FROM WEST TO EAST.

West Coast Times, Issue 342, 27 October 1866, Page 2

FROM WEST TO EAST .

(j?UOM OLlt OWN OOTtKKsPONDENT.)

CIIRISTCHURCH.

Monday, Oct. 22, 1860

Sir, — I keep my promise of writing to you by the first opportunity after my arrival in the City of the Plains, although t might have Well ehoilgh satisfied my conscience if I had failed to keep faith, and claimed sick leave until I had recovered from what is certainly a most fatiguing journoy to one not accustomed to the particular ft ats of travelling that have to be achieved in crossing the celebrated Dividing Range. I ' am not going to give you a particular account of my journey ; but will content myself with a notice merely of its main incidents, and tile most marked features of the way. Kor those who have travelled the road an enumeration of all the rivers, creeled, and rivulets that have to be crossed, would be the repetition of an old tale, and to those to whom the whole road is unfamiliar the catalogue would be infinitely uninteresting. To tell you the simple truth, moreover, the task would be to me an impracticable one. I did not travel with note-book in hand, nor, after the first few miles did I care to ask of my fellow travellers {most of whom I believe were equally ignorant with myself) what was the. name of this stream and what of that mountain. I had not undertaken the task of furnishing a topographical guide ; and if I had, I much fear me I should have been a sad defaulter. What could be more intolerable to any man possessing even the atomy of a soul for the picturesque, and any power whatever of appreciating the sensational, - than to have to make a catalogue resume of the names given by man to every spot of beauty, of grandeur, and ' of peril, in the long course of a journey of a hundred and fifty miles? Whenever I could enjoy the loveliness of the landscape, it was my on'iy care to enjoy ; when the majestic grandeur of the Alpine scenery awoke a feeling higher than enjoyment, I yielded unresistingly to the spell, and I need not add that the sense of dread — almost of terror — at times overmastered all others. I am making a confession, perht.ps, that many would regard as humiliating. But I do not conceal the fact that I have had quite enough of Alpine travelling — of winding along narrow ledges cut in the sides of precipitous mountains, aud overhanging! depths that made me, for one, shudder to glance at, and grasp the coach with a nervous hand, as if there were any safety in that. Certainly the road through the great mountain range bisecting the province is one of the greatest engineering achievements in the colonies. I can conceive-no more difficult country in the world through which to have carried a road passable with even ordinary condition of safety to full sized and heavily freighted vehicles. That this road is practically safe, provided the horses employed are properly trained, and well kept in hand by drivers of steady nerve, pluck, and skill, is proved by the fact, that no ue'eident has yet occurred on any of the elevated and abruptly winding terraces along which so considerable a portion of the journey has to be made. When I passed along these, much damage had been done at various spots from portions of the outer, side having given way, owing to the late heavy rains. We got over all, however, in capital style, and I, am bound to add, that those of the passengers who were used to the journey — and some of these had joined us during its more perilous stages — manifested throughout, a nonchalance that ought to nave been more reassuring than it appeared to be to the other class, who were novices. It maj convey some idea of the engineering difficulties that had to be encountered in the comp]etion or this work if I mention that in one part where the road attempts- to escape from the mountains, and make its way clown in to the plains on this side, a circuit of upwards of thirty miles has to be followed to effect less than> seven miles of practical distance. It reminds one of the old' nursery ditty,

Now we go up, and now we go clown, And now we travel all round and round

I have said enough of these creeping tracks around the mountain sides. The " ups and downs" are' equally notable. Fancy attaining an elevation of three two hundred feet above the level of' the sea, and then makinii a sudden descent in the course of a mile and a quarter* of nearly two thousand feet — a gradient, I was told, of about one in seven, in a narrow road, hanging like a shelf on a precipitous mountain s : de ! Here, of course, the double drag was put on, and the descent effected in a slow and sober style. The male passengers got out and walked after the coach — the walk being something midway between a quick trot and a slow run, one or two courageously keeping" on the edge of the precipice, beside the. coach, to make believe that they thought there was •• nothing in it," for the comfort of the onls lady passenger, who was reluctantly compelled to keep to the vehicle. I could almost have been savage with Jehu when we got to, the bottom, hot and breathless, and he, who had been coolly smoking his pipe all the time as he held his team iv hand, asked' us with a roguish twinkle in his eye, how we liked it ? "

