Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/122

92 flood” in all weathers and seasons. The sublime picture presented in the summer and autumn months when the rata is in full bloom, and the hills are crowned with luxuriant foliage, is not to be surpassed in variety and effect in any country under the sun. Likewise in mid-winter, when the Alpine ranges are clad in their snowy garments, and are “crowned with thousands of fantastic spires, turrets, and battlements towering above deep valleys filled with enormous glaciers,” they carry, in their wild magnificence, a convincing proof of the omnipotence of the world’s Great Architect.

There are two reports of journeys over this road, which have received publicity, and which struck me as furnishing most excellent descriptions of this grand tour and wonderful piece of country. The first is that which was written to a friend by the Rev. Charles Clarke, who made the overland journey to the West Coast in mid-summer of 1878, and the next is that of Mr Julian Thomas, well known to Australian and New Zealand readers as the “Vagabond,” who visited the West Coast about mid-winter of 1883. Both accounts are well worthy of publication in this volume, as they will convey to the traveller the impression formed of the journey, by two able writers, at opposite seasons of the year. It may be explained that the driver of the coach in which the Rev. Mr Clarke travelled was Mr Thomas Power, an experienced whip, and a jovial fellow on the box. The severity of many winters among the ranges has of late told on his constitution, and though a young man, he is now a confirmed victim to rheumatism. “The Vagabond’s” guide with the ribbons was Mr Arthur Davis, the present popular driver on the western side. Mr Cassidy, one of the proprietors of the line, has of late resumed personal charge on the eastern side, and to the credit of the management, it is no less pleasing than it is surprising to be said, that there has been no accident of a serious nature reported in connection with this line of coaches since it was first established.

The Rev. Charles Clarke, starting from Christchurch on a lovely summer morning, thus descants along the way:— “For a long distance there was nothing but a flat plain, more or less under cultivation, but not showing signs of extraordinary agricultural thrift and energy; it had a beauty of its own, for ‘lowing herds wound slowly o’er the lea,’ birds sprang from the dewy pastures, and soared aloft on twinkling wings. The air was fresh and bright, and in the blue the clouds were sailing like summer butterflies. The grass waved, the flowers nodded, the leaves danced, the young corn spread out its emerald spears to the sunshine. The very waters sparkled as if they felt a living joy. The little train jogged along contentedly through the level country, stopping here and there at stations like magnified packing cases, to take a leisurely little drink to slake the thirst of its parched little throat, and then toddled on again to where the ridge of snow-capped hills cut with sharp outline the clear morning sky.” Reaching Porter’s Pass, he proceeds to say:—“Steadily for an hour we climbed up the Pass, down which the coach bowls on its return journey in ten minutes, the road a mere shelf scooped out of the hillside, and zig-zagging on the brink of the precipice in a highly picturesque and nervous fashion.