OVERLAID TO THE LAKES.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1361, 22 March 1881, Page 2

OVERLAID TO THE LAKES.

[By a Tramp.]

On leaving Cambridge, the question was, which should be my next point, "Arise, gird up thy loins and get thee down or up, whichever it is unto Rotorua, and just look sharp about it," said my guardian angel, who is pleased to appropriate my worn-out carcase as his particular residence. "So, " I replied, with the becoming brevity and submission of a travelling correspondent, and having received instructions to take some notes of the new direct road that is being formed through from Cambridge to Ohinemutu, I determined to go by that road, and to go on foot for the greater convenience of asking questions, and otherwise acquiring information. What Wiesbaden and Baden Baden are to Europe in these days, and what Bath and Tunbridge Wells used to be a hundred years ago, Rotorua is destined to be to Australia and New Zealand, and perhaps even to America and Europe, with their progressing powers of locomotion, fifty or cren twenty yearß hence. Preeminently the Southern city of pleasureseekers, of lazy, wealthy martyrs to over-feeding, over indulgence in rich wines, sloth, or other delightful pleasures of this life, parties whose livers or whose gouty toes and fingers, or whose rheumatic limbs are their one and only theme of conversation, and paralysed old parties bound to be carried religiously four times a day, speechless and impotent, but snarling and ferocious to their baths, Rotorua must speedily become famous for its medicinal advantages and the marvellous and almost inconceivable beauties of the scenery around it. Then it will rapidly grow and deck itself with all the sparkling deceptions in which sin and death array themselves to appear beautiful and delicious to this world. Beautiful music, brilliant ball-rooms, rouge et noir, racecourses, beautiful gardens with charming flirting bowers on the edge of the lake, palaces of white marble, New Zealand champagne that shall far surpass that of the once celebrated France, picnics to the terraces of Rotorua, and singing parties by moonlight on the lake. Such will be some of the attractions of the lovely great pleasure city that fifty years hence will rear itself, where in these days modest little Ohinemutu struggles very creditably to make visitors comfortable, though it offers no luxuries, and barely the necessaries of life, and only receives a visitor on the terms of unrestrained plunder without complaint. Though, to start on a sixty mile walk through a country comparatively uninhabited, and over a road that i« still for the greater part of it only a. bridle track, and in some places only a Maori track through the tall fern and bush, may seem before undertaking it a tremendous affair, I have invariably found with any difficuly great or small in life, that the advice of the amiable philosopher to his eagerly listening pupils, to always strangle their Python, is the soundest. On meeting a ghost always knock him on the head to begin with, and it will be found that he will speedly melt into thin air, if he is a sensible ghost, and if he is'nt it is no use taking any notice of him. So I felt sure that once on my way the difficulties would melt before me, and the distance grow less and less day by day, and if the sparrows could pickup their daily grub in the fields, so surely could I. Che va piano va lontatto, says the wise old proverb, meaning in bluff old Saxon that " gently does it." So I strolled along mid visions of gaily twangling the light guitar to the charming serenade from "Don Pasquale," or chanting the boatman's song from '• Ernani" on a fairylike, moon-lit lake, with Brown extracting dulcet strains from his cornet, "with the bugle song, and Jones holding beauty enthralled with the rich tenderness of his melting tenor notes as hn floated in his gondola past the great white throne and the rose-tinted jasper angel's staircase of Rotomahana. In thick boots and dusty shirt and trousers, and my coat over my arm, I was more richly gifted than any noodle of a conventional tourist with all the portmanteaus and buggies and guides that, according to respectable journalists and credible guide-books are absolutely necessary for any really respectable family, or what you may call a really jam, fine young fellow you know, undertaking the journey; and with all due deference to conventional travellers, my private opinion is that if they do burden themselves with one-half of the things "their lively imaginations suggests when telling the story of their travels afterwards, they must never be surprised to find themselves in the unfortunate predicament of the particular traveller who, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves. Passing the first bridge over the blue deep Waikato after leaving Cambridge, I found that the first thing to be admired was the inexhaustible liberality of nature in the way of dust ; dust blowing inside one's clothes, and coating one with a thick crust of dirt from head to foot, and filling ones throat and inside with a choking, stifling dryness, that nothing but lying down for an hour in a running stream and dashing a pail or two of water into one's complicated interior arrangements at least twice in the day, could remedy. All round the town there are maori camps, and along all the roads one meets man in his original, undefiled beauty, the image of his creator, everywhere ; old brown gentlemen, with faces wealthily tattooed into as near an approach to a carved old block of mahogany as long practice and a peculiar refinement of tdote could accomplish, toddled about with bare brown legs, stuck into side -spring boots, a short shawl worn kilt fashion, By way of unmentionables, and perhaps a bell-topper by way of dignity, and maybe a shirt or another shawl instead as the case might be; jolly young wahines, and jolly old wahings, all singing in the decided catterwaul style of music, or chattering uproariously and hollowing to friends a mile or so off, and all smoking Old Aunt Sally pipes ; gay dogs of the Maori nice young men, species riding horses at full gallop or strutting superbly in Enropean clothes with Brummagem watch chains and rings and all complete ; big boys and girls romping everywhere, some tumbling and splashing about in a sweetly innocent state of nature in the river ; nice little brown satin skinned round eyed piccaninnies trotting crying after their mothers or carried Maori fashion in a twist of the shawl on the mother's back; little bright-eyed girls discoursing sweet music on that noble instrument known as the Jew's harp, and looking up to a passing stranger with the salutation of "tana koe pakeha, you got penny?" Everywhere Maoris for a mile or more from the town. The road winds along a deep hollow that appears to have been the bed of some ancient and far larger river in the merry days when megatheriums, pterodactyls, and other delightful creatures reigned supreme and " wallowed in their slime. " It was warm on the day I started, and there was no occasion to wish that this too, too solid flesh would melt, for, as I walked along, I fancied I could hear the frizzling of my own grease, and felt something as a rasher of bacon in a frying-pan might do. Certainly this was a bad beginning of a long march, but no angels or ministers of grace seemed inclined to defend me, much less to bring me anything so acceptable as what Christopher Sly sighed so ardently for, namely, a pot of the' smallest ale. Nothing could be done, so I strangle^ my Python and

