IN PRAISE OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12774, 26 January 1905, Page 6

IN PRAISE OF NEW ZEALAND.

American visitor interviewed. ■ : "■ •-»"•/-■-: : ' :■■•■:■ [by telegraph.— CORRESPONDENT.] CllßiSTCiitißCn, Wednesday. Mr. miles J. Glidden, the American round-the-world motorist, arrived in ■ Christchurch, .'yesterday. Asked by a Press reporter whether the scenery of the North Island came up to Iris' expectations he gave an emphatic affirmative. ' ; "You get everything; here in a small space," he replied.- "It is a case of much in little. In 110 country that I have travelled in, and I have been in over 20, have I found so much lino scenery packed into such a small compass. Rotorua is very fine, and compares with our Yellowstone Park. It is very similar to Yellowstone Park. We have geysers there too, but, of course, none like the Waimangu. That, I should sav, beats anything of its kind in the world. As to the roads," he said, "speaking comparatively, about 15 per cent, are good and the rest compared with the good ones aro bad. The roads over the mountains are as well engineered as any over which wo have travelled in Europe. "With a little improvement in the way of protection, 1 mean by erecting walls or fences, but preferably walls, at the dangerous points, there would be no finer track in the world than from Auckland to Wellington. The roads hero are better for motoring than any stretch of American country for the same distance. Howevcu your roads are not like those of England, France, and part of Germany. Those I class as excellent. I think it would do much to popularise touring if the Government would erect bridges over as many streams as possible. It need not cost a great deal," he said. " You would not have to erect costly suspension bridges, just a little wooden "structure capable of carrying one across would miniro,' and would prove a great advantage,*' . - Mr. Glidden was very much impressed with the excellent character of the hotels in New Zealand. "Taking them all through, your hotels are better than any I have stopped in anywhere," he declared. "They are so clean and neat and nice, and the food is very wholesome: at the small hotels in the villages, particularly, everything is so clean arid neat."