OUR CHANGING CITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19412, 21 August 1926, Page 4 (Supplement)

OUR CHANGING CITY.

. BY F.LSIE K. MOIITON. T wonder how many of the boys and girls of Auckland are watching the wonderful changes that are taking placo in their city ? Whore there used to bo vacant allotments, covered with tail grass and brambles, great new buildings are pushing upward into tho sky; little oldfashioned houses that wero tho homes of our pioneers half a century ago are being pulled down, new streets are being laid out, and bit by bit our beautiful harbour is being pushed back to mako way for tho new railway lino to Orakei.

ALI this is very wonderful and progressive, and it is well that all children should take an interest in what is going on, so that they may have a clear memory, when they grow up, of what their city was like when they were young. In boyhood and girlhood, we cannot easily grasp" tho idea that everything is bound to change. Wo think that things will always he more or less as we have known them", that the blue waves will still sparkle on the beach when we are grown men and women, that tho flowers will still bloom in the old garden, and tho birds build their nests in the same old trees when spring comes. But as the years go by, and tho city grows and grows, the waterfront strotches out evor farther and farther into tho sea, tho gardens and the trees disappear, and soon there are houses and streets and trams where once there were only green fields and open spaces. A Maori Gathering. Where all the protty bungalow homes of Mount St. John now stand, a great Maori gathering took placo over eighty years ago. Nearly 4000 natives came to Auckland to take part in it, and there was a lino of Maori huts that extended for almost a mile. Ono of tho great features of tWs gathering was a wardance, after which all joined in a feast, in good old Maori style. Tne potatoes alone formed a wall of_ baskets several feet in width, six feet high, and extending a distance of over a thousand feet Just think of all tho busy hands that must have taken part in tho digging ot such a mountain of potatoes. On op of the potato-baskets was a lino of dried shark, one of tho real delicacies of a Maori feast. Looking round all the comfortable homes and pretty gardens of that same district to-day, it is. very haid to imagine that, such a gathering could once have taken place there,, but it is only ono of tho many amazing changes that liave taken place in Auckland within . memory of living men. The old people love to tak of the days when Auckland City was just' a httl ® collection of tents and nuts, . . Ligar Canal ran down the middle of Queen Street, and Symonds Street and Karangahape Road were muddy traces winding along the top ot a ban en, teatree covered ridge. The Old Timber Mill. My memory does not go buck so far 151 that, but I can remember many .things that the. children of tho present day have never seen. For instance, .here was a timber mill down in Mechanics Bay, beyond tho Parnell railway bridge, where we usod to have a wonderful time on Saturday afternoons when all tho man had gone home. There were no boatsheds, no big buildings in Mechanics Bay when we used to play there, just the mill, and hundreds of logs floating about in the water, ready for the keen and hungry saws that would presently bite their way through the hearts of the fores giants, turning them into timber for t. building of new homes. Rare fun wo had, jumping from log to log, we were castaways, that we were adrift on a raft, that we were pirates bold.. - . . All kinds of games wa played m tnose days when there wore no picture shows nor motor-rides, nor any of tho view pleasures that you all take for granted nowadays A little way past the mill was a dark tunnel, bored right under the clift. and it opened out into St. Georges Bay, another of our pretty harbour bays that have now vanished completely. Very tightly we held one another s hands when we ventured through that tunnel, for it was 'black as pitch when you came to the middle, and there were dark holes and corners where it soemed possible that any moment ono might come face to face with a dragon. Out from the opposite point of St. George's Bay stretched a long reef, whore the falling tide left little warm pools grown with sea-weed, and inhabited by pink crabs, shrimps, tiny green anemones and blackbacked winkles. Rare fun it was, catching the shrimps with a handkerchief tied to a walking-stick, and many a time we overbalanced in the excitement of landing a crab, and foil with a splash into the pool! Up above, on the green slopos of Campbell's Point, was Kilbryde, the old home oi: Sir John Logan Campbell, which seemed to us like a palace, so stately and beimtiful it looked with its white tower shining up thero above the tops of the tall trees. Kilbryde has vanished for ever, Campboll's Point has been cut away completely to make room for the new railway, and never again will little children play on harbour shores tljut were once M<!chanio3' and St. George's Bays. Fishing in the Domain.

Another favourite haunt of ours was a tiny stream that came s:nging down the Domain Hill into the woodland at the foot of Stanlev Street. A very trim and orderly place it is now, with a rustic bridge and a smooth motor road where cars flash up and down all the day long, but I remember the long, fern-shaded pool in that little stream, the _ brown trout that could be caught on a bent pin, and the tiny minnows that flashed like silver in the sunshi'DO. All are gone now, but their memory remains. Do any of you know and love places by the seashore and forest ? Have you found any paths where pixies peer from behind the ferns and elves build tiny houses in the tree-trunks? If you know anv suoh places, make the roost of them, make tha most of all your play-days, for soon will come changes, and all yoiir childhood haunts will become but happy memories of days that will never return.