A VISIT TO SOUTH CANTERBURY AFTER TWENTY YEARS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 3438, 5 October 1885, Page 3

A VISIT TO SOUTH CANTERBURY AFTER TWENTY YEARS.

" Maori" contributes the following interesting article to the Sydney Evening News : — On a bitterly cold morning, and under a dense heavy pall of leaden cloud, we start on ouv journey across the great Canterbury Plains towards Timaru and Dunedin. The plains are composed chiefly of shingle, with a scant herbage of tussock grass. Here and there, alongside the line, are young plantations of English oak and Australian blue gum. Stubble fields, hedged m by long rows of gorae, stretch away on either hand for miles. Already (May) the winter ploughing has begun m places. Tho majestic range of the snowy Alps bounds t]\". great plain to the, right. What a burnished splendour ! what a dazzling glury ! as the sun bursts through tho pall of cloud ! Could anything be more beautiful than theae eternal solitudea of snow ? The absolute purity— peace — rest. What an emblem of the soul's repo3a after purification from life's mire and unrest. The rattle of the train hurts and jars. It is so incongruous with that pure holy majesty of the pinnacled snow. Little wonder that mountaineers are generally reverent and religious. Now we cross the rapid Rnkaia over a very long wooden bridge. At every country town m tho Suuth Island among the most prominent features are the great granaries and stores of the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company. They Beera to bo übiquitous. The Company provide weighbridges and platforms for their customers at all the large Btationa free of charge. The neat churches, too, are a constant feature. 3ero is a malthouso ; there a flour or saw-mill. Here again a granary ; there a woolshed. Seed-cleaning machinery is of frequent occurrence ; so too are steam ploughs, traction engines, reaping machines. Indeed, all the moat modern forms of agricultural labor-saving appliances are common sights. The faces we see are ruddy and fresh and brimful of intelligence. Corn ricks and farmhouses stud the plains. Through the Kakaia Gorge we get a peep beyond the snowy barrier into the inner mountainous country. The Gorge discloses ever a grander succession of snowy peaks and glistening glaciers. A region untrodden by human foot, and sacred to the sway of nature's mightiest activities. It is a sealed workshop where Titanic forceß are ceaselessly at play. Now, far ahead, the white buildings of Aahburton gleam m the sun. It is verily a City of the Plains. We find it a busy, thriving centre of a populous farming district. There are numerous plantations of bhio gum, and the town itself is very scattered and rural-looking. Poplars are prominent ; and, indeed, this regard to tree adornment is a very pleasing feature (if all New Zealand towns. Would it were ao m New South Wales. Twenty years ago I rode through Ashburton. It was then a bullock teamster's camp. There was a "bush pub." and a blacksmith's shop, and a police hut. Theao constituted the township then. Now, look arcrand ! See the tall brick chimneyß, the gas works, the wide Btreets well lined with spacious shops, and public buildings, hotels, churches, institutes, and even a theatre. Handsomely laid out reserves and well wooded parks, enormous wool and grain stores, coach factories, wool factories, butter and cheese factories ; public library. I may well rub my eyes ! It seems all a dream to me, that memory of the lumbering bullock team, ploughing its weary way over ahifting shingle and through boggy hollowß. Across the sprawling river, where many a footsore bullock has been swept down to sea m the gone-by times ; and many a swagaman has found a watery grave ; we now spin gaily along over another very long wooden bridge — past gardens, nur erie«, farms, plantations, hay ricks, and threshing mills, we dash. Mile after milo is left behind, till at Ealing, some 70 miles from Ohristchurch, we dip towards the bod of the fierce Rangitata, which wo cross by another of the characteristic timber viaducts. The milky water, treacherous and swift, comes dashing down from its snowy source amid the glaciers, carrying its rolling burden of ahinglo with it. The bridge is protected by flanking buttresses running up stream. These are simply wooden coffer dams filled with shingle and boulders. What a wild waste of shingle bars and drifted wrack fills the valley ! The Btream runs now m myriads of silvery threads ; but m flood-lime what a mad surging rush of foaming water is here ! It is then fully two miles across and resistless m its might. The snowy peaks are now Bhrouding themselves m misty mantles, as if to protect their hoarded crystals from the Sun-god's seductive touch. Tho plains below are bathed m sunahHne, but far out to seaward, Heaven's murky battalions are gathering, and the air is hushed and still, as if presaging an impending storm. At Orari, with its Bnug farms, and belts of plantations, the train disgorges a vulture like crowd of betting men. A little ramshackle erection, which local pride hna dignified with the title of grand stand, decorated with bits of bunting, sufficiently discloses the attraction which has br night the JHckalla hither. Betting and gambling blights the kingly aport here, as it does so much all over tho colonies. Thodegrading influence of the betting ring lowers tho moral tone of tho country, and vast sums are withdrawn from legitimate uses to keep m luxury a set of unscrupulous parasites who batton on induatry and clog the wheela of healthy progress. On wo hurry through a splendid farming district. Paat Winchester, with its neat villas and trim gardens ; past Temuku, with its handsome white-spired church and Gothio schools, its wollstooked furmes and plethoric comyarda ; past Arowhenua, with its Maori village, and another mountain stream brawling over its lied of ahingle. On with accelerated Bpo. d, through magnificently cultivated farm*, rich swaths of stublilu, and ample evidences on every hand of rural wealth nnd thriving settlement. I have rounded sheep over every mile of thit

