Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/105

Rh reads: "No railway servant shall receive any gratuity on pain of dismissal, and no person shall give or offer a gratuity to any such servant." New Zealand is no place for Pullman-car porters. Of railway stations New Zealand has only one worthy of special mention, and that is in Dunedin. With this exception all the main depots are long, one-story brick buildings, with verandas running their full length and furnishing a roof for the platforms. The most conspicuous feature of the average station is its name. The majority have Maori names, and they are not noted for their brevity. On some lines seventy-five per cent of the stations have native appellations. The pronunciation of many of these is hard enough for the porter; to me they often were impossible. Soon after starting to pronounce them I found myself tacking like a ship in an adverse wind.

"The cost of travel is moderate," says a New Zealand authority, speaking of the Dominion's railways. It is reasonable, but equipment considered, it is, for "ordinary" tickets, quite enough. The rate is three cents per mile for first-class and two cents per mile for second-class. Holiday excursion tickets, mileage counted one way only, are respectively four cents and two cents per mile. For fifty dollars one can get a ticket valid for seven weeks on the lines of both islands, or for thirty dollars one can ride for four weeks on the lines of either island. Extensions of these tickets are granted up to four weeks for seven and one-half-dollars per week.