Our Xmas Number

Southern Cross, Volume 5, Issue 38, 25 December 1897, Page 9

Our Xmas Number

With this issue we have pleasure in presenting our readers with a pictorial supplement devoted to scenes in the famous Lake Wakatipu district, and including a capital view of Queenstown. In the body of the paper will be found an exceedingly interesting article on the ‘ Old Days at the Lakes ’ from the pen of a gentleman who mingled in the stirring life of the time. His contribution deals with the past, the pictures with the present, and with the two readers will be able to form a good idea of the difference between the old order of things and the new. Any reference to the Lakes would be incomplete that failed to mention the admirable service maintained by the Wakatipu Steam Shipping Co., whose enterprise has had not a little to do with the development of the tourist traffic that has of late years assumed such large dimensions. Their steamers during the summer months run cheap excursion trips to the most noted and favourite spots on the shores of the Lake, especially Elfin Bay, where lovers of nature may enjoy a delightful hour’s stroll in a lovely valley through a magnificent and picturesque bush to the romantic shores of Here l ake, where a scene of surprising beauty bursts on the view —a, beautiful sheet of water nestling among the mountains, which are thickly clothed with forest to the water’s edge, the snow-capped peaks of the Humboldt Range in the distance enhancing the loveliness of the scene. In addition to the features already mentioned, this issue of the Southern Cross contains the opening instalments of a new story by Miss Adeline Sergeant and ‘ A. Maoriland Romance ’by a Hew Zealand writer. Ho advance is made in the usual price—a penny will purchase what is without doubt is the cheapest Xmas Humber issued in the colony, or for the matter of that, anywhere else.