OVERLANDTO THE LAKES. [BY A TRAMP.]

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1364, 29 March 1881, Page 2

OVERLANDTO THE LAKES. [BY A TRAMP.]

At Okaroiri, some distance on the Bide of the road from the Paeroa, there is a new hotel, a building of considerable tions, in course of erection, antt^lfcing rapidly completed, listen and perpend ye wise ones who can read the future from thestudyj6fl«ftkntf6rL)JKßns. The owner is, no doubt, a sb.i?Bwd man of business, »ndJiß.~hj^UkoaJ.ime*)>jLJili«.iowlock with a very clear idea of "what he" wants to do withrhmj.' WhejiAhe expresses run through to Ofunemut# and Jurists pome pojuring along the jroad ctolyj^Jfoejr will be CTafefuHbTa k roa3PM3e < pub, at whichto'aUay^th^pah'gs of thirst. The pub will attract the ftore, the blacksmitfi, the darpenter, ' and < others I who make np a small' settlement, and* here a half-way village - will arise* and will thrive rapidly, as. the traffic) along the road increase*) with .the progress of JJambridge and'dhihemutu/' Dowk below the road is pitched the little camp of one of the contraftfcbrs'foVthe/wbrk along W4 ; idki f and known asiM&sbtt's camp. Tkere was nobody about, ,and I was unable to find out the birth and parentage of Mason, and what his particular mission in these parts might be, I knocked at several doors and cooeyed at several • tents, but I am prepared to take my ( ujipst,3o|emiirDavy that I appropriated no old " varrn labourer's watch, inherited with 1 two old tea spoons from his great' grandmother, and estimated as family treasures accordingly, no'rapy old navvy's Sunday waisjtcoat. It is rather dangerous, though, to be seen ■within a mile of any man's doQr'in'jthia district, or even to' be seen walking along a road, as e!yery thief suspects' every pne else of being of his own'stamp, and every aged numskull who values nis olcl rags and his bag of "old> buttons as treasures, and is naturally proud,,ofithera| suspects every' dne" he irieefe 61 'coveting them and wanting tk> fob Him. The -police, ot dourse) are only too ready^to apprehend every one they can, with or without justifiable grounds as long as they can ob- ' tain a conviction, for the more convictions they can obtain, whfether by true or false .evidence, the smarter officers they are considered, and- the' better 'the' cHance of their promotion. , So, .ori'my own experience, I would strongly advise everyone undertaking a pedestrian excursion in a newly-6'p'ened district! "of ; Wew Zealand to see the police before he starts and "establish his identity as -a re<U gentleman by the means I have before'suggested, and to see the police as, e^very station along his TOad with 'the same 'e'nd'in view, never to knock at anybody's door or make any ' inquiries along the road to register .the time ,at which .he and leaves every ' place stopped at on his journey, and in fact to take all the precautions'that he ,wou|d jhv, journeying through" a, well-known back* slum of thieves and professional fale"e informers. Without doing f so,>n(> decent man is safe from being pounced upon and victimised by either thief or police, or both,' if he walks far in New -Zealand. A mile or two further on, after passing a wearisome swamp of low morass and whispering reed, lie 3 the camp of Mr Graham, who is^exelcuting a~ coiitrac't fdr-'a piece of the rpad ,of four and a. half, miles, in length, and joining that just completed by Mr Coombes of two miles, beyond the work of the constables. Graham's, work extends from Oraka Bridge to the Waimakariri river, and wjlt shorten the road by four or five miles. , There arpjabout thirty men we'll supplied with" tlge jbest implements of all kinds "wiring in*" and they may be expected to finish their task in about a month from this time. The work 'already 