Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/41

Rh the work to be done; and I venture to say that every one connected with the expedition found that, brief as was the time it occupied, it involved considerably more work than play.

In resuming the discursive narrative of what was done and seen by the West Coast expedition, let me premise that the mere configuration of the country, and its geological structure, are the subjects to which, probably, the least reference will be made. These are matters in relation to which any visitor to the West Coast, ambitious of excelling in descriptive, will find himself to be anticipated both in point of time and skill. The “New Zealand Pilot” is an unpretending digest of sailing directions; but its merits exceed its pretensions. It is a comprehensive description of the coast-line, tersely written; and it is not destitute of elements of the graphic. The Provincial archives also contain—it may rather be said, conceal—Dr Hector’s exhaustive account of his observations of the geology of such parts of the coast as he had visited. I say conceal, because that is really almost all that is achieved by printing, in such unpopular form as that of a Provincial Gazette, information which should be as accessible to everybody as one of Johnston’s maps or Murray’s guides.

All that I can venture to do is to put into something like shape a heap of disjecta membra—the fragmentary entries of a note-book as to each day’s proceedings—most of them personal, a few of them touching on the picturesque, and as many as possible aiming at the practical.

About six o’clock on Saturday evening, December 6th, we got as far as Puseygur Point, the southern limit of Preservation Inlet. Almost before we passed it, for it is a low sloping promontory, we had a view of the southern arm of the Inlet, known as Otago’s Retreat, not from any reference to the political state of the Province, but because, at the time of the survey, a schooner of that name attached to the service found it a convenient shelter in an hour of peculiar need. Through this vista we had the first glimpse of the scenery with which in a few days we became—I dare not say wearied, for that would be irreverent, but I may say, figuratively—and as far as the figure can go—overwhelmed. The sun was reaching the horizon, and its evening light enhanced the comparative liveliness of the foreground, for, even here, the vegetation partakes of the characteristic richness of the northern parts of the West Coast, and the cliffs present a picture with which nothing on the East Coast can compare. The ornamental shrubbery—including veronicas, olearias, and others, the mere names of which, however elegantly strung together, would convey little information—are especially beautiful, and are a distinguishing feature of the scenery of all this coast-line. Behind the long stretch of deep green foliage rose big brown hills, darkened by the shade of others intervening between them and the setting sun; and behind them again were the snow-clad summits of such hills as Solitary and Forgotten Peaks, standing close on 4000 feet high. I find that, at this point, I have left three blank pages in my note-book—no doubt with the