoy himself. Happy man ! If you come down from Lyttelton by the Government Railway, take the advice of a bachelor and leave the twins at home. It is just possible the railway officials will impound them as they did my bath as beiug '* non-personal luggage. What i 3 this mystery of " personal luggage," and how does the railway measure it? If yon take a balloon they blow it up and charge you by the cubic content. X you take a keg of quicksilver they charge you by weight. If they think you will in alarm draw back and go by steamer, they say it i=; all right and then telegraph down to intercept and eh rge you at the other end. Hence, if the twins be boys they will put them in ecales, if they be girls they will take their square measurement and charge you when you get co Dunedin. This mn3t be in accordance with the regulations as originally drafted by Sir Julius Vogel. Who can say that with such a railway and Dunedin landladies lying in wait for you further on, the modern pilgrim has all plain sailing ? That he is not like the certain man who went up from Jericho ?

DOWN THE PLAINS. Ifc is lovely weather, for the winter aud spring have been exceptionally line here away. As you get clear of Christehuroh you see again around the signs of close cultivation and a fertile soil. There are the freshening meadows, the cornfields breaking into green, the lines of waving \villow3 and poplars, the great gorse-hedgesi-unn ng hither and thither— yellow masses of blossom sickly with perfume, for the gorse, like the rabbit, has no false delicacy in the matter of propagating itself, and does it vigorously. With the exception of these prodigal rows of yellow, and the loner line of the ranges now showing biown and snowless at their base, the landscape is East Anglian, grazing and agricultural. When the later batches of pilgrims to Dunedin pass this way, the yellow of the gorse and the mow of the mountains will have gone, and the fields will be covered with st-mding corn or dotted with stocks of tfarnered grain. For an hour this lasts and the landscape begins to change. The trees grow leas frequent, poplars and willows gradually gave place to eucalyptus — plantations of greenish- brown, the hedges are not so wellgrown, and away towards the seashore on the left there is an absence of objects that strike the eye. This shows that we are nearing the more pastoral country — the scene of sheep-stations. Cultivation is gradually pushing onwards, and twentyfive years will see a great difference here. As long ago as that, the aspect around Christchurch was the same.

RANGITATA AND ASHBURTON. We have a party of gentlemen with usThey are prosperous-looking and light, hearted. Clearly they are bent on earnest ■busine«s ; but one judges from the conversation, the dark allusions to odds, dividends, " scooping the pool," " on the job," " bury the field," etc., etc., that it is not farming, or physic, or law, or commerce that is taking them out here. By-and-by we came to a level crossing where a band is ncarching and flags are flying, and between the trees is discernible what looks like a racecourse. The train disgorges some twenty persons and we move on a short distance to Rangitata. A pretentious-looking hotel and some clean, good-looking houses with numerous well grown trees ghe promise of a pretty place here some day as population increases. Further on we reach Ashburton, a larger edition of Rangitata, in which the hotels, in conjunction with large grain stores, neat banks, and pretty cottages amidst gardens and trees, produce a very pleasing impression of prosperity. As Christchurch is, so will these places become. Even now they have a clean, coaey, refined, and settled look, out of all proportion to their age. The rapid growth of vegetation gives them a finish which creations of the railway system of England of more than twice their years cannot show.

THE SOUTHERN RIVERS. In crossing the rivers hereabouts the traveller from Auckland will notice how very unlike the Waikato or the Avon they are. They are not methodically comfortable flowing streams, but they alternate between exuberance and exhaustion, and parcake so much of the nature of torrents that, though excellent for the angler, they are useless for the purposes of navigation. The chief of them in Canterbury is the Rangitata, which, as you will see when passing over it in summer time, is not in flood. It then presents the appearapce of several streams of varying size running at unequal distances over an enormous pebbly bed in places almost a mile broad. When the snows melt suddenly, however, at the touch ©f an early nor'-wester, the water comes down impetuously and the whole bed is inundated with a turbid current. We saw a man fishing, and what with the pure, sunny sky, the snowy mountains, the noble prospect, and the freshening wind, he must tiave been enjoying himi-elf. The Acclimatisation Society are constantly stocking these rivers with trout and salmon, and the former are already fcecom-

ing: plentiful. If we were to tell our English or Scotch relatives the size to • which these fish attain, they would probably ask us to "spin them another like that." At Home, a trout of three pounds is a good sample, while here in a day's fishing competition seven pounders by the half-dozen or more will turn up. There was a trout which long lived under the pretty mill of Aulsebrook by the lawyers' neighbourhood in Christchurch. For years he was more wary than clients, and eluded the machinations of the Christchurch gamins. But his time came, as it must come for all of us (though he is said to have been landed by a foul stroke), and he was found to weigh eighteen pounds.

