Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/55

Rh the notes taken at the time:—“Over the more distant hills an indescribable filmy haze hung, from the blue tinge of which the islands in the foreground (their names are Indian and No-man’s) stood out in bold relief. Except to the North, where a white gauzy cloud served to show more sharply the outline of the mountain-tops, there was not a speck upon the firmament, nor was there more movement of the air than to give liveliness to the picture by the ceaseless, shifting, silvery, sparkling of the waters of the Sound.” You will observe that the note-taker was just beginning to “gush.” BrieHfly, the fact was that it was a very fine morning. And the scenery is magnificent. It is one of the most splendid harbours on the coast, if, in that matter, there is at all room for comparison; and it had more interest for us, because it had not been made familiar by a visit from Dr Hector, or by recent expeditions of whose visit any accurate account had been given.

The northern shore of the Sound is defined by a long and comparatively level arm of Resolution Island, terminating in Five Finger Point. Resolution Island proper presents a series of purely pyramidal hills, 3000 and 4000 ft. high. These, as we enter the Sound, are partially concealed from view by Anchor Island, which forms but one, and the largest, among a perfect labyrinth of islands and rocks, some of them favourite resorts of seals, and of their enemies, “in their season.” On this island the coal prospectors obtained some white felspar, which was found deposited in sheets or layers 2 or 3 ft. thick. The ranges on the south side of the Sound are more rugged. At its head or in the interior, there is a long line of them, snow clad.

While the majority of us were musing, or giving open expression to our admiration of the scene, the Secretary for Lands and Works was fidgetting, like Noah’s dove, for land whereon to set his foot. A belief had been engendered there was level country behind the ranges southward of the Sound, and the Secretary determined to satisfy himself on the subject. Passing Pickersgill Harbour—a favourite anchorage of Cook—we steamed into Cascade Cove—a sort of elongation of what the higher part of the harbour of Port Chalmers would be in its primitive state. Here the Secretary, the Surveyor, and Mr M‘Indoe were landed on a small timbered tongue of land, formed by a land-slip, and they addressed themselves to the task of ascending a hill nearly 4000 ft. high. For 3000 ft. of its height it is covered with bush; and, if to memory dear, they were at least for five hours lost to view, and it was nine hours before they returned.

Cascade Cove, in Dusky Sound, I have compared to Koputai Bay, or what is now known as Port Chalmers, before the settlers had substituted, for its tall totaras and red pines, the present leading features of the landscape—churches and hotels. But it is Koputai Bay on an extended scale, for it is a mile and a half in length, a third of a mile in breadth, and its depth is such that it was only when the “Geelong” got close up to a sandy beach, at the head of its waters, that anchorage was found. An item in the resemblance is the existence of a level, or at least low, piece of ground at the head of