SOME FLYING GLIMPSES.'

Otago Witness, Issue 2320, 18 August 1898, Page 53

SOME FLYING GLIMPSES.'

By E. S. G.

I.— THE BLUFF AND INVERCARGILL.

My first views of Now Zealand remain in my mind like the impressions (to paraphrase Dante) left by a dream whose substance is lost. Often now, after 22 years, some scene brings vividly befoie me the steep, rugged mountains I first saw, so different in form from the low bush-clad ranges of Axistralia, forming continuous chains. I can sec again the island peaks and bluffs dense with bush, the sea breaking on some sandy strip of coast or lapping the feet of the hills, and I can feel again the first thrill of strangeness and romance in their aspect under the dark autumn sky. The wild Bluff had a suggestion of those wonderful tropical forests which seemed to my childhood a near approach to paradise. It was at that time a wooded hill, sheltering tho ships and steameis whose masts and funnels were clustered round the little wharh On the beach was the battered hulk of the brig Carl, marked by the shot of the mutineers. Its story was one of the romances of the South Seas. It had sailed from Melbourne on a piratical voyage, its object unknown to many on board. The crew kidnapped a number of natives, but on the return voyage, in a moment of panic, shut them down in the hold and shot them, threatening with the same fate all on board who remonstrated— a quite Stevensonian episode. The secret was discovered, the crew tried, and found guilty, but what became of them has entirely escaped my memory. The other incidents I have cause to remember.

Beside the wharf at the Bluff there was only one hotel, a store, and a few houses, all of painted wood, looking like a toy township at the foot of a great mountain. The tiny houses and railway station, the small vessels and wharf, were a delightfully amusing contrast to the wild sea of Foveaux Straits, the great hill with its palm ferns and tropical vegetation, the long stretch of lagoon, and tho forest through which we passed on our way up to the town. Invercargill has grown since I first saw ifc. There were then two tracts of beautiful forest within one or two miles of the town— the Waihopai Bush and the Seaward Bush— one with a picturesque wooden tram line through it. The Waihopai Bush was '■especially rich in feins, and we often came upon spots like fairyland, with green foliage overhead, giving only peeps of blue sky beyond, trunks and branches adorned fantastically with grass tufts and moss, knotted together by rope-like parasites. Near our feet were rain pools, almost hidden by the delicate fronds of various ferns. The town was built entirely of wood. The extraordinary width of its streets still further 'dwarfed the size of the buildings. The main street resembled a large river with very low banks. On revisiting it I found many fine buildings had gone up, especially those in " the Orescent." The wide streets were being adorned by trees planted down the centre. The gardens I remember when their firs and pmes were a little larger than cabbages or beans. Close to the town is the estuary of the Waihopai— at high tide a wide expanse of water, but at low tide a rather dreary stream between mud flats. Along the East road, was a tract of rising ground, fresh and breezy, covered by tussocks, under whose shelter the little harebell and wild violet bloomed. On the other side of the road were glades and copses of bush still left standing among halfcleared land, where dead trunks and a few brambles marked the ruins of an earlier forest. The town and all the country round are swept by strong blasts from the straits, and are only a trifle less windy than Wellington. 1 have visited Invercargill again, but like best to recall ifc as I saw it with the eyes of a child looking for the first time on a strange country.

H.— SOME OF THE SOUNDS.

It was indeed a flying glimpse I had of the Sounds. Milford Sound I saw in a veil of grey mist, the winding coast visible, its slopes wooded clown to tho water's edge, moss md tree fern trunk and foliage looking u'-jv enough to touch with one's hand. Al> u-o the mists the higher summits rose in -l^nf. the fog cloud below making them appc l- o r gigantic height. The water was cue motionless level, a mirror unbroken by any i-'pjJc. The grey mist, the grey mountains, the dim sea left a strange impression of the i k-iu-nity and Bilence of a temple. Bucrnrnii"-! lines on the Coruisken Loch came ini.u i: y mind :

" I think this is the very stillest place

On all God's earth."

When we entered George Sound the mists had lifted, and in the silvery gloom of that still atmosphere we saw the wooded mountain with the water winding into its innermost folds and recesses, the narrow strip of sand just edged with white foam. No word« can. express the luxuriance of that forest vegotation covering the steep sides of the fiord with infinite varieties of leaf and mots and forn as the nathe moss clothes some trunk or stone.

It was under a different aspect that I saw Queen Charlotte's Sound in tho north — the sunset of a warm spring day. A rim of rose colour just touched the mountains, and after the sun had vanished from all that was visible of the sky there were soft glows of sunlight mingling with the evening shadows. The 'water was like crystal, with gleams of tofe. Just about sunset a pictuie.-=que fi&hmg yacht laden with oysters came to our vessel's side, and we watched it until its brown sail disappeared in the dusk. After the sun had set I stayed on deck, though the air was keen and cold. A breeze came up, and just ruffled the surface of the water ; a brilliant star hung over tho dark outline of the hill, leaving a streak of broken light on the wavelets. Later on, fust before we reached Picton, the moon rose, the mass of the mountains became darkei, the water bright as bilvcv.