country m the olden time, when there was little else but flax,raupo, tussock, wild pig, and unbroken ground. Verily the times have changed — and happily. Men are better than wild pig, and smiling farms than lonely shepherds' huts. I am fairly lost m delighted wonder, and we are glad when the train rolls into Timaru, and we get housed m the comcomfortable Grosvenor Hotel, and find time to draw breath, and try to realise the infinite alterations which have taken place m twenty years of busy colonial life. * # # # Time has indeed made many changes here. When I last visited Timaru, I sailed up from Lyttolton, m a small rolling coasting tub of a steamer. There was a terrific ground swell off the open beach of shingle, and the breakers rolled m their curling crests with a roar and crash like thunder. All landing, both cargo and passengers, was done m huge unwieldy surf-boats. And it was a rare experience, indeed, to get ashore with a dry skin. The boats — big and heavy aB they were — were not unfrequently tossed aloft like chips, and sent rolling up on the shingle bottom upward like so much driftwood. Lives were not unfrequently lost and goods often sacrificed. The village boasted then of only a few shops, one or two warehouses along tbe beach, and less than half a dozen inferior hotels. The Timaru Herald of that date was published m a very Bmall weatherboard hut, quite detached, and perched on a waste hillock overlooking the ocean. The very hill itself has now disappeared to make room for the railway, and the Herald is much more suitably housed. At that time the streets were fearfully and wonderfully made. Bullock teams might be stuck up m tbe main street until the townspeople came to the assistance of the teamster to dig them out. All the houses were of wood, and were set down very much at random. When the annual races were held, the young bloods and station hands " from all the region round about.," "The boys" from the Mackenzie country, the sawyers from the Waimate, the half breeds and "cockatoes" from Temuka and the Arowhenua Bush, and all the "flotsam and jetßam" from evory accommodation houße within a radius of fifty miles, used to come into town, and for a lively week or two high saturnalia used to be held. At that time Timaru had the reputation of being the fastest, most racketty, riotouß township m the South Island. Verily, I could a tale diseloso of some of the mad, harebrain escapades of "the boys " that would scarcely be believed m theae more prosaic steady paced, and orderly latter days. It certainly was a rough time, and a rough place then. But now, how changed. Timaru has grown into a city. Solid blockß of stately shops, warehouses, and offices now line the principal streets. The hotels are quite up to metropolitan form. The very hills, as I have said, have been levelled, and stately churches, a theatre, convent, schools, banks, mills, a massive post and telegraph office, and countless cosy homes and handsome villas now stud the slopeß where I have erstwhile seen the peaceful sheep quietly browsing among the tussocks. When I first recollect the place, the postmistress has been heard to say to the young telegraph clerk : "I hear you had telegram through this afternoon ; why didn't you tell me V Yes, m the primitive time the advent of a telegram was quite an incident. Now m the palatial post- office the service is conducted by an army of clerks and messengers. The hospital is really a magnificent stone building, and second to none I have yet seen m the colony. A great part of the bleak hill, on which stood the Royal Hotel, has been cut away to form the railway station and shunting yards, and quite a large area has been reclaimed from the relentless Burf. Now, had any one twenty years ago told me that those shifting massea of shingle, those travelling acres of rattling roaring boulders could be arrested, and that the fury of those terrific surges and angry waves could be tamed, I would have laughed the idea to scorn as the vain imagining of a foolish visionary. And yet the seemingly impossible has been accomplished. Timaru, owing to che genius and skill of Mr Goodall, her harbor engineer, can now lay claim to being a safe port, and big steamerß and stately ships can lay close alongside her wharves and discharge their passengers and cargo m ease and safety. How has this been accomplished ? If we saunter down to the beach and look around at the massive blocks of concrete, we will see how the fury of the angry surf has been defied, and how man's genius and perseverance has completely conquered some of the mightiest forces m nature. The long-reaching pier, or breakwater, is indeed a triumph of constructive skill. The problem of forming a secure harbor on the face of an open coaat, is difficult m any case ; but when to the usual difficulties have to be added " The long wash of Australasian seas," as tho billows of the Pacific come thundering m on the strand of shifting shingle which makes the Now Zealand coast one of tho most baffling and unpromising sites m the world for engineering operations, the immense arduousness of the task which Mr Goodall had before him, will be recognised at a glance. Does it not say much for the energy and pluck and public spirit of the commnnity which had set its heart on having a secure harbor, m defiance of Bhingly drift and roaring surf, and all the antagonism of wind and wave and treacherous coaßt combined 1 Verily, tho lesson of such courage, and resolution, and inventive resource might well be applied by more highly favored communities nearer home. Fortunately, material for tho manufacture of concrete blocks was plentiful and handy. The shingle was forced to become the creature of its own subjection. Vast wooden tankß were formed along the beach, and cement and shingle were shovelled into these, and m time the embracing wood was knocked asunder and giant blocks of concrete stood revealed. Some of these weighed upwardß of 30 tons. An enormous travelling crane was then moved up, and the block waa gripped m its Titanic clutch, and slowly carried outwards and dropped into its assigned position. The whole waa then cemented together by more concrete. In vain might the angry surges dash againßt that callous mass. la vain might the shifting shingle with a snaky hiss, seetho and toss around theunyielding block. Bit by bit tho solid rampart grow, Bide by side tho mighty blocks showed a firm immovable front to the baffled waves. It boots not to toll of the numberless contrivances brought to bear on tho task by the cunning skill of the engineer. Amid interruptions and partial breaks and n ceaseless war with the forces of nature, that properly viewed completely eclipses the fabled battles of classic mythology, the good work went steadily on ; and now, after the lapße of bo many years, as I stood on the broad massive immovable rampart, listening to the hungry Biirge ns it rushed impotontly againßt the majostio butteress of the protecting pier — aB I saw the sheltered ships idly rocking m calm security, and remembered tho surf boats and tossing cockleshell of a steamer of the former times — I felt indeed that here wns a triumph worthy of 1 tho ntfe — a prodigy of bonefloent achievement that shods a lustre on the name of humanity. • » it • * (To b» continued.)