SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 301 



Englishmen live ; but yon do not get much of anything else 

 worth speaking of. 



But out of doors the summer foliage and flowers were at their 

 best ; and it was as good as a feast to the hungry, to wander 

 through the beautiful parks and gardens of this luxuriant country. 

 The broad-leaved, fat-armed, India-rubber trees, the Norfolk 

 Island pines, the most symmetrical trees that grow, the Morton 

 Bay figs, a species of Banyan with aerial roots, the Nikau palm, 

 the strange and only palm growth of these islands, and numerous 

 other tropical productions adorn and diversify the walks and 

 drives in the vicinity of Auckland. 



A favorite excursion is to the top of Mount Eden, an extinct 

 volcano, some six or eight hundred feet high. There are over 

 sixty similar cones within ten miles of this city. From this 

 nearest one the visitor gets a grand panoramic view of a beautiful 

 city built on hills, of a romantic country dotted with crater 

 peaks, and of the islands and headlands of two magnificent 

 harbors situated on either side of the narrow neck of land on 

 which Auckland is located. One of them opens into the western 

 ocean, and the other, the one by which we came, opens by various 

 and distant outlets into the eastern ocean. 



In a few days we had gathered together a party of six for the 

 grand excursion to the Hot Springs and Lakes. One afternoon 

 we took the little steamer " Glenelg," of about one hundred tons, 

 and started out for Tauranga, a port on the south-eastern coast. 

 Our steamer seemed to me rather a cockle shell concern to face 

 the billows of the great Pacific Ocean. However, with some 

 considerable tumbling as we rounded the capes, it carried us 

 through quite comfortably, and we arrived the next morning in 

 time for breakfast. 



Crowds of Maoris, in their gay-colored blankets and paints and 

 tattoos, were in the streets and all through the hotel, not begging 

 nor putting themselves in our way, but pleased if they could 

 shake hands with us, and say : " Me big chief; me fight pakeha ;" 

 that is the foreigner. For you must know that this is the center of 

 the fiercest wars between the natives and the English. The 

 Maoris are savage fighters, perfect devils to stick and hang, and 