'dori§ by J them deserves all praise, and will form a fine piece of broad, hrm, solids-bottomed * road that will stand the wear and tear of the heaviest traffic. ' Several bridges are still £o be built by "Messrs Maunder Brothers, of Hamilton, who have already spanned the Oraka, the Waihou, and the Waimakariri rivers, with fine, well-built, substantial structures that must excite the admiration and gratitude of any passing traveller. The Waihou is one of the most beautiful of the smaller rivers of New Zealand; its blue deep, rapidly flowing stream, of about 30 feet in breadth, affording a most grateful bath or draught to the weary passer-by, though it is dangerous, from its sheer depth and the strong suction of the under-current that might deceitfully lure a too confiding worshipper of its loveliness to his destruction. It is a beautiful stream for trout or even salmon. Upon its banks, Graham's jolly navvies have pitched their camp, and here I spent' a night and enjoyed as hearty a welcome as anyone could receive from the highest in the land. They are remarkably well supplied with provisions of all kinds, excellent meat and vegetables jthree times a day, and tea, and bread, and butter at libitum. - Their life is, an enviable one; with eight hours of by no means tiring work for a strong man, unlimited "tucker," good pay, a short evening of nongs and good humoured jokes, however rough, a game of euchre on a board between two sticks by, the light of a couple of candles, and bed at half-past eight without a disagreeable or unfriendly word between any two of the " boya." One of them insisted on my taking his bed while he made shift for himself elsewhere, and nothing would have offended them more than offering to pay for their, hospitality. In ,the moming after a substantial breakfast I pursued my journey with "a lasting and pleasant recollection of the jolly navvies. The Waimakariri is another beautiful bright fresh stream, and the more to be admired and appreciate^ that it is the last drop of water to be seen for many a long and .weary mile of your onward journey. Beyond this river the road works cease for the presents *and there" is only the narrow track worn ,by tyire .Maori feet or the occasional paSsing of a solitary Norseman, though the roadway is by this time surveyed right through to /Ohinemutu. This narrow track twists, and twines about through the tall fern and titree, scrub and dense bush for about thirty miles further before Ohinemutu is reached, and nothing is so delightfully easy as losing one's way, and having to turn back. again, for ten miles or so on finding out that that has been successfully accomplished. I : have always had a marvellous faculty for losing my way whenever that can be done, and I was notatall,»urprisedt©:|[nd t 'that, after I had. wound about thrqngh. a succession ofclose valleys as warm as a range of ?hot.houses I had taken slightly the wrong 'path, and had arrived at a Maori pah that 1 should not have arrived at, and thas rejoices, I believe, in ; the name of the Tapapa pah. There was nobody to be seen in the^few.QldL wh»res, t .thdugh the large enclottate •ncT-sonfe crfftivataons of maize and potatoes, and abugcv.-itiaklinf' grandfy' in frontf : of W'SfBKS showed that it was inhabited. dered about in Vain looking fo* sbfteone, and "cooeying" like spme r distressed barn-doori -owll tinned a path through a strip of bush- but as me novfkeVel'tntnka. BftckSteaiiP I was (b)Bginnittg;tb I wonder Iwhfetßo? it ir6ii|o|be advisabfc^fej fcoifort ftTsdffieYdf 'the dodges ?f? f *X^^«»j«£»«!rtfflgfc described in the booka I rejoiced in, and fully benavepa&ea *^ r wjy^. t .centerv. before I witn my nose, Dlooahound 3 fashion. I rdid'ht wmWh tn#iffei^a r Twa* fiarI ing a pipe over it, when, «« Hit's, former

