AFTER MANY YEARS.

Auckland Star, Volume 32, Issue 32, 6 February 1904, Page 1 (Supplement)

AFTER MANY YEARS.

(By Owen Hall.;

There was a gleam of sunshine on the hills that close in Port Chalmers as the steamer of the Union Company to which we had transhipped loosed from the wharf and started for Lyttelton. It was my first experience of the vessels of the local shipping company si-ice the old days, and I was glad to see _._,?._ they had fully kept abreast of the times. Berths, table, attendance, all

were up to date, and to -tell the truth compared very favourably in every respect with similar accommodations on the ocean liner of the New Zealand Shipping Company, from whHi we had teen transferred. There isn't much opportunity given for a survey of the coast, as nearly all the sailing is done in the dark, the hours of daylight being reserved for loading and unloading cargo at the various ports. There was daylight enough, however, left in our case to enable us to see that no great change had taken place in the general appearaucc of the coast for the first twenty miles or so. The wooded ridges looked as abrupt __, ever, though they rose to any height they were capped with snow, which appeared to mc an innovation at the end of November, the beaches were as white, and generally speaking as lonely; the progress and energy 1. had seen and admired at Dunedin 1 concluded had not extended to the coast.

Bcfoie breakfast time we had entered Lyttelton harbour. AL first sight the town of Lyttelton has a sort of family resemblance to Port Chalmers, but the impression doesn't last. The harbour is bigger, and every way better, the hiiL. behind it are steeper, and the streets climb up the slopes as if they intended to go over the top; the railway accommodations, too, are better, and .1 good deal more extensive, and the wharves are more numerous and accommodate many more steamers, besides a good many sailing vessels. Altogether Lyttelton makes a much more favourable impression at first sight than the sister port to the south, and contrasts very favourably with what one could remember of il twenty or more years ago. Uf course it can never be more than an ante-chamber to Christchuieli. if only because there ia no room for a city between the steep hills behind, and the deep water in front, but as far as it goes—and to "tell the truth it already goes a good deal further up the side of the 1 ills than I should care to live—it is a cheerful busy little town, where everybody appears to have work to do, and sets about it with energy and good will. There is none of the dulness and apathy abouft the pla«.e that seemed characteristic of Port Chalmers, and I was glad to see .hat, though evidently little it anything more than a port, there was absolutely no place that answered to the description of a The streets looked clean, the hou__es respectable and neat, and the shops, though by no means numerous, had an air of quiet prosperity which certainly contrasted with those at the more southerly port. It is true the same could be said of the hotels, which seemed to do a fair business, especially after work hours, but as there was neither rioting nor drunkenness apparent to an outside observer, I was old-fashioned enough to look leniently on the possible waste of a little cash on beer, and to compare even this favourably with ] the sternly virtuous gloom that per-i vaded Port Chalmers.

After the railways of the Old World, and still more of the New, it must be confessed the railways of New Zealand are not impressive. I felt a sensation of old acquaintanceship as I got into the train for Christchureh, and was reminded by the extreme simplicity of tho accommodation that I was on the very first railway constructed in the colony. The memory wasn't greatly disturbed by the rate of travel, which reminded mc forcibly of what it used to be twentyfive or even thirty years ago, and didn't remind mc at all of the sensations, now grown familiar, of railway travelling in lands where folks are in a hurry. But if the railway has changed but little itself, its surroundings have very greatly improved- Once through the tunnel, an operation which took what appeared an unreasonably long time considering its length, we passed through a country that seemed highly cultivated, and was studded with hamlets of pretty houses, each with its church, school, and public hall, giving the impression of places where townspeople made their home. More pretentious houses, with lawns, gardens, and clumps of trees, dotted here and there on rising grounds, seemed to speak of wealth, and were a feature in the landscape that was new to mc Yes, a quarter of a century has evidently done much for the suburban districts of the City of the Plains. And here must be Christchureh itself, I thought, as I noticed that the houses were drawing more closely together, till they looked like half-formed streets, and a few more substantial buildings of brick showed themselves here and there. Suddenly a great unfinished pile of white stone, bearing the unmistakeable marks of ecclesiastical architecture, loomed up on the right, and I knew that Christchureh retained, after the lapse of all these years, its old taste for pretentious church buildings.

