AFTER MANY YEARS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 38, 13 February 1904, Page 1 (Supplement)

AFTER MANY YEARS.

(By Ow«n Hall.) Port Nicholson Harbour! I was prepared to see many changes here, not only because the Wellington I was to see after a quarter of a century of absence might; almost be said to have lived most of its life as a capital city since my last acquaintance with it, but because I htid heard so much of it from my fellow-passengers. It is a curious fact that Wellington people are never tired of sounding the praises of Wellington. In old times I could well remember we knew a Wellington man by his habit at each street corner of grasping at the brim of his hat in nervous apprehension that a gust of wind would carry it away; I have been told that there is less wind in the capital now than of old. I don't know about that, but at any rate the habit of blowing about the place seems to be preserved in the customs of the inhabitants. On my voyage to New Zealand the glory and greatness of the capital had been kept so constantly before mc that I confess I rounded the Heads on a sunshiny morning—almost the first I had met with on the coast—with mingled feelings of expectation of something great and wonderful, -and of meeting with a disappointment—the common fate of those who expect too much. After all, I said to myself, it is the old Port Nicholson still. The ring of surrounding hills, moet of them steep. and all of th-em too close to the water's edge to leave much room for a city, struck mc as familiar. There ■were, it is true, more signs of human occupation than of old- Each little bay showed houses and cultivated spots where I could only remember solitudes of

timber or ferns, and gradually, as we came nearer the city itself, the number of houses not only increased greatly but were to be seen in all directions, perched quaintly on the steep banks and slopes, tier above tier, as if clinging desperately to the last hope of a frontage to the harbour under difficulties. Yes. undoubtedly my informants were right—Wellington had grown. Along the shores, up the hill-sides, on the tops of the ridges and peaks, where one almost shivered to think how a Wellington wind must howl and whistle when it blew, with gardens that sloped so steepy that one wondered how they were cultivated, the city had spread. Pretty enough, indeed, with the warm sunlight—for at last it- had begun to grow warm—lying on the slopes and sparkling like diamonds from the ■windows, but leaving an uncomfortable : impression that the bouses must be difficult to Teach at the best of times, and mere temples of the winds in anything like ordinary Wellington weather. But at last we had r-aunded the last headland and faced the capital at short range. Yes, quarter of a century has done a great deal for the capital in a good many ways. The old beach has disappeared—the beach that used to be strewn with boats hauled up out of harm' 3 way, interpersed with an occasional iron water tank taken from some vessel's hold- Perhaps it was no great loss, after all, and yet I was conscious that Wellington didn't look quite itself under the new conditions. I could remember the gusty days when there was a pleasing excitement to be found in watching the boats overturned, and an occasional empty iron tank roll over with a noise like distant thunder. No* there wa3 really no scope for a good blow. The open beach had been succeeded by a broad reclamation, and outside of that again by a number of piers and wharves fitted with cranes and adorned with a small steam engine here and there that gave an impression of business entirely new to mc in conneotion with Wellington- It -was Sundaymorning, so as we drew slowly in to our wharf there was nothing to divert our attention from the silent evidences that the quiet little town, with its one main street running round the back of the

sloping beach, and its single pier witH a cross piece at the end, had grown into a busy looking city of many; streets, with piers and wharves, alongside which steamers of a size undreamed of in the old days lay as if they were used* to it. It was difficult to believe that It was the place I had known, and I confess I felt just at first a slight touch of the questioning surprise familiar to one's imagination in the old story of Kip Van. Winkle. As I -walked up the wharf and found myself in a wide street, flanked by large, substantial looking buildings of brick and stone, instead of the old weather-board sfiructures that save the impression of undergoing a periodical shake of earthquake. I couldn't help asking myself the question what had haopened to gire the inhabitants confidence enough to risk their money in putting up such buildings, and their lives in living in them. This, by the way. is one of the points cm which I left Wellington almost as much in the dark about as when I reached it. It was evident the old fear of earthquakes, and what they might do on the shortest notice to chimnies and even houses, had passed away, and though I saw none of the sky-:scrap-ers so familiar on American soil, yet I couldn't help feeling a little uncomfortable at thoughts of how some of these four-storey buildings might bear the strain of such a shake as I had known there a-quarter of a century ago. But whether they will stand or not, there can be no question they have made a different looking place of Wellington in the meantime. A stroll along a few of the streets enabled mc to judge better than I could at first of the real extension of the city. It is certainly great, though hardly so great as it seemed at the first glance. The change on the sea front is remarkable indeed, because of the large slice of reclaimed land that has been added to the originally very narrow strip between the hdlls and the water; and the really great extension of wharfage and shipping facilities makes it seem greater than it is. Behind this, however, the change is rather one of better buildings and more modern looking streets, shops, and stores, than of any extension in actual habitable space. A very few minutes* walking was enough to bring one to the old Terrace, running along the line of the first grade of foot-hills behind which the ground is too broken and steep to afford a footing for more than an adventurous dwelling house or two here and there, perched jauntily on the steep slope with a suggestion that if the time should ever come when the handsome buildings they look down upon succumb to an earthquake shock they are ready to slide down HIT and share gallantly in the disaster. The comparatively level land at the western end, which stretches across towards the ocean beach outside the harbour is really the only natural extension ground for Wellington, and already it has been taken advantage of to a large extent. It is here that the real expansion of the city has taken place, and here it must be that the enlarged capital will for many years to come find its natural scope for business extension. It is conceivable that in course of time the level land at the entrance of the Hutt valley may be made available, but the time is evidently distant, and it will always have the draw-back of constituting rather & second city than an expansion of the original one where business must have its centre. Still, there can be no doubtthaf Wellington under its new aspect is an attractive place. The very fact that the bills hem. in so closely both the harbour and the business parts of the city, forcing the residence sites up the slopes, effectually breaks the monotony of the background, which was in old times the chief defect of the view, and give a very beautiful variety to the scene. As was to have been expected, public buildings now form quite a leading feature in Wellington. Government House, indeed, and even the Parliament Buildings, are not- much changed, except that I the Legislative Council end of the latter is more substantially built than it used ;to be, but departmental buildings have increased and multiplied, and have certainly at the same time grown more imposing in appearance than in the old. days when the big wooden structure, which now looks a little dirty and mean, beside its younger neighbours, had room and to spare for nearly all the Government offices. And as with the building so it is to quite a marked extent with the population- As a commercial city. Wellington is manifestly chiefly a distributing centre—she of course owes this to her cental position, equally accessible from north and. south. Her other aspect is that of a city of officials, and this ia the peculiarity of Wellington, which is, perhaps, the most likely to strike a visitor as constituting a difference between it and any other of the larger cities. There is something in the atmosphere, as soon, as the immediate neighbourhood of the wharves is left behind, which is official, and the impression is heightened by the look of the pedestrians. The serious and almost too earnest appearance of the Dunedin men, and the purposeful and fairly self-satisfied air with which the business men of Christehurch go about their business, gives place in the capital to the superior air of the man who occupies a public position and lives at the public expense. The thing is difficult to describe, but there is something official about every -econd man you mcct — something which seems to speak of the cares of State, not exactly borne by the well-dressed young men who move along wth an easy dignity, perhaps, but things with which they are on terms of easy familiarity. There can be little doubt they add much to the impressive effect of the capital, whether they are equally valuable to the country or not-