FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ZEALAND.

Wellington Independent, Volume XIX, Issue 2050, 19 April 1864, Page 3

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ZEALAND.

It is commonly said that first impressions are everything; this is, if not altogether, yet to a very large extent true. " I don't like the appearance of the place, it has an ugly look about it," lias times out of number, been as an acfc of repudiation to a street, a property, or a district of country, which, if examined upon their actual merits, might have disclosed many good, if not even admirable points ; in a ease of this kind you may read one's foregone conclusion concerning a place or a thing in his very face, so soon as you liave put to hini the testing question ; the eye, or the expression at some particular point in the physiognomy will have delivered its " Oh ! not at all," or its " Oh ! amazingly," ere the laggard tongue shall have made up its budget of reply. The frriter of this paper, . a new comer in these parts, is often asked as a matter of course, " well how do you like New Zealand ?" There is not we assure our readers, any attempt whatever to put a mask upon the spontaneous attitude of our features in such circumstances when we reply, as we I invariably do, " Oh ! very much indeed," and rerily we would be a " queer party" and an unreasonable one, if we did not go in for such a rejoinder with all our heart and soul. If it was, and perhaps is still, a question with, metaphysicians whether beauty be in the object or in the mind of the observer, it is nb question at all with us whether there be real * beauty in New Zealand or not, and that in. more respects than its scenery. People at home, lolling in their easy chairs and thinkj. ing between the puffs of their pipe of " antipodal Britain," may imagine in their slum| berous trance what they please, but let a maa get up, and, taking ship, actually visit this new region for himself, and if, on landing] "his first impressions are not of the mosi; pleasing kind, we would like to know " the reason why." Coming here in early summer, one cannot bui/admire and that intensely, the singular brightness of the sky, answering sc completely to those water-color paintings o ' Australian scenery shown in the Internationa Exhibition of 1862; so bright, so trani sparently cerulean is it, that standing on a mountain top, one could almost fancy hi might see away half round the world. Trulj Phoebus in his diurnal round in this Southen Hemisphere must be a peculiarly rich anc happy fellow since he can blaze forth floods of such sunshine upon the glorious regions beneath. It is said that a man with a merry aspect carries his certificate in his face — consequently one's first impression of such a man must necessarily be a good one ; there can be no doubt that New Zealand possesses an excellent certificate, if we may judge from the good impression the Country is capable of making upon newcomers. v There is, as we have said, transcendant beauty discernible in the clear bright sky, so different from that smoke-curtained canopy we have been accustomed to look upon at home; there is beauty of no mean order in its many sounding, many circulating waters, as these play and sparkle or practice their deep basses throughout the long summer day on the' distant shores — there is an attractive, I though rugged beauty in the hills which sentinel its shores, and in the mountains which show like giants in rows, with their backs uppermost, away into the interior. And who that amid the hurry and distraction of first settlement, can spare a day for a ride inland, but must carry back a soul full of fine conceptions of Jthe unnumbered beauties which the Ifew Zealand bush exhibits ? We have been f. wanderer amid the woods of North America when summer had carpeted them with flowers, but here in New Zealand, the forests seem to excel anything that we have .seen in 'any other part of the world, whether for size, beauty, or variety. Who can witness without surprise those runners or creepers in the dark woodland depths, which after winding themselves around the trees likehuge boa constrictors, rise above the green, glossy meadow like surface of the forest, with a splendid variety of colors, and emitting delightful perfumes P In pointing out and loquising over such novel and beautiful objects as these, much paper and more time might be occupied, but we forbear, remembering the limits to which the title of our subject confines us. Continuing then the track of first impressions, though now upon a new line of thought, and while revolving the high rate of wages, which the stranger hears with astonishment is current in these colonies, the thought arises, what a pity — yea not a pity, but a thousand pities— '■that hard working men with " encumbrances" at home could not somehow be conveyed in thousands hither; what an agreeable change would they experience ! And how little need would there then be at future social reunions for such toasts as the following — which is said to have been given by a farmer at an agricultural dinner in Scotland, when great military men and their doughty deeds were the chief topic for speech and toast throughout the evening, "here's to Saunders Pergivie, o' Crichtondean, an honest man wi' a big family, wha has had a sair fecht wi' the worl' a 5 his days." A fight with this hard-work-a-day world, we believe we must all maintain for better or for worse, go where we will, or under whatever clime we may.patch our tent, but it makes a wonderJ|MMffi^ence in such combats, when there il||ffinn|i ; of the needful forthcoming to keeji^^^^^isldy boiling, and to live in a couri^^^^^^a big family is a help rather than a hind^nroe. Our first impression then of New Zealand as a labor-field, is that it is an excellent one for working men — a field where, from all we can see and hear, abundance may from honest and not overwhelming toil be reaped in the present, and a goodly number of nest eggs be accumulated, from which to hatch something comfortable for life's afternoon and evening. A country without taxes and tax-gatherers, is, we need hardly say, a fact likely to make a favorable pre-impression anywhere, yet how few habitable parts of the globe are free of such mind— ruffling intruders ! New Zealandi however, it seems, is one of those favored places. So that when a seeming important knock is heard at one's door here, and one hastens to reply, hoping it may be the announcement of a present of some kind from some considerate friend, the visage needs not to be subjected to the humiliation of a sudden change in the wrong direction, seeing it is only the hated tax-gatherer. Some people in the old countries can no more endure the sight and aspect of a tax-gatherer, than a tabby cat, soft as velvet, which might happen to sit purring in one's lap could endure the sudden intrusion of its. natural enemy, an ill set looking cur ; the man with the blue book is an absolute scare- crow to such, and they are sure to be out, or busy, or at dinner when he calls ; but, wore such afflicted one's only happily settled in New Zealand, they might let the whole generation of publicans whistle for them. "What a blessing," whispers every one who has felt the loss of it, "is health" ; " yes indeed" exclaim we in reply, for we confess that in other years and in other lands this all important, all interesting subject was rathe;

a hobby of ours, on which, we wore not seldom inclined to make excursions, For dear health when lost, the miser would tell out his most cherished treasures, for this the man of wealth and leisure would make long and toilsome pilgrimmages to reach the healing spring, but from the brief experience we have had of "the Britain of the South," our impression albeit a first one, is that valetudinarians might do worse than test the virtue of the ozone or electrified oxygen with which this fine southern air is said to be richly impregnated ; to saunter abroad amid New Zealand's glorious sunshine, and to drink in its exhilarating breezes as they blow around the j brown hill tops, scented with the odour of sweet shrubs, and causing the flagging spirits i to get up and dance for joy. Finally, gentle readers, we hope you quite believe after what we have now ventured j to write concerning our first impressions of your adopted country and ours, that these are of the most favorable kind, and as we are pleased witli things'aroTind us in the present, let us, full of hope, anticipate great things for her in the future, when instead of units or tens, tens of thousands of her Majesty's home subjects shall swarm over these fair and fertile lands, and when to be called a New Zealander, will be reckoned as proud a distinction as anciently it was to be able to say civis Jtomanus sum, or as it now is, to bear the honored name of Briton. 1 Alpha.