Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/233

 CHAPTER X

New Zealand's Hilly Capital—A Win for American Literature—Hunting an Art Gallery—Welcome and Unwelcome Immigrants—A Polite Conductor—Memories of the Renowned Seddon

world has many cities built on hills. New Zealand has one that to a great extent is set against hills. This is Wellington, the third and present capital of the Dominion, and, in tonnage entered, its chief port.

A little more than seventy years ago, when the city was founded by the New Zealand Company, Wellington's cramped quarters did not cause it much concern. As the largest colony that up to that time had settled in New Zealand, it was more concerned in building modest homes and disputing land titles with obstinate Maoris. The colonists had just removed to Wellington, after sojourning briefly in Britannia, an unsuitable site for settlement on the opposite side of Port Nicholson, and they had no thought of tunnels and regrades. Later settlers, however, realizing that an increasing population would soon demand access to the hills, filled in a strip along the water front to give them room to swing in while they generated steam for the ascent. Now the most valuable part of the city stands where tides ebbed and flowed, and Wellington is still climbing.

The city reminded me of Seattle. Like the Washington city, the Lambton Harbor port has tunnels, deep