About the incidents of the journey I will only say a few words more. When we reached the Half-way House, where the late accident to the coach took place, we found a party" at work cutting a track through the bush in order to enable the passengers to avoid the crossing place, which had proved so dangerous in a flooded stato of the river. The track I should estimate at about three miles iv length, and there had not been time to complete the clearing it, so that towards the latter part we had to force our way through scrub, and sink into the marshy ground, coming out with sundry scratches and ' no small amount of mud. However, all were in good humor when the coach was regained. We encountered no more difficulties from rivers, for although \ve parsed them and their eccentric branches and feeders to the i.umber, I should think, of a ,hundred or more, we found them all easily fordable — though their rocky beds <>aye us all a terrible jolting, which, I fancy, none of us are likely to fcrget for the next day or two. I noticed in various places the tilegraph wire down, • although it so happened that no very serious damage had been done to the line. It was sufficiently manifest, however, that the present line can never be depended upon to work continuously. There must of necessity be frequent interruptions, and as these are liable to occur at numerous points simultaneously, the suspension of communication is likely to be not only frequent, but often of long 'Qoptiuufwee, The accident!

to which the wire is liable are of \ jrt us kinds. There is the danger of 'it-. 1 - iiid branches of trees falling upoi it mi I noticed that in many places it ■"• Miute amongst the trees, just clearing liiun from point to point, and nothing more than that. There is the further danger — and this appears to me to be the most imminent— of the blender arid ill-secured poat9 being carried away by the frequent floods. Thid was mainly the cause of the late interruption, and it is certainly surprising that the suspension of communication has not been of more constant occurrence, looking at the nature of the country, and the long stretches of low land always subject to floods — that mean torrent* — across which the posts are fixed. There is another danger to which the line is exposed. It is the practice to set fire to the grass at certain seasons in order to render the land more available for rjaaturago. Many fires were seen by us on Saturday creeping along the ground, and actually in some instances surrounding the telegraph posts. I Inless a telegraph line, which was too cheap in the beginning, is to become far too costly in the-long run, I am afraid it wil' be necessary for the Government to render the works in some parts of a much more ''substantial character. This remark only applies to exceptional portions of the line,. In others the present light wires and, posts are sufficient for all purposes.

I will close here with mentioning that I took with me from. Hokitika on Friday morning a copy of the •' Home News'' brought by the Taranaki to your port. The news being so many days old as it appeared in the West Coast Timks, I had no thought that I was carrying what might prove a treasure on my way if I pr> perly shephen.ed it. I carelessly lost it in quitting one coach to join the other, after walking the track I have spoken of. At Bealey we took, up Mr Bud, who had just succeeded in restating telegraphic communication, and at the Half-way House where we stayed for the night (and where, I am glad to add, we enjoyed most comfortable quarters), we met the new Archdeacon, Mr Warden Aylmer, and other gentlemen, from whom I learnt *that no news of the arrival of the mail had been received in Ghristchnrch. Fortunately copies of the West Coast Timks, of more real value than the '' Home News,", seeing that it furnished the late special telegrams to the 11th September, were fossicked out of the bag, and the next morning at 5 o'clock a copy was sent back to the Bealey station, for immediate transmission by telegiaph lo the Christchurcli papers. It so happened, however, that they had obtained the intelligence the previous evening from the " Timaru Herald," to which journal it Was telegraphed from the Bluff, the Albion having arrived there on Wednesday, a day after the Taranaki reached Hokitika, and the wire being just then repaired.

In my next letter, which will probably accompany this, I shall have more to aay about the road, and a little also about the City of the Plains.