RAMBLES ROUND DUNEDIN. 21$ 



prevailed when the Otago pioneers undertook those arduous 

 labours, whose results we now inherit. 



To walk from Swampy Hill to Mount Cargill across the 

 low saddle between the Leith and the Waitati necessitates 

 even yet the only bit of bush scrambling on our rovite. As 

 late as ten or fifteen years ago this bush was intact, and 

 was the abode of those lovely and delicate ferns which are 

 so characteristic of the unbroken forest land. But it is 

 now being rapidly swept away one wonders what for, for 

 of all occupations that of destroying the native bush for 

 the sake of the firewood, and leaving in its stead the bare 

 hard clay-seamed hill-sides on which the very grass is apt to 

 be replaced by sorrel and other weeds that a few poor cows 

 can hardly get a living on except in the summer months, 

 seems to me one of the poorest that a working man can 

 take to. Just look across from Maori Hill to the slopes 

 of Pine Hill and Mount Cargill in the months of December 

 and January. It is not grass that we see. The ground is 

 not so much green as greyish-white from the abundance of 

 daisies, marguerites, and stitchworts (Stellana graminea) 

 which are then in flower. 



The complete barrier of hills which encircles Dunedin 

 seriously interferes with its expansion, just as the natural 

 silting up of its harbour has affected its position as a port. 

 There are only about two routes by which railway com- 

 munication with the country north and south could be 

 obtained in both cases by selecting the lowest and 

 narrowest cols or necks in the surrounding hills, and 

 piercing them by tunnels. One of these has provided the 

 western outlet at Caversham. The other, at the saddle 

 of the Leith and Waitati, was not utilised as it should 

 have been, but with that cursed political bias which 

 dominates so many men and schemes in this new country, 

 the line was taken by an almost impracticable roundabout 

 road to make it pass Port Chalmers. The increased cost 

 due to interest on construction and five miles of extra 

 haulage must always make the Dunedin- Waitaki section of 

 the northern railway an extravagant one. And the price 

 the community has to pay for this political job the selling 



