HAWKE'S BAY.

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 147, 18 March 1859, Page 2

HAWKE'S BAY.

Ahuiuri Described. —The Lyttelton limes of the 15th ultimo, contains a long letter headed " Jottings down of a traveller about New Zealand." The writer pitches into Wellington as a " weatherbeaten, earthquake-shaken, pent-up town!" and, indeed, has a quiet "slap" at the provinces all round, Canterbury of course excepted. He thus alludes to ourselves:—"Of the new province of Ahuriri or..Hawke's Bay, perhaps it may be said thatitsformerover-shadower.Wellingtonmighthave': ruled more leniently, and the people of the new province have passed a more charitable judgment upon the-actions of the majority. As it is, how\ever, the land of the Hawke's Bay province participates in the flourishing progress of the flock--.masters. But for the town of Napier, situated upon an island by no means fertile, and less than ; four square miles hi extent, with a harbor to be entered only by small vessels, .and. that only at certain times and always with much danger, what can be its prospects ? The flock-masters connected with it, when rofid-i are improved, willprobably be as cheaply supplied from Wellington as from Na- ; pier; and the resources'of the latter town within itself appear to be few indeed. At present it, makes great pretences; I hope they inay,..he. ( .: realised; Jnit-tho contrary is-much' to ;be feared.5" This paragraph, brief though it be, contains more: mis-representation than should be-passed" unno-., ticed. That the harbor of Napier cannot be entered except with much danger is grossly untrue. It has been entered times almost innumerable without danger or accident of any kind; and it cannot have escaped the memories of our readers that, some twelve months ago, a large brig, the Swan, bound from Auckland to Lyttelton, entered Napier harbor iv a leaky state,'where she was. safely hove down and rendered fit to resume'her. voyage. The resources of a town within itself are not usually many; it being generally.supported by the district of which it. forms the outlet; bat we may; remark that the island (so-called) of Scinde'cannot truthfully be characterised as "by: no means fertile ;"'. on the contrary, it has a rich loamy soil, Overspread with nutritious grasses. The assertion that,-when roads are improved, the flock-masters will be as cheaply supplied from Wellington- as from Napier, is one so replete with absurdity'thatthe reader is tempted to doubt the fact of the "traveller" having ever seen the locality of which he so depreciatingly writes in his precious epistle.— H. B. Herald.