The Akaroa Mail TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1903 THE PENINSULA AS A TOURIST RESORT.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LIII, Issue 2822, 17 November 1903, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1903 THE PENINSULA AS A TOURIST RESORT.

We are delighted to announce that the Tourist Depm'tment have at last recognised the claims of Banks' Peninsula as one of the most charming tourist reports in the colony, by sending down Mr Cowan, the well-known journalist of the Department to gatherand spread information regarding its numerous and unquestioned beauties. Mr Cowan visits the Peninsula at a favourable fcime, for it is clothed in the full flush of its spring verdure and presents a pictui'e of vivid luxuriance, unsurpassed, if equalled in the Southern Hemisphere. Perhaps, however, the aspect of the Peninsula is most striking to the visitor in the late autumn, when the dry plains are yellow with the stubble and dried grasses. It is then that our green hills, riddled with innumbrable springs, show an emerald contrast to the sun-baked tracts of the rest of Canterbury, and proclaim the renson of the vast numbers of stock reared in this fertile locality.

Asa matter of course, however, it is hardly the practical and material side of the Peninsula that Mr Cowan comes here to investigate, but rather its historical and poetical side, and the peculiar beauty of its scenery. Pessimists declare that the beauty of the Peninsula has be?n destroyed by the felling of the great forests that once so completely covered it We hold a totally different opinion, believing that the Peninsula wos never so fair a site to look on, as it is at the present day. In the old days, a great garment of pines and undergrowth covered the land from the sea-beach to the lofty stony peaks that rose bare on the Burnmits of the ranges. Under the shadow o? the great trees there was an intense gloom. It was only where fire or other cause had made a clearing that the ferns, creepers and undergrowth came to their full beauty, for the big trees demanded all the virtue from the ground for their own maintenance, and brooked'no filching'of it on the'part of f,heir more lowly ancj ornamental rivals,'

There was a deadly monotony in the endless sea of unvarying tree-tops, and had it not been for the animation given by the many birds that fed on the summits of the berry bearing monarchs of the forest, the great ocean of greenery tendered to create a feeling of gloom and depression in the mind of the onlooker.

Now, where the forest primeval once supported a few thousand pigeons and kakas, and a few hundred wild pigs, there are rich and fertile jjastures on which are reared many thousand head of stock, the products of which give cheap and wholesome food — not only to the many residents and the adjacent dwellers on the plains, but also to the toilers in the great English towns. The sun smiles on the verdure of rich grasses, the bubbling streams glisten in its rays, fruit and ornamental trees from all over the world grow exuberantly, and in nearly every valley a remnat of the ancient forest still remains, throwing its darker shadows and impressing one with the glamour of the past. Jt is monstrous to say, for a moment, that the universal bushcovered hills could ever equal the beauty of smiling homesteads, shining water-courses and a vast variety of introduced foliage. One might as well compare a large area planted with pinus insignis to the brightness of a botanical garden.

What we want, however, is to reserve all that portion of the primeval forest that still remains. In spite of all that has been said or written, a good deal still remains. There is not much fear of further denudation, and we trust Mr Cowan's visit may check any tendency in that direction. Nearly every owner of any considerable holding in the county has taken pains to keep Homo of the prettiest patches of bußh on his estate, and there has been a great denl of planting near homesteads that will meet the demand for the firewood of the future and so check any destruction of nativo timber with this object;, There are several

large patches of bush on the summits that have been made Government forest reserves, and, we believe, the Kaituna Bush has been wrested from the hands of the axemen ; so, we think, we may look forward to an increase, rather than a decrease of our wooded lands.

There are several reasons besides sentimental ones for bush preservation. The principle one is that the removal of the shadowing foliage from creeks and springs tends to lessen the water supply. Strict regulations should be enforced for the shading of streams by giowth on their banks, for it is wonderful how the volume of water lessens when the stream is bare. It is true that Nature provides a remedy, if she is given rest, for on the banks of every bared stream, the second growth springs up strong and green, and protecting to remedy the mischief done by the unthinking settler, but if this is removed and removed again for the .sake of a few more acres of pasture, the result is a dry and unprofitable locality. Another principal reason is that neither our native or imported birds can live, unless we spare the bush to provide them with food. Even now, in spite of all the vandalism of the past, the hymn of innumerable birds greets the dawn of every Peninsula day. The moko moko, which has disappeared in the north, rears its young in thousands in the sheltered bays of this favoured region. The tui Hashes a mass of irridescent feathers among the yellow blooms of the kowhai or the pendant purples of the konini, and their numberless and beautiful fellow aboriginals, the robins, woodpeckers, wrens, tits, cuckoos, continue to increase and beautify the land with song and plumage. We think enough has been done for hard utility, therefore, and that it will be more profitable, as well as more pleasant, not to reduce our forest area, and we feel sure that is the general feeling of our settlers. Still, it must be acknowledged there are many Goths amongst us, who for the sake of a few shillings would utter-

ly destroy tho wooded beauty of a valley, and if any way could be devised to prevent such people carrying out their mercenary desires, it should be 'dohei

Of the romantic history of our town, of the many spots of interest surrounding it, of the gallant perseverance of ouv pioneers, of our ruined Maori strongholds, of our almost unsurpassable harbour; of our fish and game and equisite scenery, our many Eastern Baya which the sun greets as he first rises from the ocean, and where the fertile valleys know not the touch of frost, save at the rarest intervals, of our caves and seaf owl and rare orchids and ferns Aye have no time to speak at present. No doubt Mr Cqwan; with his keen sense of the beautiful will feel these delights sink into his heart, as they have into the hearts of so many others, and that he wiil be able to tell a wider world of the countless beauties and delights of this favoured region. A s sure as the sun rises in the heavens, so will tho beauties of Banks' Peninsula become renowned throughout Australasia and the great centres of the Northern Hemisphere, and thousands of tourists will visit its placid shores and expatiate on its numberless attractions..