FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 297 
the others as well, didn’t you?’’ Only then did I learn that he 
himself was the artist. The further deduction was easy; Mr. 
Atkinson had been a member of the British navy and I later 
learned that he had been an officer on duty on the morning of the 
surrender and had gotten the inspiration and the preliminary 
sketches on that occasion which later made possible his fine paint- 
ing. Again illustrating the versatility of those New Zealanders. 
In fact the most remarkable feature of New Zealand is its 
people. An almost pure Anglo-Saxon stock, mainly English and 
Seotch with some Welch and a slight admixture of Irish they con- 
stitute as fine an assemblage of folks as can be found in the world. 
An officer of the government said that he knew of but one person 
in the Dominion who did not speak English and that one was the 
mother of a state employee, an expert in some field, recently 
brought from Europe for a special service. I frequently made 
excuse to be on the streets when the schools were dismissed in the 
afternoon, just to see the flood of beautiful young children throng- 
ing those thoroughfares. The streets were crowded with a pure 
Anglo-Saxon stock such as is no longer seen in America except 
intermingled in the crowds from all other parts of Europe. 
Any one who visits these British Possessions is impressed by 
their practice of developing botanical gardens, though this term 
is entirely too narrow to cover the range of their services. In 
connection with the larger cities they usually maintain more or 
less formal gardens with many trees, shrubs, flowers and decora- 
tive plants. But of greater importance is the fact that through 
these preserves they seek to protect and cultivate their native 
vegetation growing either undisturbed or in natural habitat rela- 
tions. For instance at Suva, in addition to the well planted 
grounds around the Government buildings, there was an extensive 
botanical garden carrying a representative display of tropical 
plants. At Auckland, in addition to the smaller city parks, there 
was the broad ‘‘Domain’’ of several hundred acres with a wide 
range of forest forms and associated plants. Their new Museum 
building is to be erected in the border of this area. 
So at Wellington one was not surprised to find a very large 
tract of land near the center of the city, which was far more than 
a park, in that it was primarily a place for the cultivation and 
protection of considerable stretches of natural vegetation. Certain 
portions are devoted to cultivated plants of various kinds and of 
course such parts are distinctly artificial and primarily intended 
