Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/183

 can reach, it follows farm after farm, and takes in cottages, corn-ricks, trim plantations, hedge-rows, and busy ploughing teams in its comprehensive survey.

When I was last here, Makikiki was purely a flax swamp, with not a human habitation within miles of it; and it was only famous as being a grand shooting ground for ducks.

Waimate too! I remember when there was but the home station here, one "bush pub.," and forge, and a few sawyers' huts. Now the dense bush has all been cut away. Waimate is the terminus of a branch railway, and can boast stores, hotels, and buildings equal to most country towns—verily "the former things have passed away, and lo, now all things have become new."

We cross the Waitaki, one of the snow-fed rivers, by another lengthy bridge, and I recall to my mind the old punt which used to convey passengers precariously across in the olden time. Oamaru presents the same amphitheatre of grassy knolls, but the tussocks on the heights are gone. Villas and gardens have taken their place. The town looks gay and lively, the white stone giving it quite a palatial look. What enormous stores! What mills! woollen factory! cheese factory! saw mills! &c. In fact, a repetition of Timaru. Another breakwater in the bay. All this since I was here last.

Ascending the steep incline, we emerge upon a succession of broken, tumbled slopes. Grand farms here. The farmers are lifting their potatoes