Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/124

94 bases, dismal to the eye and oppressive to the heart. Miles upon miles of road, smooth and well kept as the avenues of an English park, running through a dense undergrowth of stately fern trees and an endless variety of blooming creepers, that, intertwining each with other, formed an impenetrable jungle. The trunks and even the loftiest branches of the huge trees were coated with moss and hung with ferns, and looked like bearded druids, some clasped in the writhing coils of dark-stemmed rata vines, and yielding slowly to the insidious parasites which sap their vitals, while they make gay the surfaces of their life. There were hundreds of delicious chines, any one of which would make the fortune of its owner, could it be transferred to Devonshire or the Isle of Wight, nooks where the sunshine steals in and goes to sleep, and the winds breathe in soft whispers; festooned with trailing ferns and carpeted with fairy mosses, and overhung with dripping boughs that catch a brighter green from the translucent water that from a shelf of rock, 500 ft. above, comes leaping, sparkling, dancing, gurgling, dashing, and performing all the antics with which Southey credits the water that comes down the Lodore. This is the finest cascade in the gorge, and is supplied by an alpine lake lying 3000 ft. above the sea, and called the ‘Devil’s Punchbowl.’

“By-the-by, what a skilful engineer and what a thirsty soul that same Devil must be, or how is it that in so many different parts of the world he should have built so many bridges, dug his trident into so many chasms and passes, and scooped out so many dykes, basins, and punchbowls. If popular nomenclature goes for anything, it seems he has a hand in fashioning some of the boldest and grandest scenery on this planet.

“It is perfectly marvellous to note how Nature, with her two ministers of sun and water, repairs the ravages of the destroyer Man, and takes back her scarred and broken handiwork into her heart again. There was not a log by the wayside, or a cutting for the passage of the road, but every square foot of it was a microscopic study, embroidered with variegated mosses, and fringed with ferns of the rarest and most exquisite workmanship. The very stones were thickly coated with a minute lichen, bright scarlet of colour, and with an odour like violets. Everything bore witness to the ceaseless activity of Nature’s deft and noiseless fingers.

“The scene changed perpetually, and weariness was charmed away as we rattled along the edge of precipices, where

The road was full of sharp turns, round which the horses slipped in the most knowing fashion, the leaders making full tilt at the wall, and coming round with a swing, just as their noses scraped the rock.

“Apropos of horses, the driver assured us at one time that we were being drawn by a team of poets, Byron and Longfellow leading, with Milton and Moore as wheelers. He added that Shakespeare and Tennyson were the regular companions of Milton and