A DAT ON THE TERRACES.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 709, 10 September 1870, Page 2

A DAT ON THE TERRACES.

(BY OUB CIKCUMCAYABAMBTILATIira COKEESPONIIENT.) Uhameb ll.—Beek.—Mount Eochfoet. Cockles.— A G-eeat Eusii. The Cemeteey.— Eoad Boaeds.— Milk. I had got as far as the Orawaiti. Compared with the Mississippi, this river, at its junction with the sea, fails to impress the beholder with an idea of magnificence. It is decidedly petite. But in one respect it excels the prince of rivers. It is pretty. The Great Father of Waters is only grand. Prettiness is a characteristic merely of bis minutest tributaries. Having seen both the Mississippi and the Orawaiti, I give the preference to the latter—on the same principle as people prefer a pewter to a hogshead of beer. Bulk is not necessarily aD clement of beauty. Who cares about looking at a hogshead? Hogsheads are hidden away in cellars, damp, dusty, and cobwebb'd. But put a pewter before a man—put it two or three times before him—and doth he not smile and take it towards him as a bosom friend—even uulo his lips, otherwise sacred, let us hope, to the holiest of U3es. The poetry of the mau's soul is touched. It cannot be the mere love of beer which thus inspires him. It cannot be any particular personal respect for Messrs Hooper and Dodson, or for Messrs Parker and Garsides, as men and brethren, or even admiration of their creative skill as brewers. It is it must be-—the metalliferous brilliancy of the exterior of the vessel, the clear amber color of its contents, the rainbowtinted globules which adorn their surface—these it must be which so affect humanity that, in nine cases out of ten, the privileged spectator of a halfpint measure parodies the great poet, and to himself observes— Is this a pewter which I see before me, The handle towards my hand ? Come, let me clutch thee. It is purely upon this principle that other people like pewters, and that I like—the Orawaiti. The Mississippi may roll into the sea, and 'hogsheads may be rolled into their cellars. Give to the man of poetic sentiment the purling stream and the pewter pot ! Both of which are to be had simultaneously at the' Bridge Hotel, Orawaiti, for the small charge of one sixpence. For the same money you may look landward toward Mount Eochfort, and, with your vision clarified, admire' its peculiarly contorted crown, just 3,572 feet above the level of the sea. This Mount Eochfort, moderately high as it only is, is one of the most remarkable hills in New Zealand. Its money value may be computed by millions. On its western aide its baso is literally fringed with gold. It is this fringe which forms these Terraces towards which I am getting, by slow stages. Prom the gold of this fringe Westport drew a considerable ' proportion of the £62,000 worth of that metal which, according to the'

Customs entries, was exported during the last recorded quarter of the current year; and it has drawn more previously, as it will draw more in time to come. On its eastern side there is, according to Dr Haast's estimate, a coalfield one hundred and fifty miles in extent—a coalfield which, for thickness of Beam and quality of coal, is admitted by competent judges to excel any other coalfield yet discovered in the country. Most respectfully I 'submit that Mount Bochfort deserves to be looked upon as no mere mountain, or mass of valueless material obstructing the horizon. Just as in the ease of your correspondent, its good looks are not its only recommend ation. From its summit—when you get there—and it ouly requires "a stout heart to a stae brae " —the country east, north, and south presents what Dr Haast describes to be " one of the finest and most magnificent views that it is possible to conceive." And he did not know, except by speculation, that the view included "country containing quartz-reefs, or that seaward there was a succession of old seabeaches, such as these Terraces, where gold had in ages past been deposited to make the names of Matt Steele, and Bob Perry, aDd Dick Nicol, and Addison, familiar, if not famous, at this stage of the nineteenth century, and to interfere with the prospective pastoral pursuits of that pioneer, Mr Reuben Waite. But he knew about the coalfield. A.nd we don't know much more about it now. More's the pity. Coal-brook Dale the Doctor designated the spot where he first exposed the coal-seam eight feet two inches thick. The name is ouphonious and appropriate. But a brook by any oiher name would sound as sweetly, so far as concerns the practical results of a discovery ao important to the development of this district, and to the material advancement of the Colony. While a railway is to be made to the terminus of Fox-hill, consisting of two hotels and a community of woodsplitters, the coalfield of Mount Bochfort is unfortunately left where Dr Haast found himself on the first night of its discovery—out in the cold.

It is not advisable to restrict one's observations of Mount Ilochfort and the Terraces to the view obtainable from Jones's. Prom similar points of view, mountains have been known to nod. They are even spoken of as becoming hazy, and as having a nightcap. It must be exceedingly painful to see a mountain so far forget itself. Having a respect for Mount Eochfort, I could not contemplate such a contingency without some fear as to the probable effect of the spectacle upon my too tender susceptibilities, and, knowing that such sights liava been seen by visitora to Jo«©»'b, • I left. Left to look at some fresh ■ green cornfields—small, but suggestive i as to the possibilities of settlement in this country of boundless bush. These you pass in the pleasant avenue extend- , ing from the bridge to a branch of the '. estuary waters of the Orawaiti which runs along the first terrace of the series which constitute a special feature ; of the formation of this district. On this part of the road, and by the cornfields, you pass, not the cemetery in • which we, as mortals, have all a common interest—even that cemetery is near enough, and suggestive enough—but the burial-place of some milbons of early settlers on the Coast—earlier than you or I, Mr Editor, or even than the Maori or the white man. They were not so highly developed a3 we are—they were of that class of creature described as having " agangleatod nervous system dispersed irregularly through the body, which is soft and inarticulate." They were, in fact, molluscs—merely cockles, aud pipis, and the like; but they lived, and—here they died. They may have lived aud loved, for all we know, but they certainly had common feelings, and a common fate, in their death. Their shells became their coffins, and here these coffins now exist to a depth of several feet, to have ditches and drains driveu through them by Jones. The great Caesar's body may have stopped a bung-hole, and if the worthy proprietor of these cornfields cared 1 to utilise, in similar manner, the relics of past generations, he would dig up the shells of every mother's sou of these cockles, and thereby apply to the sour portions of his land the most accessible and the best lime he could obtain. Cockles dead, like cockles living (to say nothing about Cockle's pills) have their uses in the laboratory of Nature ; and I hope you will excuse me, Mr Editor, for having thus lingered over an old cockle-bed—not so much to heave a sigh,|as to see a hiveof old shells utilised in conformity—ahem ! —with one of the recognised principles of agricultural chemistry. Fronting you, beyond the lagoon which is crossed by Maloney's gangway, there is the terrace of which I have spoken. It is identical, I think, with what is known as Bradshaw's Terrace on the south side of the Buller. Similar in situation and comformation, it seems equally to deserve prospecting. Perhaps it has been prospected. It would be hard to find, between here and the hill-tops, a terrace that has not been prospected more or less. But I doubt if this particular terrace has ever had aa many holes sunk in its vicinity as were sunk the other morning in the Great Posi-and-Eail Bush in front of the Warden's house. People are not always in such humor for a practical as they wero that morning. Jon't you think it must have been°a practical joke, Mr Editor ? A little bit of refined satire? Nobody, I hope

