Chapter I.

Otago Witness, Issue 2130, 20 December 1894, Page 8

Chapter I.

Lake Wakatipu. Jove ! Forsytb, this is glorious I It is worth coming all the way to the antipodes to see I " "Yes, I think it licks the Bay of Naples and Sydney faarbonr into fits, both of which we have seen by moonlight." The speakers were a couple of globe-trotting touristß who, having " done " India, Java, and the Australian colonies, had come to New Zealand. After a week ac Danedln they had started that morning by the expreßß for Queenstown and the Lakes. Tired and hungry after a long day in the train, they had been only too glad to dive into the tiny saloon of the email steamer Ben Lomond ; and now having fortified the inner man with a good substantial tea, at which the beautiful Lake trout, totaled with egg and breadcrnmb, had proved the principal attraction, at peace with themselves and all the world, they had sauntered on deck cigar in band, and struck with the charm of the scene bad given voice to their feelings as above. The season was midsummer, the week after Christmas Day, the hour nearly 10 p.m. The full moon had just risen clear of the topmost peak of the Remarkables, and the calm waters of Lake Wakatipu, smooth as glass, were glittering as a mirror in the brilliant moonlight. On the left bank of the lake, which appeared but a stone's throw from the steamer, formed by lofty mountains wooded to the water's edge, every leaf appeared clearly defined in the bright moonlight, thrown into sharp relief by the shadows of gnllies, holes, and tree stems as black as ink. On the right bank stood the Remarkables, each rugged peak and jagged, serrated point standing out sharply against the clear summer sky, splashed here and there with silver where they caught the moonbeams. The reßt of the bleak, inhospitable mountains were loßt in thick blackness, which extended half acroßS the lake until broken by .the reflection of the hilltops in the water almost close at the steamer's side.

Before them lay a broad silver streak pointing the way to Queerstown, whilst behind the calmness of the waters was broken into thousands of tiny waves churned up by the screw, twinkling, glinting, and sparkling as the moonbeams caught them, and dying out in the distance. It was a calm, beautiful 6ight, to be enjoyed in silence accompanied only with a little good tobacco. And fco oui tourists thought, for they eat quietly side by side without speaking until at length the steamer drew up at the jetty at Queenstown, and Eichardt's hospitable hostess welcomed them to the Lake district.