TEJVIUKA AND GERALDINE. , In about half-an-hour after leaving Ash- j burton, the train begins to approach the neighbourhood of Ueraldine and Tetnuka, which are some four miles aparb. The eonntry has, since our departure from Christchurch, been absolutely flat, nob so iruch as a hillock visible over the landscape. Heie the ranges are beginning bo fall away in the distance, but from them come spur's running in this direction which, gradually diminishing, end by throwing off small foothills and broken downs of very agreeable aspect. There is plenty of vegetation and young growing timber, interspersed with small fields and hedges, over which you can s-ee scattered cottages peeping here and there. It looks as if in another thirty years this neighbourhood would assume somewhat the appearance of cosiness and prettiness peculiar to English woodland scenery, and which, on account of the magnificent continental lines on which New Zealand is cast, is rarely seen here.

TIMARU. At about three hours after starting, the train draws into Timaru. and you, for the first time after leaving Christchurch, feel the fresh, bracing air blowing in from the sea. Timaru is an advance on Ash burton in point of size, but in general appearance much the same. The white houses, which are neat cottages or villas, stand well apart. » ith pretty gardens and numerous young trees around them. There is such an aspectofcleannessand easy comfortevery where that it makes one wonder how, when these places develop, as they will, into handsome towns some day, mean, dirty districts, or even slums, become more and more pronounced, and the oncoeven, happy-looking community has inequality and blots upon its face. One forgets, however, that this innocent looking place has the credit of having recently contributed a notorious rascal to the category of ambitious criminals ; one, the boldness and ?cope of whose projects in this line so much exceeded Mrs MaybrickV, that one cannot help thinking that he was wasted in New Zealand, and would have found a wider sphere of usefulness, and have caused a great deal more pleasure to his fellows, in a large community. Why, as Gray remarks, does Fortune bury some of her brightest intellects ir dim and distant spots ? Here is a great man in his line, of whom the world knows comparatively nothing.

OAMARU. After Timaru the scenery becomes rather uninteres ing. The ranges have receded «o far as to be ineffective, and although the country is green and agreeable enough, there is nothing noteworthy that catches the eye. At about five o'clock the land begins to rise suddenly and the train enters a semicircle of close hills varying from four hundred feet or so downwards. Tnis is Oamaru, and a very pretty place it promises to be. Close by the railway are enormous warehouses and grain elevators of solid stono. Behind these are other smaller buildings of a lighter hue in the pure white stone of the neighbourhood — some of which are of very graceful and even classical design. The wooden houses are many of them pretty enough, but they are rather overshadowed by their more pretentious associates. The hills are so i ounded that it looks as if building up the sides of many of them would be impracticable ; but the semicircle of them is deep enough from tho harbour to allow of connderableclevelopment in the town for many a day to come. When the youth of New Zealand are scratching grey hairs there will be no sweeter resort at which to spend a vacation than Oamaru. I