will accuse anybody of being ill- I natured if I venture to think that it was. You are aware, of course, of the desire which exista for what has como to be popularly known as " active supervision " of the goldfielda. The latest development of the idea waa contained in one of your contemporaries, when a " Peripatetic G oldfields Secretary " waa seriously spoken of as a desideratum—a gentleman mounted on horse-back probably, with an exciseman's ink-bottle in his pocket, a pen behind his ear, and records of his travels written on his thumb-nails, after the manner of Mr Verdant Green. Tou are aware also of the development of the same feeling into a wish that Wardens should settle disputes on the diggings. This must have been the germ of the joke. Its perpetrator som9 disappointed disputant, no doubt probably reasoned that if a Warden did not go to the diggings, a short and easy method of meeting the difficulty was to bring the diggings to the Warden. So he, and some fifty or sixty others obviously innocent of his design, came and dug up the ground in front of the Warden's door, in front of the Surveyor's door, and in front of the Clerk's door ; and, having a convenient water, supply in the water-butts belonging tol these gentlemen, the diggings werej very lively while they lasted. The! failure of the joke only lay in the fact! that there was nothing to dispute! about after the holes were dug. In| point of dryness the sinking waa| very similar to the joke, and thel similarity was continued by the one! being as shallow as the other, but there! was no colorable ground in the sand r»ny| more than there was for the satire! Do I do anyone an injustice by this complexion on the motives for they late rush ? If so, I shall he happy to| receive his explanations. Without! these, the circumstances

" Conspire to blind My erring judgment, and mi3guido the caind."j

The cemetery is close at handtopographically. In sentiment let it be far away from the spirit of these notes. In the practical application o! its uses, may it be yet more distant, " Life's a short summer man a flower." Both are sufficiently ephemeral without wishing them to he bo. Melrose Abbey by moonlight! A cemetery at sunset! In so suiting time to place, we are told there is pro. priety. It happened so that the sun was setting as I entered this cemetery and was confronted by a familia.' name upon a recently erected headstone. Setting! To the fried beneath the soil—to that friend who wasthus so near.and yet sofar—the sun had already set—for ever. la it so? May it not be that, setting beneath a cloud, letvring but the light of Hope behind, it rises in its perfect bright ness in " that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns ?"

How many of these "v7est Coast graves are filled by the bodies of young men drowned. Drowned, and f:>und, and ''Pound drowned!" "He was a native of Scotland," or of England, or of Ireland, and so the record end 3. It was a good and wise thing, I think, that simple proposition made in the House of Representatives the other day that a return should be made of all persona who had been drowned in the rivers of the country, or of this Coast. To how many old people on the other side of the world may such a return bring sadness, and yet some satisfaction that the fate of their sen is known. How often, even here—among those that are buried below—has that fate been the fate ©f a hero.

I had hcpes that this cemetery, rough-hewn though it haa been out of the bush, would be a place where, though the feelings of men might be pained, their sentiments would not be shocked. I am disappointed. Why, for a mere matter of a few pounds, should there have been such needless, unseemly, crowding in a corner, of the bodies removed from the former cemetery, and of those which have since been added ? There has, I fear, been attention to economy at the cost of good taste and propriety. It seems so ; and it seems a pity that it should be so. This country i 3 surely not so circumscribed that a few morß feet of ground could not be afforded to the dead, or to living friends who desire to seek what it would be a misnomer here to speak of as the solitude of the grave.

Eesuming the road, an incomprehensible association of ideas reminded me that the Progress Committee of Westport was dead, and that Eoad Boards do not yet exist in this district. At tho present time, Mr Editor, these facta are not of trifling import to your readers. With Greymouth in the Province as an established municipality, and with a General Government subsidy of some £4OOO or £SOOO to Eoad Boards in the Province, Westport and it 3 district have a poor prospect of even " the loaves and fishes," if a Municipality be not speedily created, and Eoad Boards formed. I assure you that, from no higher motive than self-protection, both subjects will have soon to be considered by the good people of the Buller. There are difficulties in the way in mining districts, no doubt; but, come they must, or the district will lag in its prosperity, as I have been lagging along this track. Contrary to a correspondent's' usual disposition to stop everywhere, I pass the Military Encampment, and A. 0. D.'s, and Anderson's, and join a small Bocial throng at Smith's. P.S.—Smith—you have heard the name before —Bella milk.