PAEROA, WAITEKAURI, AND WAIHI. [By our Travelling Reporter.]

Waikato Times, Volume XVII, Issue 1418, 4 August 1881, Page 4

PAEROA, WAITEKAURI, AND WAIHI. [By our Travelling Reporter.]

(Continued). i A pew miles further, in the beautiful plain formed by the old bed of the pleabant little ri\er Ohitti'inuri, lies the hin.ill but apparently flourishing town of Paeroa. It is a pleasiiut township along the bunk of the river and back to the foot of the slopes, and looks a great improvement, it must be owned, upon the seedy and mituting little pimple up6n the bank of the Waihou that is cursed by i-oine, though, like nil evil*, it, may be ble.^spd with equal tervency, known as Te Aioha. The Ohinomuii is a pretty little sparkling rivtr not much ntu rower than tho Waihou, but with a much smallei body of water. There is a decent little wooden bridge across it into the town, and steamers running regularly from the Thames come up to' the wharf twice or three times a week, the obliging stewards bringing fish and vegetables and other little marketable delicacies which we at Te Aroha have to long for in vain, with the bridge we can't get granted to us and the churches and schools refused to us. On the river several of the Paeroa inhabitants hare "trim built wherries" that arc worth looking at, whereas Te Aroha has not a single craft, not even an old washing-tub. Facing the bank of the river there is a line of several hotels and stores, and there are two or three churches and schools in the background. The Paeroa Hotel, kept by Mr F. Lipsey, the Commercial, and the Criterion all seemed particularly inviting after our wearisome .slow ride, and had wo been the most bigotted teetotallers we must have Btopped at one of them. We couldn't stay at all at once, so we decided upon Mr F. Lip^ey's house, and our host feivently wrung our hands and most benevolently piovidod for man and beaut at once. We couldn't well have been h.ippier in this woild of sorrow, and we spent tho afternoon in strolling about and spying out the fatness of 'he land. The plains hero could not bo beaten for the richness of their land in all New Zealand. The soil is a fine rich alluvial surface of considerable depth, on a subsoil of clay. The lower land would be magnificent for grass or root crops, and some of tho gentle slopes towards the hills would produce the finest grain. Some of the paddock land at the back of the inn had borno a very large crop of potatoes, and showed its quality fo well with some carrots and mangolds that, next year the owner will have a large quantity laid down. He .showed me some fine specimens of mangolds, 30and40lbs. a-piece, of good solid feed. In the stables mine host of the Paevoa Hotel entertained a very distinguish- d guest, Mr Glencoe, tho son of Mr Surprise and an entire gentleman of .a most imposing presence and remarkable powers of captivation. Glencoe is a cross between a Clydesdale and a Suffolk Punch, judging from his mas«ive chest and gigantic hind quarters, and is a particularly handsome hor-e to breed from, his pretty shaped head, bright bay colour and sweet temper being good points in a father of draught hor-es. I rather fancy I have met With some of his distinguished family in the neighborhood of Wang.umi, and if so, that would be another lecommendatiop, as the best horses I have met in the North Island came from that part, Tho hceneiy in the neighborhood of Paeroa is very captivating, the distant To Aroha mountain, slnped like a giaud arm-chair for the gods, looking over the lower langcs that form a semicircle round tho head of the beautiful plain. In the purple and gold mantle of sunset, it looked veiy like a bit from the painter's favorite land of Italy, or the equally lovely South of Fiance. Whatever we may come to, New Zealand will nover be surpassed for beautiful and strange scenery. After a pleasant evening and sleep without dreams, we bade good-byo to Paeroa and pushed on. I should not omit to mention though, that the inhabitants were signing a petition for the btinging of the telegraph line through tho district. It would be a boon to them as to Te .Aioha to have this necessity of modern titnefl, bo unfelt by our pimple forefathers, b-at 60 missed by their petted and pampered defendants where not obtainable, supplied to them. On leaving Paeroa there is a good, well made road to Mackay Town, situated about three miles further on. This began from a gold rush, and was ejteemed for a time a promising little township but it gradually died out and is now nearly deserted. Heie tho road enters the bush and a fiuther jog of rather a rough description brought us on to the old track to "Waitekauri. If anyone is weak enough to prefer a new road he can be obliged accotding to the latest pattern, with oceans oi mud and all complete, and he will pass next thi ough tho little township of Owharoa one of the bantlings of the good old goose that lays the golden eggs for New Zealand, Of course, Owhaioa began u'ith a rush and flourished and got a ten head battery, and then equally of course, it pined away and was deserted, and its h.ittery was .shut up. Then some of the mctheodical workers of the world found out that there "was somf thing to be got thcie and went to woik in a little le-s insane way than that of the gtneial j >lly digger, and in consequence it is looking up again and its battery is kept constantly at ■\\oik on good paying bluff. A fiuther little spoil of about four miles biings one to Waitekauri, that can't be railed a township, but is only a higgledy piggledy bunch of houses and shandies pitched about at the feet of the hills that shut it in on all sides A few yearn ago, this w/is also a bus}' field, and was turning out a considerable quantity of gold, a large amount of work having been done thereon. Amongst other things a large 40 head battery was erected suid oil went merry as a luamage bell. Then like Owharoa, Te Aioha, Waihi, the Thames, and every other goldfield it underwent a period of reaction upon the roaring, jolly, tipsy, a.sinino stage, .and by the waters of Babylon it sat down and wept for a period, like all excitable people, up in the stirrups and snobbishly pretentious in prosperity and down to the lowest dregs and the weeping stage in adversity, and it was scaicely even heaid of for several years. One or two sen&ible men stuck to 't and plodded on for year after year till they came on the right spot that they knew pretty well must exist there, and they had their reward ; they " struck ile ;"' in other words they tumbled into SOfi or 900 ounces of gold, worth from £3 to £3 14s per ounce. Then everybody saw that he had been wrong in deseiting the place, and now probably there a\ ill be a blind rush back again in the hopes of grabbing some of tho good luck that the winners owe inoic to their own perseverance than any particular richness of the field. The&e rushing gentlemen never do any good for themselves, or for anybody else by-the-bye— a blind rush, a little feeble scratching about, accompanied by immense brag and excitement, finding vent in drinking, fighting, and gambling, and then the morning's repentance and a rush somewhere else. The second generation of the field, the few workers left after the rush, always make the place pay. About Waitekauri there are some nice little bush farms, and doubtless the place will thrive and progress ages after the gold fever has died out and gold become a mere drug, and a thing of the past, to be wondered at and critically examined by blundering old pedantsinthe tortoiseshell spectacles of

