Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/34



ANY excellent descriptions of this part of the West Coast have been written by tourists, who of late years have made excursions round the South Island of New Zealand. Most of the writers have contented themselves with the publication of the account of their visit to the Sounds in passing form in one or other of the leading journals of the Colony. Others again, eminent in literature and distinguished in travel, who have made an acquaintance with most parts of the two Islands, have been unable, however much inclined, to do justice to these isolated spots, where communication is less frequent than to the more populated localities. Noted amongst the latter is the late Mr Anthony Trollope, who, in his writings of New Zealand, was enabled to speak of the West Coast Sounds only from hearsay. Not having had an opportunity of visiting the West Coast, he has published as an appendix to his work on this Colony, a short account of the voyage of Sir George Bowen, then Governor of the Colony, to the south-western Sounds by H.M.S. “Clio,” in February 1871. Mr Trollope, however, appears to have heard much of these parts whilst travelling through the Otago Province, and referring to the Sounds he makes note that “this part of New Zealand is so little known, and is at the same time so remarkable for that wild landscape beauty which during the last fifty years Englishmen have gone over the world to find, that it may be well to let some English tourists know where they may discover new fields for picturesque travelling and Alpine climbing.” Mr Trollope managed to get as far as Lake Wakatipu in Otago, but was unable, it being near mid-winter, to reach with convenience the sounds or the lakes either to the north-east or south-west of Northern Otago. The information he received that there were a series of sounds which resembled closely the Norway Fiords, that “they are very numerous, and are at present desolate, without inhabitants, and almost unknown,” is a brief but truthful description, which holds good to the present day, and, to all appearances, will do so for many years to come. And he is equally correct in addressing himself to English readers when he says:—“Though these lakes and fiords are difficult to reach, and though New Zealand is very far from London, that very difficulty will to many enhance the charm, and from year to year the distance, as compared by time, will become less and less.” What the English novelist thus safely ventured to predict is fast quickening into fact.

Let me now ask the reader to step on board the steamer “Geelong,” and accompany the first West Coast Expedition, which left Dunedin in 1867, the narrative of