THE END OF THE ROAD. From this point to Dunedin it is some four hours. The land about here has the reputation of being the most fertile in the coiony, but along the line of the rail there is no evidence yet of the bounteous harvest which is said to smile along thefe downs later in the season. The houses are few and the scenery, though not monotonous, not very interesting. We reach Pilmerston as the sun is sinking. The township is set about with eminences, some ot which have a curious and, in a way, picturesque character. The dwellings are scattered widely round a basin, and the inhabitants seem to have strolled out in an effort to glean some excitement by looking ab the express. In the evidence of this curiosity and the sight of a local belle " mashing the boys" on horseback, one gathers that human nature is the same in small places as in large ones Darkness now sets in, and we are thrown upon ourselves for diversion. If conversation tails, sleep is impossible, forthere is an Italian at the end of the carriage humming away like a top or a threshing machine the Bongs of his native land. Is he singing of Maria or Guiseppa, I wonder, whom he used to " spoon " on the ruins of the Colisseum or over the Bay of Naples ? Well, we've bays juhb as good here, our earthquakes will soon construct him some ruins, and what are Maria or Guiseppa to the girls to be found in New Zealand ? So let him give up that melancholy row. In despair, we turn to the books and comestibles of a gentleman who, counting on these weary hours at the end of the journey, frequents the train with books and oranges enough to satisfy a regiment. Two hours pass, and somebody says, " We are at Blueskin now ; we are sheer over so many (I fomet how many) hundred feet." In a little while he adds, "It is curioup, bub the whole face of the land hereabouts is slipping. They have had to steady the Lunatic Asylum." This is very welcome news in the dark. Another gentleman adds, by way of soothing any appiehensions on our part, " A big boulder fell down on a train just about here and smashed the engine. If it had been a carriage — " But the recollec tioris of- Maria and Guiseppa make the Italian pipe up, and he helps, with the rattle of the train, to drown the rest of the sentence. In about a quarter of an hour we see the twinkling lights of Port Chalmers as we move down towards the level of the harbour. Now we are mooring at the base of Giant Blueskin, winding round ib by the water along the harbour to Dunedin. We are passing Ravensbourne. We can see hundreds of lights at all heights coming slowly in sight beyond. The train slackens ; it goes slower and slower, it jolts, moves on a little, jolts again, and then the platform glides into view with porters, people, lamps, windows, offices, clocks and adver tieements. We are in Dunedin.

BLUESKIN AND THE PENINSULA. When the railway reaches the end of Blueskin Bay, which is distant, ag the crow I 3ie,s ? some twelve miles froni Dunedin, it

cannot continue its course due north and south any longer ; a gigantic cape, or headland, bars the way. To do so would mean a tunnel for these twelve miles through hills varying from 500 to 2,500 feet in height, which is clearly impossible. It has, therefore, to alter its direci tion with the bend of the coasfc-line, which turns abruptly to the left at the celebrated Blueskin Ciin>, and to mike a detour of sixteen mile?. This cape, known as the North Harbour and Blueskin, or colloquially as Blueskin, is, roughly speaking, a righthanded triangle in shape. The right angle is at Blueskin Bay, whence the upper side runs out seawards for eight miles to what is known as Hey ward's Point. There the coaptline turns sharply inwards, and comes slanting back again for fifteen miles to Dunedin. Here an extraordinary and typical peninsula takes its rise in an isthmus half-a-mile broad, called the Ocean Beach, just below the town. It has the shape of a foot with a very high inatep and a very high heel, and projects into the sea with such exactitude for iifteen miles chat the toe— named Harrington Point— comes to within a mile of Hey ward's Point on the mainland, and nearly turns Dunedin harbour into a lake, while the heel looks out on the broad ocean.

THE HARBOUR. Up this harbour, therefore, you must go, bearing: gently to the right, for about fifteen miles, in'order to reach Dunedin. At first the harbour is of a breadth varying from a mile and a half to four miles, the mainland being 1,700 feet high, and the peninsula some 1,200. After seven miles the shores converge to within a mile of each other, and the two quarantine islands nearly close up the stream. Port Chalmers, on a miniature peninsula of its own, peeps out from the flanks of Blueskin to the right, and Portobello on a promontory of the peninsula to the left.

THE INNER HARBOUR. Leaving Port Chalmers and Portobello, you proceed up the inner aection of the harbour past Sawyer's Bay and Ravensbourne towards Dunedin. Here the stream is not much more than a mile in breadth, and the frowning crown ot Mount Cargill, 2,200 feet, looks impre«ssi\ely down upon you from the top of Blueskin. If you are journeying up by rail, you are all this time skirting the base of the cape and looking across the water at the heights of Harbour Cove upon the peninsula. By-and-by, you round the corner of Signal Hill, and Dunedin lies before you, coming out from behind Blueskin on'tho north, and running in crescentive form for three miles alon» the face ot the hills down to the level of the Ocean Beach. As viewed from the landing place you seem to be in a lake with an amphitheatre of hills on every side except towards the south. There across Andersons Bay and the Ocean Beach you can see flashing in the sun the broad expanse of the Pacific.