'the ' period" that perhaps, have acquired the power,?nf' Idokidyr back into the past in those enlightened days, audit is to bo hoped, will be able to cure the fedMenf»ss And ' vanity of old nge. A lide 6f ! four or five miles past another 1 4 musty e t qg of the golden goose, known asWaititi, by u road that may be very good and very lrvel under favorable circum'-tanoe.'', though it certainly ,jh otily a miserable mud bog now,, on which a r.iavtllcr ia bound to keep to n foot p ( ice, hrin<rs the pilgrim of gold to Wnihi, where the diircrluHr-» are making a sensation. What shall Isayof thotownahip, or settlement rather P Well I never wa,s bold enough to tell a mother that her much admired babes and sucklings were dirty little wretches, or poor, wuen, half starved little bratsj *,o I would say that Waihi is anything 1 but .charming and flourishing. The principal feature of the place in an immense white cbalky kind of reef, the drives into which chow gold freely, audthe Martha claim, the proprietor!) of which have erected a battery of 15 head. ' Several other claims have been 1 commenced upon, and work is going 1 on energetically enough, it must be owned. Some crushings have returned a very favorable percentage,, and the gold is fetching a high price in the market. Whether the excitable diggers will rush the place I cannot say, -at this time, though a few good finds reported would be onfiicient to bring the usual mob of gentry down with the usual result ; but it seems to be a place that may yield a great amount of gold, aud certainly the plains will never fail to return a oplendid dividend to genuine industry, and will require a township in this locality that must become a business centre sooner or later. The tide has turned evidently with Waitekauri, and it is a satisfactory restoration to life with her. Waihi may have to run tnrongh its period of probation like that Te Aroha, is evidently now undergoing, but they both will fulfil their destinies, iind after their youthful fling they will make gobd steady going plodding men of business, earn their bread by the sweat of their blows, as other sons of Adam have had to do from the beginning, give up roaring and flying about in the bold buccaneering style of big boys and jolly diggers, carefully eschew dreams of El Doradoes nnd taking the world by surprise, thankfully accept wittles and drink as the chief of their diet, and work as the best means. Having allowed me time enough to indulge in these sublime reflections, old Dame Nature sniffed significantly and went off "on the rampage" in the twinkling of an eye, and very soon the whole l.mdhcape was enclosed in a shroud of mist and rain, and the only subjects for reflection were the water trickling gently don n one's back bone into one's gent's pants and so i.ito one's bouts, the pretty cascades pouring off one's elbows and the tips of one's noso and the musical swishy sound like that made by a washerwoman at work, caused by the contact of one's person with the paddle.