32 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



within his own boundaries a perfect range of all that 

 is best in the way of climates. If he desires the hard- 

 ness of, say, Yorkshire in autumn or even winter, 

 Southland and Stewart Island can give him what he 

 calls for ; and if, shivering there, he longs for soft skies 

 and genial never-scorching warmth, he may reach them 

 in a few hours. I know of no land beneath the sun 

 more delightful to dwell in than the northern part of 

 the north island of New Zealand, and although, alas ! 

 I have no connexion with it in any way, I need no 

 inducement to sing its praises. 



But I feel that now I am getting too far away 

 from the ocean at present under consideration, and 

 my only excuse must be that Australia and New 

 Zealand always seem to claim attention as a whole, 

 although over a thousand miles of boisterous sea 

 divides them. Retrace we our steps to the torrid 

 shores of Eastern Equatorial Africa, where we shall 

 find that, in spite of its geographical drawbacks in 

 point of position, its proximity to the sea and its 

 tremendous mountain ranges combine to make it far 

 more endurable as a human habitation than the corre- 

 sponding portion of South America. In fact, judging 

 from the reports of those intrepid explorers who have 

 gaily risked life and limb in opening up this rich 

 land, there is here to be found a splendid opening for 

 colonization from Europe, when once the initial diffi- 

 culties of clearing the land have been overcome, and 

 the main pastime of the natives war and its con- 

 comitant, slavery has been sternly put down. Here 

 are immense lakes of fresh water, like those in North 

 America, and having nowhere else any counterpart, 

 except in the barren wastes of Asiatic Russia, where 