occasion of perplexity, a bright and blooming vision appeared before me. It was as if a white man of the Anglo-Saxon type, dressed in tweed, c were rapidly approaching me. He smiled beautifully, n and said unto me "good morning." I felt snre that he was of angelic parentage, •^putlup a little prayer unto him to oe shown the right path, and my prayer was immediately granted, and I was put right .and preserved from destruction, wonderful to say. I meant to fall before him, but before I * nad made up my mind whether to take a , h^ac^er as if going into water, or whether 4 to fall in a sitting position, or on my nose, he had vanished and was no more seen. A most remarkable thing, was it not ? If the gentleman can spare mo a little of his ■ blood, say half-a-pint or so in a bottle, or one or two of his bones when he has no further occasion for k them, I am sure they would be of inestimable value in the .cure of scrofulous com- ■ plaints, and I should be most happy to buy a church if .1 could get one on credit, or even to build one on the same terms, in the w.hich to place those treasures. If they should tako the TVaikato Times in, in the parts he comeß from, ho will see how very highly I esteem his assistance, and I am sure ho will not refuse the trifle I ask of him. What will be the future of these beautiful little sheltered valleys, winding in and out between the ranges from Waimakariri, and each containing from three hundred to a thousand acres P In years to come, perhaps, each will be the seat of an old fashioned shaded substantial home, blumbering amidst its oroh&rda and vineries and. plantations of olives and oranges and lemons, its smooth lawns surrounded by shrubberies of camellias, and its garden of gigantic roses, eheltered by tall hedges of scarletgeranium. Where the track now winds through the flax, ti-tree and fern, there will bo miles of golden grain and bright green paddocks, in which the herds of silky skinned deep-uddered, choice cattle and fat powerful horses will find all the happiness they ever dreamed of. The wealthy comfort* able owners of all these delights, will be a different roca in those days from their old Anglo-Saxon forefathers ; a browner, darker race, with not so much beef on their sides as the old John Bull used to carry, and the old florid full face will have shaded down and become more deeplj lined and Bun burned ; the ladies will hava lost the old rosy bloom, for tliQ clear olive or white satin complexion of Italian beauty. But they will be a pleasant comfortable peaceful people, not so given to contention and rivalry as in the young days, and rejoicing in a neighborly afternoon exchange of visits, with a bottle of the rich scented world-renowned New Zealand claret for the gentlemen, and a cup of tea in the cool vine shaded, rose scented drawingroom for the ladies. There will be no want of water in those days, for ifc will be drawn as required from the' atmosphere, or brought down from the most distant rivers by artificial means, the cost of which will be trifling in those advanced times. The electric and atmospheric engines that each gentleman will drive, will awing them into the great central towns of Ohinemutu or Cambridge, m less than an hour, and the ladies will have a quiet little afternoon jaunt, in their aerial carriages into Auckland or Napier, and home again to tea, for sixty miles an hour will bo nothing to them then. Will all this ever be? Of coiirse it will, in spite of Mother Shipton. It is only tho course of Nature, and the most solemnly authenticated prophe.oy will never alter the course of that respectable old lady, but will turn but what a bright literary genius of local fame magnificently terms " a tissue of mendacious falsehoods." After meditating for an hour in this style, and resting after my mistakes, I kept up thegully to the left of the Tapapa Pah, and pushed on for the camp of Mr Hetlcy, the Government Surveyor of the new road, which, I was told, was only about four or five miles further on ; and if lie would give me a shakedown for the night, I thought that a good day's further walk of some three ana twenty miles, through the cool forest shades, might bring me to my journey's end. The path winding up the hill side soon brought me to a fine high plateau of beautiful rich land of about half a mile to a mile in width, and about three or four miles in length. On the one side lay a magnificent gorge of great depth, the bides covered with a grand forest of enormous trees and ferns of every description. At the bottom of this far away, out of sight, flows the Waimakariri river, and on the other side of the plateau, at the bottom of an equally steep gorge, flows the binall stream, the Waiohutu. Both streams would be useless to the splendid piece of level land along the top of the plateau from the depth at which they lie below ; the height of the level land being nearly 2000 feet above the sea, I was told, and | the depth of the Waimakariri gorge being, j I should fancy from my passing view, at least four or five hundred feet. The survey line is pegged out, ami I knew I must come upon the surveyor's camp . somewhere, if I did not pass it. But it was a hot, dreary walk, and I was almost dead with thirst. If anything could compensate one for physical trials, it would be the extreme beauty of the forest scene on the left. Nothing in reality, or the moat brilliant poet's fancy could exceed this in its way, and again and again I was obliged to pull up and look down upon the grand old forest giants that reared their heads above all their fellows, or the beautiful ferns of endless variety, that olothed the sides of the gorge in a thick mantle of bright green, hanging drapeiy. At last I baw some smoke ri.sing from the side of the steep slopes below the plateau, and looking down, I saw the ' white tents I was looking for, in dread 1 that I might have passed them, and should have to plod for three and twenty miles farther, before getting rest. I might just as properly have burst into tears, or gone down on my knees and cried " Saved !" as the stout gentleman in sailors' costume , who was supposed to be shipwrecked, used ' to do at the Adelphi Theatre in days gone ( by, but I didn't, as I had to use my mouth for drinking some six or seven pints of water at a draught, a§ soon as I got to the tent«. Sparkling, cold, and delicious, the richest wines man can manufacture, whether of Champagne or sparkling Hock . or Tokay, could not equal that pull of oold water} and if ever a teetotaller could have made a convert of me, it would have been- at that moment. I was, I need not say, with 1 " all politenesß by Mr Hetley, the Government engineer in Isbitrge of the' work, and during the evenTng he kindly furnished me with some of ,the details, from which I can make the "following remarks upon what has been 1 done and is doing. .< ,• ' ' (To be continued.)

, Wbbn Captain Jones came homo from huijtest voyage, he learned that he had tfcefen-fcade a widower. He received the neighborhood condolence in becoming 1 ;in»nnj?r till pno of the women folk veu'ture&iorbreathe into.jbhQ bereaved man's ears the' last Svofd 1 of his late helpmate. Then the old Adam asserted itself. " Oh, Jbotibjei^" b&, cried," don't talk to me of Taafc word,''^ 0 always had that everaince *f^^?ned'b.er, afad'it would, be only like Bier-'"j0 J iia"Ye it dying. l<!l *-ito«if<»t Transcript. J[nPGß;sharp,.the-aditoiof the Cmithage •HI.. QatetUy was married a few weeks agp. 11l *t« tnidet of his (jonnabial blisb, fcowl*rtit/thi} Judge did not forget the' duties 'he'd^edto the people of this" grejit cduntry, and tho next issue of- the ''Gazette had *,lonjp;fi«dable,.;ediWrial otf-minority re«, prewuUtion.