Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/224

 February 20th, 1876.

After a few weeks in Christchurch, I found myself in my new sphere of work. Eighteen years ago I rode from Christchurch to Timaru, then a journey of several days, through a mere wilderness of tussock grass, no roads, here and there a faint track, rivers to be forded, with an occasional night camped under flax bushes, under the open sky. Timaru was then a mere name on the map, one small hut on the beach, tenanted by an old whaler and his wife; nothing else but the rolling, grassy downs, the cliffs, the surf, and the Pacific Ocean. Yet, even then, there was something which attracted the eye of my fellow traveller, an Australian, whose remark comes home to me now: "In a few years' time this will be a port and a centre of the district; if you have any spare money to invest here in land, you would find it profitable." To-day, I find here a flourishing township, backed up by extensive arable and pastoral country. A single line of railway from Christchurch runs as far as the Rangitata river, and from thence a coach to Timaru, which I did not need, as my parishioners had sent a buggy for me. As I had chanced to meet en route two English tourists, Spencer Lyttelton, son of Lord Lyttelton,