DUNEDIN. I have seen many cities — most of them owing their beauty to the hand of man, and not to nature. Most cities of any importance are beautiful in this way, and some of the largest and most renowned have very little on which to plume themselves apart from this, They may grow, and they may grow, and they may grow, but this only means enclosing their inhabitants and shutting them out from the free air and the blue sky. I believe that there are no cities of any importance in Europe that had, when they were as younp ac our New Zealand towns, any notable beauty at all, except Constantinople, Edinburgh, Pesth, Naples and Lisbon. : The fact that if you set up an Eiffel i Tower (of less than one half the height of j Swampy Hill above Dunedin) at Pat is, London, Berlin, Rome, St. Petersburg or Moscow, you can see goodness knows how many hundred miles, does not say much for the scenery about these places. Such a tower won't help you to see far over the country round any ol our chief towns or San Francisco or Rio. Ifc is an absurdity. It is snutted out by Nature at once, who laughs at it-. Then look how necessary the sea is to glorify a town. Why, it is to it and hills that the vaunted show cities of Europe — which are not the largest— owe their renown. If some genii were to cut up the hills for a radius of fifteen miles round Dunedin into twenty pieces, and give each of the chief European cities a slice or two, what a fuss they would make about it. Even the modern Athens, if she could see the Southern bearer of her ancient name, would feel thankful that so dangerous a rival has her seat in regions whither her own admirers rarely penetrate.

ITS STEEPNESS AND PENINSULARITY. There are beautiful cities by the sea, with labyrinthine coast lines, and facilities for water picnics, but their sites are not particularly broken and romantic. There are others standing by the waters, with the broken and romantic points of view without them. There are others sitting enthroned over the mam, from within and without which the panorama visible is delightful. Such are San Francisco and Edinburgh, but I never saw before, or heard of, a growing town clinging to the sides of hills of more than two thousand feet, and sheltered from the open sea by a breakwater of forty square miles in extent, fifteen miles in length, and fourteen hundred feet high. It is the peculiar combination of steepness, lsvel ground, and propinquity, with har bour within, and the ocean without, that strikes the connoisseur.

THE VARIETY OF ITS ASPECTS. The tourist who grumbled afc the flatness of Christchurch without seeking its neighbouring eminences will surely find sufficient compensation in Uunedin. For the apathetic who likes lofty surroundings to look at from below, there is the flat of three miles extending from the North - east Valley to St. Clair, traversed for most ite length by Princes-street. For the enterprising who rejoices in extending his dorsal muscles there are its lateral thoroughfares, of all inclinations suitable to his taste and powers. If he is ambitious he can at once grapple with Rattray-stroet, which will conduct him to Bollevue Hill, a mere trifle of seven hundred feet above the harbour. If he should fall by the way, a cable tram will gently run him up. If he is less confident of his powers he can attempt, Hiefh -street, and so on downwards. In places he will come upon a sort of vortex of indisposable ends of streets which have been cut about and patched together in the most feasible method po-sible, from which, if he lias not the bump of locality, he will find some difficulty in emerging.

THE TOWN FOR TOUBISTS. The visitor who has had his first flush of the Exhibition and is keeping it as his promenade in the evening will be at no loss for places of resort during the day. He can go out by the main South Road to the Taieri Valley, some ten miles distant, and view the exquisite beauty and soft agricultural luxuriance of what bids fair to be one of the finest dairy-farming districts in New Zealand ; or he can drive up Princes-street though the North-east Valiey back in the direction from which he has come to the Blueskin Cliffs, reaching when about half way what is called "The Junction," above Port ChalmerH. In that neighbourhood, at a height of about 2,000 feet, is obtained the most comprehensive view of the magnificent

panorama. At your feet is Port Chalmers, with its docks and its deep-draught shipping nestling under the great green hills. Beyond it is the narrow strait broken into three branches by the two quarantine inlands which almost unite the peninsula of Fort Chalmers with the promontory in front of Portobello. To your right in profile is the length of Dunedin, lying on the faces of Bellevue and Maori Hills. Away to the left is the broad expanse of the outer harbour, sweeping softly round towards the Heads, while to your back in that direction are Blueskin Bay and the ocean between it and Heyward's Point. Opposite above Portobello are Mount Charles and Harbour Cove. If you desire it you can descend to Port Chalmers and taking a launch, cross over and ascend on that side. Then you will find yourself looking at Blueskin, with its eminences, Mihiwakaand Mopanui, backed by the higher ones — Swampy and Flagstaff Hills. Here you can catch a fuller view of Dunedin than from your first position, at eight miles distant across the inner harbour. Turning to the right and looking seawards, you see below you the miniature sounds, known as Papanui and Hooper's Inlets, which, coining in together trom the sea, tork away from each other, and penetrate for more than a mile right into the interior of the peninsula. What better picnicing ground could the people of any city desire than these several square miles of ornamental water thrust by nature up the valleys formed by two hills of between a thousand and fourteen hundred feet ? If you desire it, you can proceed to the right seven miles, until you reach the end of the peninsula, or you can return to Duuedin by descending the gentle slope to your left and following the ro^d, which, after eight miles, conducts you over the isthmus or Ocean Beach into South Dunedin. i

THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS. The first edifice of mark which strikes the eye of the stranger is the first church on a hill fifty feefc high overlooking the railway. It is, in its exterior, perhaps the most elegant ecclesiastical structure in New Zealand, having a graceful spire, set round with small auxiliary spires and a small body. Its interior, however, is disappointing. By turning into Princes-street to the right, and walking for a quarter of a mile north, you reach the Octagon and the Town Hall. This is a massive stone structure of strictly municipal character. It is raised and surmounted by a fine clock tower with a most melodious pea) of bells striking the quarters as well as the hours, which m a basin like that of Dunedin are audible for a long distance up the hills and are very useful. Continuing along Princes-street for half-a-mile, the graceful spire of the Knox Church gradually grows more apparent. It is a combination of tho Gothic districtchurch style with thatof theold Scotch meet-ing-house, typical in short, of the softening spirit of Presbyterian towards Episcopnlianism, which is noticeable in all the chief churches of Edinburgh and Glasgow built within the last thirty years. The stone is dark. The two east and west windows are large, lattice - paned, and bordered with stained glass ; the smaller ones are the same — all being pointed. The fittings are moeb handsome. The deep gallery, the ?eats, and the sides are of amber-stained wood. Cher the pulpit, in a recess in the white stone wall, is the most artistically decorated organ. The whole aapect is rich, softly-lighted and commodious. It has the tone of civic wealth and ecclesiastical elegance combined. It is said to have cost £20,000, and the organ £1,800. I fear that John Knox would have thought it savours too much of the Scarlet Woman. Beyond the Knox Church to the right are the University and the Museum. The University is a characteristically scholastic pile, standing freely in its large grounds by the water of Leith, which comes tumbling down the North-east Valley over a rough mountain bed in this direction to the harbour. Behind it are the red brick houses af the resident professors. Returning by the way of Princes-street to the point from which we started, we came to the Cargill Monument, from which iistances are calculated in Dunedin, From here Katbray-street, with its cable brams, runs up to Bellevue, some six hundred teet. The cable tram is perhaps the most pleasant mode of progression existing. It is a gliding, not a jolting motion, as in vehicles, or a jarring one, as in steamships, ivhile, unlike a sailing vessel, there is anough friction to tell you you are moving. The carriage is propelled by % clutch, which runs in a. groove winding between the rails, and there aripa or releases the cable according as it is desired to go on or to stop All the time the endless cable is rattling away in its 3ubterranean bed, driven from a drum in the engine-house up above. The cable tram has carried you up barely two hundred feet when you see a doubleLowered church of dark grey stone standing on a site cut into the hill. This is the Catholic Cathedral — St. Joseph's, and it is a gem. The outside gives you no idea of the beauty within. If it had double spires instead of twin towers you might suspect what, was awaiting you. It is — pace Christchurch Cathedral — the one specimen of what a European Gothic cathedral really is that we have in this colony, perhaps that exists in Australasia. It i& not large ; in Europe it would be called a chapel. Perhaps the content is eight hundred at the most ; bub the symmetry, the elegance, the purity of it is the same which strikes you on entering Canterbury, Ely or Cologne. The difference is one of vastness, not of kind. There is the perfectly-proportioned nave, ending in the altar, flanked by the lines of clustering columns towering upwards into graceful-pointed arches, j Higher are the rows of upper pointed windows running beneath the grained roof. At the sides of the two aisles are Beven exquisitely stained glass windows. The altar windows are also richly stained. Everywhere else ib is nothing bub the purest white stone. The impression of lottiness, proportion, airiness, purity, and richnets or j light are only such as you obtain in models of the Gothic type at Home. Nowhere else in the colony can the Catholic ritual be seen in its perfection bub here. The organ and choir are in a gallery high up over the entrance door, which is a great improvement on the Episcopalian practice ot obtruding the music and singers into the midst of the chancel.