Pahia

Southland Times, Issue 13789, 25 June 1897, Page 3

Pahia

(from our own correspondent). In introducing a friend into a company where he is a stranger we usually try to say a few words which may tend to awaken interest in the minds of those to whom we introduce him; Puhia is not very widely known so I think it may nob be’amiss if I treat the district as a stranger to your readers and give some slight outline of it. Well then, Puhia is low-lying, seagirt on the western side, and everywhere else, save where man has made an opening, by bush. Though perhaps rather more swampy than we would have had it, hud we been consulted in the forming of the district, and even boasting or at least possessing one or two peat-bogs; it is, on the whole, very good pasture land, undoubtedly well adapted for cattle, but as regards sheep opinions differ, some deeming it quite uusuited to them, others thinking that it only requires the carrying out of a certain method to do well with them. Fishing is carried on to some extent, when the weather proves propitious. At such times the district, and also Orepuki, are well supplied with fish. 'As yet there is no church, but divine service is held every alternate Sabbath in the schoolhouse. Mr Hain has been oiir pastor for the last nine years, and has earned the love oni esteem of many of his people. We have jusb gone through the seasonable round of harvesting and threshing, and are now settling down to the winter’s quiet. Ploughing is pretty well through also; though low-lying, as I said beffire, we are exempt from floods—damaging floods, I mean—and are in the enjoyment ot a railway running through the centre of the district and terminating two or three miles further on ab the Orepuki station. Fair roads intersect the district, and the Orepuki Dairy Factory is within reasonable distance of most of us, but not many of the settlers availed themselves of it during the past summer. ’