AFTER MANY YEARS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXV, Issue 50, 27 February 1904, Page 9 (Supplement)

AFTER MANY YEARS.

Kariuzawa Hotel, Sept. 4. 1903

(By OWEN HALL.) NO. V. There are two classes of harbours, and one might say in a certain sense only two, in any part of the -world —the harbours that have an approach, and 'those that have none. Of the second class there ar-e a good many specimens in Xew Zealand, but of the first there is only one—the harbour of Auckland. There is really no harbour of Port Chalmers, and not very much of Lyttelton, except what has been made by human exertion; but even at Wellington, where nature evidently did intend to make one, .she forgot to make an approach to it. Till a vessel actually finds herself inside Port Nicholson there is hardly a sign that suc-h .a place exists, and us soon as tlie heads have been fairly cleared by an outgoing steamer it looks to the observer as though it had never been. It is here that Auckland has its first great advantage as the natural show place of Xew Zealand. It is impossible to reach Auckland harbour without getting impressed with the sensation that you are approaching something—something, too, that must be worth seeing. From the moment the vessel passes the long point of the Corornandel Peninsula, the impression gains ground, and once inside the encircling neoklace of islands that seem to surround '.he harbour of Waitemata in an endless chain, the feeling is almost irresistible. Like a great ocean avenue the reaches of calm water stretch onward, and one could as little imagine them not leading up to some worthy terminal as one could in the case of the stateliest of avenues on shore. Island after island, the slopes clot Red in forest green, the ridges broken into precipitous peaks and cones that tell plainly the tale of their fier\ r origin, they stretch in a gradually narrowing passage till the harbour itself is reached.

Certainly in its general features Auckland harbour has not changed much, though nearly 20 years had gone by since I had seen it last. Its outlines of shore; its abrupt variations of level land and sudden, unexpected hills rising clothed in vivid green into the sunny morning air; it 3 beautiful alternations of bay and headland —all were as they had been, and all were more distinctively beautiful than anything of the kind 1 had seen in many lands since I had seen it last. And yet there were changes visible, too. The signs of life and settlement had certainly increased. The houses that dotted the shores; the gardens and orchards that had occupied the lands I remembered in grass or in their native ferns; the general appearance of life which had encroached everywhere on comparative solitude spoke of change and progress. And as the steamer passed the heads and approached the city itself the evidences of change were greater still. Unlike any of tne larger New Zealand cities except Christenureh, Auckland has unlimited space for expansion, and, unlike Christchureh, there is absolutely no sameness in any part of its suburban districts. This it owes in part to the harbour .with its bays and headlands, and in part also to its volcanic formation of small abrupt crateral cones, which form, perhaps, its most singularly characteristic feature.

But at last our steamer had slowed as she came abreast of the city itself. and one could form some idea of what time had done for the harbour front and shipping accommodation of Auckland. At the first glance I missed something, and found something it its place both new and strange—it was like the loss of an old friend for the moment—Point Britomart had gene. Where it had jutted out with its barracks and old St. Paul's Church, nothing was left but low land almost at the sea level crowded apparently -with buildings. Somewhow the contrast which had t)een unconsciously in my mind from the time we had entered the harbour between the old capital of Xew Zealand and the new seemed to grow stronger, instead, as I should have expected, weaker, as my eyes dwelt on the wharves that jutted out from the shore. I could see that they had been largely extended since last I had seen them, though not so largely in comparison with what they had been as in the case of Wellington. What the difference was I couldn't have told exactly, but when I came to think of it I concluded that it was the fact that there was less concentrated energy about the business that was going on. The wharves are more extended, and as in the ease of the harbour, the city, and the suburbs, there seems to be far more room for everything than there is in the new capital. The accommodation for shipping is largely extended since I knew the place, and this may be partly the reason why it leaves the impression of less shipping and bustle than Wellington, but there can be no question as to the ample space there is for expansion. Should the part of Auckland be called on to supply the accommodation needed for a. city like Sydney it would manifestly be easily supplied. This may perhaps, be true also of Wellington; the point is hardly worth considering, as it is hardly possible to conceive thai a city of that size could find room where the waters of Port Nicholson hem in the little strip of narrow land between them and the hills'.

