Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/149

 Ho! ho! a beneficent wizard to the rescue. See through yonder rift in the hoary glen the distant plains of Beulah. The sun blazing on the Delectable Mountains beyond, and nearer, the gleam and sparkle of a great lake. What a contrast! Down there a picture such as one dreams of when fancy conjures up pictures of the plains of Heaven. Behind, looking away up to the mountain tops, they are literally hidden in "clouds of thick darkness," and so majestic is the whole that the mind is overwhelmed with its grandeur and sublimity, and quite unfit to analyze it into its component parts.

We descend swiftly now into the famous Wairarapa Valley. The great lake now takes on a muddy hue. It is like an inland sea of dull olive green. The dun manuka hills around, and swampy flats bordering the lake, seem very tame after the majesty of the mountains and solemn grandeur of the gorges.

The Wairarapa Valley is famous for its pastures. The centre of the valley is poor land, mostly shingle and sand. The lower valley, however, and the hollows alongside the hills are very rich. It is well populated and dairy farms and factories are numerous. The land about the lake wants draining. The lake itself is the property of the Maoris, and they are agitating now for permission to prevent all European interference with their riparian rights.

The towns in the valley are Featherstone, Greytown, Carterton, and Masterton. At Carterton is