IMPRESSIONS' OF AUCKLAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18141, 12 January 1921, Page 2

IMPRESSIONS' OF AUCKLAND

CHARACTERISTICS OP THE PEOPLE. PRIDE IN THEIR CITY. (By A, Davis Cup Visitoe.) Pride in one’s home town is a perfectly natural and praiseworthy sentiment until it grows sentimental. Within the limits of a decent restraint it is a highly commendable quality, and may be regardied as a manifestation in a minor key of that love of home which plays so valuable a part in the keeping together and sustaining of the whole <5 our social fabric. But when it degenerates into rabid and vainglorious boasting, odious comparisons, and a continual panegyric of praise it becomes an offence and an infraction of the eternal fitness of things. Your slightly phlegmatic but none .the less shrewd resident of the south, if'asked what he thinks of Dunedin, will answer guardedly, and even cautiously, that “Dunedin is a fine city, with a good bracing climate,’’ and as likely as not he will add, “And it’s a fine business town.” But in the eyes of the average Aucklander the Queen City of Hie North is the greatest place on earth. The world has never seen, and never will see, another Auckland. It stands magnificent and alone on a majestic pinnacle of excellence raising it for above its. leas favoured sisters of Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. Every one of its citizens takes a personal pride in Auckland’s greatness. For is he not part and parcel of it f He labours under a terrible conviction of its supremacy. It is an obsession with him—and an obsession from which the quality of imagination is entirely lacking. There is something almost ferocious about the way in which he burls its praises at your head and overwhelms you with a description of its immortal glomes, until, your brain reeling and your senses stunned, you see Auckland as through a glass darkly (not a glass of Auckland ale), and your first impressions ore apt to be distorted by a not unnatural revolt against all this fiery eloquence. Auckland Harbour, yon are told, is the finest in the Southern Hemisphere. Many Aucklanders, in fact, have an incurable' belief that it is superior in every respect to Sydney and Rio. Its wharves are all of concrete, and with the hyperbole of which he is complete master, the Aucklander glibly informs you that they must have cost millions. There is a depth of water capable of accommodating the largest traders, and, if need be, the Grand Fleet could be stowed away so lis entirely to escape notice. Everywhere you go ytjju will find charming little bays and beaches, where the sea, calm as a millpond, is bluer than anywhere else, and where the water is so warm that you can remain in it all day, and night, too, if you so desire. But here let me interpolate for' the ootnfort of other peaces which have beaches, that, go where you will in Auckland, you cannot find the long stretches of clean white sand to be found at St. Clair, Caroline Bay, and Lyall Bay, nor the great rolling breakers that impart such splendid exhilaration to the sport of surfing. Moreover, in the southern town# there is still to be found a greater degree of homelife than appears to obtain in Auckland, with its sunny climate, its multifarious outdoor attractions, and its pleasure-loving, expensively-dressed people.

Some, little distance down the Auckland Harbour is an island called Bangitoto. To the native Auokalnder it is the most wonderful island in the world. Standing on the deck of the ferry boat, he proudly points it out to the visitor, and exclaims : “That is Rangitotb. It •is the .same shape from' wherever you look at it It is of volcanic origin, and appeared during the same night that a depression caused the appearance of Lake Takapuna. On the top there is a crater, and one day Auckland may be blown up.” Everyone in Auckland knows this story, and everyone tells it to you. You may be.told it a hundred times a day. I heard it so often, and always in the same' form, that as soon as anyone began: “That is Bangitoto,” I immediatelv put my fingers in my ears and shouted bade: “Oh, yes, I, know all about Bangitoto. It looks the same from every angle, and it is of volcanic origin,” etc. That is the only way to escape the nerve-wracking and soul-devastat-ing repetition of the famous legend of Rangitoto. Another of the lions of Auckland is a very old windmill perched on an eminence overlooking the Grafton bridge. A thousand times and more the unwary tourist will be solemnly informed that it is the oldest landmark in the city. Then your informant adds vaguely that recently “they” tried to secure its removal, but nothing came of it. This windmill revolves sometimes, but very seldom ; probably it is too old. Its symbolism lies in the fact that just as its huge dependent arms rotate around, the tower,, so, in the mind of the Aucklander, do the other cities of New Zealand revolve around Auckland. . No one ever escapes from. Auckland without being asked whether he has seen the EUerslie: Racecourse, . “the most beautiful racecourse in the dominion.” The New Zealand Insurance Company’s building in Queen •street, with its 79Q or 970 separate rooms, is incidentally "brought under notice. Pointed* attention is drawn to "our fine car service, and especially the speed of the cars down Upper Queen street,* but nothing is said about ths way the men scramble into the trams before the women and then expectorate upon the floor. That —if you are a woman —is one of the lessons of bitter 1 experience. If you are a man, and in your ignorance of thq ethics of tram travelling in Auckland you give a lady your seat, you are glared at savagely as the author of a preposterous precedent. Women are resented on the Auckland tramcars. They are suffered as a necessary evil, but the unforgivable sin is to show them any courtesy or consideration. Other things about which the Aucklander does not say very mad are his theatres and his railway station. There is no scope her© for his eloquence as a descriptive orator or a Cook’s guide. But despite these trifling disabilities, over which I have skimmed without thought of imho©, Auckland is a place in which the joys of holiday-making may be experienced to the full. The insistency of the Aucklander upon the superlativeness of. everything in his city merely arises from a.too ardent admiration of its undoubted beauties, and after a time one learns to suffer him gladly, if only for his boundless enthusiasm and his amusing assumption of superiority. He is an unconscious humorist whom it is easy to forgive unless his continued paeans of praise interfere with your own contemplation of the intrinsic beauties of his town.