As a business street there is no street ' in any New Zealand city I have seen i which, take it for all iii all, will bear ; comparison with Queen street. The ; Christchureh streets are straighter, and . the buildings near the central point of Cathedral Square are, on the whole, per- ; haps as good, but they don't last. Within 1 a few rods the houses dwindle and i grow comparatively poor. The ! principal change made in Queen street j by twenty years of progufss seemed to mc to be that from end to end, until the I sharp rising ground is reached which practically sets a limit to it as a business street altogether, the buildings are J not only substantial, but uniform. ° Only : a very few of the old early-day buildings seem to be left, and their places have beeu taken by others as large and sub stantial as the best that existed twenty years ago. The effect of this, and of the wonaeriully improved roadway, which it would not be easy to put to" shame by comparison with any city in Europe or America, is to make Queen street a handsome, and, from some points of view, almost an imposing thoroughfare. The streets, however, in its immediate neighbourhood have hardly shared in its

I improvement. As a rule those of them that rise on more or less steep grades from the harbour to the higher ground behind look very much as they did qua*-- ! tor of a century ago. Naturally, r. u doubt, the new business of the city whk-i has to do with the outer world has be 1 concentrated near the harbour, where ttia rajhvay and the shipping have their meeting place, and the new population of extended Auckland has found it convenient to do most of its business nearer home.

It is not until the old streets are left behind that one begins to see the re. , . I change that has taken place in Auckland. It is when the higher land has beiu reached, and a glinipie can be had of Newton. Ponsonby, the slopes of Mount Eden, and the wide district between it and Mount Albert and Mount Roskii", that it dawns on the visitor that he is looking at a new city. Twenty years ago it did not exist, except in the" shape of a pretty country district, where houses were dotted here and there among green fields, and the thoroughfares were country roads and pleasant lanes: to-day it is prettier still, but its charm is of a'different kind. The green fields have retired towards the horizon and given place to residence streets and gardens—some of them beautiful, all of them pleasant to look at from the evidences tuey afford of solid and widespread comfort anl well-being. The country roads have become streets, with here and there a litt'e centre of business, where houses drawmore closely together and a few shops have been established to supply the principal needs of the neighbourhood.

It would be superfluous to say that no city in New Zealand has any suburban districts to compare with those of Auckland. Dunedin has a few narrow valleys and steep hillsides on which are perched houses and gardens that are difficult to approach, Christehurch has suburbs that assuredly have nothing to complain of on the score of steepness, but wholly uninteresting, and as a rule without any variety, or the pretence of a picturesque outlook of any kind. Wellington is for the most part very little better than Dunedin, nei inhabitants, if they wish to get out oi the close streets of the narrow city, being compelled to perch on steep hillside* exposed to the kindly but energetic breezes that frequent Cook Straits. X Auckland has a fault at present in her development it seems to lie in the danger of being too widely spread. It is prpLable that no other known city of 70,000 inhabitants covers quite so large an are:i of ground, and is therefore quite so difficult to deal with for sanitary and municipal purposes. Experience has shown elsewhere, however, that the cure for this is automatic, and when Auckland has a hundred and fifty thousand people within its limits it is safe to believe tha*; these limits will not greatly exceed the boundaries of her present suburban districts.

In the meantime she need be in no hurry. To the stranger who had seen the city rise from its modest first beginnings through thirty years of development, only to lose sight of it for nearly twenty more, its progress and improve - ment.seem more than satisfactory. It? growth may not be phenomenal, in thj sense in which the term is used in America, but at least it has been remarkable, and it has the appearance of being entirely healthy, and therefore probab'y permanent. Should it go on as it ha-, been going—and there would seem to be no reason why it should not—rthere can hardly be a doubt that Auckland wiß continue to be, as it certainly is at present, the most attractive, and the mos. apparently prosperous of all the citiea which New Zealand can boasts (The End.)