faced the worst obstinately, and immediately the difficulty vanished, and some approving higher power sent me a kind ana merciful man driving a handsome pair of chesnut horses in a buggy. He smiled upon me, and told me to mount his trap, and the last black piece of my gristle that had not melted was saved. I shall always remain sure in my own mind that this was an angel sent specially to rescue me as correspondent of the Waikato Times from too early a frizzle. Ie is true he talked to me in a matter of fact kind of way about his own and other people's properties in the neighborhood, and told me that he was part owner of a thousand acres himself, and his horses were remarkably sturdy half-bred Suffolk Punches as strong as gianti, and as broad-backed, short legged and persevering looking customers as John Bull himielf, but I am still positive that he was an angel. However, it waa no use telling him so if he wished to conceal the fact, so l turnfid the conversation to the subjeot of the land about us. Juet beyond the Gorge, as it is called, we came upon some of the immense property owned by Mr Maclean, or rather Maclean & Co., in these parts, and I admired the plantations of young pinoa along the steep banks of the river, and on the farther side, the noble Pukekura range. Now, that I was using the horpes legs instead of my own, I could admire the beautiful, high whitethorn hedges that skirted the road, and made each paddock they enclosed look like a sweet, cosy, sheltered lawn ; I could take note of the fine, fat cattle feeding contentedly on the rich, fresh grass of these paddocks, and I remarked everywhere the broad, white faces and square-built frames of the fine, old Hereford breed. I could not see any of the pure breed of Herefords and Devons that I had heard were owned by several of the large land-owners about here j but there were evident traces of both, and the Ayrshire and Shorthorn also, in the herds we passed, and I hope that on some other occasion I shall have a more favourable opportunity of fully examining the fine specimens of these breeds that are to be seen about these parts lam told. The Herefords are not so much admired as they deserve in the Northern Island, and I have only seen one choice herd of them on my way up from Wellington ; and the red Devons — the most beautiful, and, for some qualities, the best of all the English prizewinners — I have seen nowhere yet in New Zealand. So we passed on through the Middle Park property, and my friend pointed out to me the fine grass growing up the sides of the ranges. Across the river a comfortable house, looking down from a hill-side upon a magnificent expanse of rich, level flat and gentle slopes, was noted as a model of a desirable property, and I was told that it belongs to Mr Hicks. Just beyond the range on the left hand lay the Whitehall and Bridgewater Stations of the great Maclean property, and stations of Woodlands and Hillside, and some remarkably nice Hereford cattle, including one or two fine pedigree bulls of the Maclean herd, and some shorthorns of the Lord Hamilton breed. In tho bush at the back of these stations, cattle turned out to run wild during the winter months manage to pick up flesh, and gonerally come out in the spring rolling in fat, the numerous little creeks running everywhere through the bush being bordered with fine feed. Passing the Pukekura redoubt a native pah, from which General Cameron drove the natives in tho 1864 campaign, we came to the residence of Mr Fergusson, who owns an estate of some thousands of acres in this neighbourhood I could see that it was a handsome and comfortable building surrounded by some gardens such as no country but New Zealand can showj pleasant lawns, magnificent pines and shrubborioß sfcrotohing on each Side! but of the estate I can say nothing yet, except that I passed some fine land and some good herds of cattle, that I hope to describe further some other day.