3*he station at Christchureh is very much more like what one had learned to associate with the idea of a railway station than anything at Dunedin, and the air of business in and around it gave the first impression of a real centre of considerable traffic.

I had almost forgotten that of all the cities of New Zealand, Christchureh was from the first the one that, was laid out with the greatest amount of foresight, but the recollection came back within a minute or two of leaving the station. It is essentially a city of the future. The broad, straight streets seem all to run out from a centre, and none of them seem to end. Gradually the rows of houses cease to be continuous: shops grow fewer until they give place to dwellings, and the dwellings are wider and wider apart: yet somehow you knowthat the street goes on indefinitely, and jonly requires more people to fill it up. I In most other cities in new countries.

people seem never to have imagined tha_ they were founding what was one day to ■ become a great city, and so were content to lay out a hundred or two of acres, leaving the needs of what seemed to them a distant future to take care of themselves. The founders of Christchurch were troubled with no doubts of the future greatness of their city; and just as they began by building a Cathedral before they had much more than people enough to till a decent parish church, «o they laid out a city big enough to accommodate, a population not likely to congregate around the spot for another half century. One effect of this at _ present is to give the city a hafcflinished look, such as may bo Keen nowhere else in these colonies, though it is common enough in America. It is curious, but not altogether disagreeable, and there must eventually be great adavntages to be derived from it in many;

Tho centro of Christchureh is probably the best bulk, fragment of city in New Zealand- Taking the Cathedral Square as the starting point the buildings of all the streets in the neighbourhood are as a rule solid and substantial, with a certain air of dignity and permanence about them which is quite nn* like Dunedin; and, I think, exceeds in this quality any other New Zealand town. It has an air of prosperity, too. which somehow is not like what I noticed in Dunedin, and yet is perhap3 equally substantial. For one thing the Scotch element is as remarkable for ita absence in Christchureh as it ..as for its presence in Dunedin. and with it there seems to have gone something of the earnest, almost anxious, desire to be doing something serious -=o noticeable in the inhabitants of the Southern city. Yet there is evidently plenty doing. The streets are full both of pedestrians and vehicles, and the shops are attractive, and apparently quite as well patronised as those in Dunedin. Aft-_" all the difference between the two. cities is just what might have been expected from what one could remember of their founders. Tt is the two sides of the Tweed reproduced in a new land. The earnest, solemn, and rather hard energy of the people of the old Edinburgh transplanted to the new; the sturdy, strong and persevering characteristics, with the eminent respectability, not far removed from dulness, of an. old English Cathedral city. One feature of Christchureh, howevpr, must not be forgotten: indeed, it is not likely to be by anybody who has experienced. it for the first time; it is the home of the bicycle. It is well the streets are wide, and better still perhaps that they are straight, for every second <_rson seems to ride a bicycle, and usually to ride it quickly. At certain hours this certainly gives an animated appearance to the streets, and lends a pleasing life to the'scene, as long as one can do without crossing; when yon have to cross the animation remains but the pleasure decreases.

On the whole, the impressism left by Christchureh is one of substantial prosperity with less of anxiety and efTort than characterises Dunedin. This impression goes well with the ywsi tion and appearance of the city itself. The straight, level streets that look as if they could be extended almost indefinitely without a bend or a rise in the gradient, contrast naturally with those others that wind sinuously along narrow valleys, or climb painfully up steep ridges that seem to forbid approach to anything but extreme human determination. That the future of Christchureh is likely to be. tha-4 of a great commercial centre it is not easy to believe, even when one compare's it today with what it was quar-ter of a century ago; but if by any chance it should there can be no difficulty in seem» whore it can find all the room for expansion which a population of millions cun'require.