UP TO AUCKLAND.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3079, 30 December 1878, Page 2

UP TO AUCKLAND.

By Vbbdanx.

Our " casual," Verdant,, dropped into the editorial sanctum this morning in a very washed out and disreputable condition, and his nose gave evidence that its owner had been.engaged in heavy, spiritualistic seances. In his hand was a ragged carpet-bag containing a dirty handkerchief and a half used paper collar. Hii head was covered with a large greasy felt. He slung down a dirty roll of brown paper, which shewed some of his cabalistic handwriting, and thus addressed us: "There's about fifty lines there boss.^hich at a penny a line is 4s 2d. Give us four bob and it's a bargain." We finally satisfied him with half -a-crown and bade him go to the devil. This is the stuff he swindled us out of two shillings and sixpence with :—

It is pleasant after a week's sojourn at Auckland to return to the Thames, the dear old Thames, which Sir Geordie and Macandrew have just done making, so great. The Thames, with its honest whiskey shops and wooden pavements, has peculiar c(harms) for me. Many a time have I measured my length on the latter after coming out of the former; and then the dear muddy miners who are so ready to shout beers round every pay day (mem.: Fay day domes once a fortnight) or oftener if they come on a patch while the bosses are away. All these pleasing associations arise a 9 the Eotomahana, in whose palatial cabin 1 am now writing, steams towards the , future London of.New Zealand. (Authorities if necessary: Jimmy Cook, Geordie Grey, Billy Howe, and others too numerous to particularise.) Friends, Thamesians, fel-low-countrymen—l am partly English, ditto Scotch, with a dash of Cornish about me, and I'd sooner live at the Thames on one meal of tripe and .onions per day than-at Auckland on three, including a nigger to keep the flies off. Talking about meals reminds me of Auckland hotel .dinners. We'll take one item, and follow it through its varied ex* periences. Dinner, under-done roast beef; tea, ditto cold ; breakfast, ditto (getting odorous); dinner, ditto — called hash,; tea, ditto—called rissoles, and so on. No wonder I'm glad to get back, and if ever I go there again it will be to Mo-ant Eden. The only thing worth seeing was the museum, which, being free, I went to inspect. Anxious to let the Auckland people know I was a literati, I put on a pair of spectacles, and placed a very long pen behind my ear. The latter, however* I had to leave at the door in the umbrella rack, and a shrivelled up custodian informed me that no walking sticks were admitted. The statuary is very-fine, though, I think, in the name of common ■ decency, they might put an old night-gown or even a dish cloth on some of the Herculeses and Yenuses. Gobang says it would spoil the effect. Perhaps it would. ' Anyhow it's a naked subject to talk aßout, and to. appropriately wind up a classical subject I will simply remark nuf ced. The next things that struck me were some moaa' eggs, in one of which (so said, a small card affixed thereto) there had been found some moa chicken bones, but whether they were hen bones or rooster bones science had been unable to discover—at any rate, science was quiet on this point. Although this egg had been " sat upon " it was not the least "small;" in fact, it was about the size fend shape of " our other member's" respected, cranium. In the gallery my attention was particularly attracted to a splendid bust of some ancient hero, but as his name was not affixed I don't know who it was, but I think it must have been either Julius Caasar, Jupiter, William the Conqueror, or, perhaps, Sir George Grey, before he commenced to shave. In the reptile cabinets were all the loathsome things, in that line .that Bill Shakespeare says Macbeth's witches: put into the devil's cauldron. Amongst the specimens from the Kotomahana and Botorua districts were a duck and a duckling completely covered with some kind of calcareous deposit. It is very pretty and very wonderful and all that sort of thing, but should be a sad lesson to all ducks of a scientific or adventurous turn of mind to stop at home instead of going gallivanting to the Hot Lakes. The skeleton of the Moa held together with pieces of wire is a work of nature and art combined; but npw I can write no " Moah" (pun) as it is beginning to get rough, so I'll conclude by wishing.you all the compliments of season. ,