1835.] WAIMATE. 



425 



he said. This, however, was quite sufficient: I was a good 

 listener, an agreeable person, and he never ceased talking to me. 

 At length we readied Waimate. After having passed over 

 so many miles of an uninhabited useless country, the sudden ap- 

 pearance of an English farm-house, and its well-dressed fields, 

 placed there as if by an enchanter's wand, was exceedingly plea- 

 sant. Mr. Williams not being at home, I received in Mr. Da- 

 vies's house, a cordial welcome. After drinking tea with his 

 family party, we took a stroll about the farm. At Waimate 

 there are three large houses, where the missionary gentlemen 

 Messrs. Williams, Davies, and Clarke, reside ; and near them 

 are the huts of the native labourers. On an adjoining slope, 

 fine crops of barley and wheat were standing in full ear ; and in 

 another part, fields of potatoes and clover. But I cannot attempt 

 to describe all I saw ; there were large gardens, with every fruit 

 and vegetable which England produces ; and many belonging to 

 a warmer clime. I may instance asparagus, kidney beans, Cu- 

 cumbers, rhubarb, apples, pears, figs, peaches, apricots, grapes, 

 olives, gooseberries, currants, hops, gorse for fences, and Eng- 

 lish oaks ; also many kinds of flowers. Around the farm-yard 

 there were stables, a thrashing-barn with its winnowing machine, 

 a blacksmith's forge, and on the ground ploughshares and other' 

 tools : in the middle was that happy mixture of pigs and poultry, 

 lying comfortably together, as in every English farm-yard. At the 

 distance of a few hundred yards, where the water of a little rill 

 had been dammed up into a pool, there was a large and substan- 

 tial water-mill. 



All this is very surprising, when it is considered that five 

 years ago nothing but the fern flourished here. Moreover, 

 native workmanship, taught by the missionaries, has effected this 

 change ; the lesson of the missionary is the enchanter's wand. 

 The house had been built, the windows framed, the fields 

 ploughed, and even the trees grafted, by the New Zealander. 

 At the mill, a New Zealander was seen powdered white with 

 flour, like his brother miller in England. When I looked at 

 this whole scene, I thought it admirable. It was not merely 

 that England was brought vividly before my mind ; yet, as the 

 evening drew to a close, the domestic sounds, the fields of corn, 

 the distant undulating country with its trees might well have 



