Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/245

Rh with adornments of architecture. In narrow streets the aspect of such buildings, particularly those with gloomy fronts, was not cheerful, and after being in their shade a while I was glad to escape to more open country. Notwithstanding its cramped quarters, Wellington has a number of recreation grounds and parks of fair size. One of these is Newtown Park, which has the best zoo in New Zealand. On Tinakori Road, a short distance back of the business district, are the Botanical Gardens, where an extensive view of the city is obtainable. Here are wooded dells refreshing in their wild floral profusion, and cool, murmuring waters that sing in forest shades and ripple past flower gardens that delight with their variety. In Wellington I rode in street-cars owned and operated by its people. On its thirty miles of tram-lines, built at a cost of three million dollars, the city carries more than twenty million passengers annually and realizes a fair interest on the invested capital. A feature of the Wellington street-car system is the civility of its employees. The most obliging ticket inspector I met in the Dominion was a Wellington tramway employee, and not yet have I encountered a conductor so polite as the one who opened the door of the compartment in which I was sitting, and saying, "Thank you," shut it without having entered, or collected a fare. What did that "Thank you" mean? No one had given its speaker anything or done him a service. On inquiry, I learned that he was merely looking for unpaid fares,