Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/108

 CHAPTER IV

Entering the Long Bright World—Ashore in Auckland—Reminders of America—Shops and Shopping

a South Sea steamer redolent of the scented products of dreamy coral strands, I first saw the long white cliffs that, five hundred and sixty years before, had brightened the leaden eyes of the emaciated passengers of the Maori fleet from remote Hawaikian shores. From one land of stirring romance to another I had come; from Hawaiki, fatherland of the Maoris, to their last and most beautiful home; from a region of drowsy song and laughter to a country of brisk activity. It was early morn, a fresh breeze blew, and the sun, brilliant and unclouded, gave no evidence of the legendary beating it received at the hands of Maui and his brothers in New Zealand's cradle days.

New Zealand has many beautiful marine gateways, and toward the most beautiful of them all, Auckland, once the country's capital and now its largest city, our steamer plowed its way. One of the finest harbors of the world is possessed by this mistress of the Dominion's South Sea trade, a harbor with a setting as pretty as Sydney's Port Jackson. Auckland not only has an exceptional harbor; it has two harbors, the arms of separate seas. On the east, where the city stands, is the Pacific Ocean; on the west,