NOTES FROM MY RAMBLES

Otago Witness, Issue 1934, 19 March 1891, Page 28

NOTES FROM MY RAMBLES

IN SOUTHLAND AND OTAGO. By Oswald E. Hugo, The Bluff. Catullus has an epigram enumerating various degrees of inconstancy, culminating in the mutability of muliebrity. I have not bad so much experience in the way of testing the latter as the "young gentlemen of Verona." Still, in place thereof I would be inclined to mention the Bluff climate as a symbol of the superlative degree of inconstancy. There in one day we experience all the seasons, and in a week all climates. And as to the wind, it is like the Irishman's description of his toothache — "The pain comes every 10 minutes, and keeps on for a quarter of an hour." But the admixture of different climates must have the same improving effects upon the rase as that of nationalities, to judge by the Bluff natives. Certainly the young people, who comprise the greatest share of the population, are as fine a class of colonials as I have seen. One associates generally a sea port with loose habits and heavy drinking. The little township of the Bluff is the verj opposite of this piciure, the people being good-living and quietly industrious, without allowing such qualities to militate against sociability and fraternal feeling. Railway clerks and telegraphists whom I have met at other places told me that the period when they were stationed at the Bluff was their most pleasant time. At one time there was a large Maori population, of which only a I few survive.. These have, however, a large repository of ancient traditional and historical lore, some of which was narrated to me and noted down ; for I always inquire into the legends'and records of every Maori settlement I visit. The Bluff Maoris have old stories about several expeditions to the mountainous wilderness of the West Coast. On these expeditions they encountered another dark race of men who spoke a different language. About 50 years ago a party of Maoris brought one of these " strange men " back as prisoner to the Bluff, where he lived a couple of years and then died.