SIGHT-SEEING IN NEW ZEALAND. 317 



On the south-western coast are numerous sounds or inlets of 

 the sea, like the fiords of Norway, only that they are on a far 

 grander scale than their northern competitors. We entered them 

 from the ocean through narrow gateways between almost perpen- 

 dicular ledges that towered to six and seven thousand feet. Within 

 are broad and deep basins, without an anchorage or a shelving 

 shore, and in which we see only snow-capped peaks, and water 

 falls that leap out into the air and end in clouds of spray. For 

 wildness and grandeur there is no scenery like this in the known 

 world. 



One day on my travels by the slow and tedious colonial rail- 

 ways, I was left over night at Invercargill, the extremest southern 

 city of South Island, as far in the southern latitudes as St. Johns 

 in Newfoundland is in the northern. I will ask you for the last 

 time to listen to a short description from my diary during this 

 visit. 



Last evening I sat at my window admiring the southern con- 

 stellations. The most conspicuous object was the Cross, composed 

 of four brilliant stars set in the brightest part of the Milky Way. 

 At this hour it was lying flat, away up in the heavens, only half 

 risen and pointing horizontally to the South Pole, about as far 

 from it as the Dipper is from the North Pole. Two first magni- 

 tude stars a little below, alpha and beta Centauri, and called the 

 pointers of the Cross, are interesting as being, one the nearest, 

 and the other the third nearest stars to us in all the heavens, 

 respectively twenty and forty million million miles away. Over- 

 head was the " false cross," and still another cross in Argo. In 

 the dark vacancy where the South Pole is located, for there are 

 absolutely no stars in the vicinity of this Pole, are two little 

 white clouds, like small patches of the Milky Way that had 

 strayed off and got lost, called the Clouds of Magellan. Just 

 under the Southern Cross and near the foot star, is a black space 

 where the telescope reveals not a star nor a nebular haze. The 

 sailors call it the " Devil's tar pot." 



I was up in the night and sat again at my window, the bright 

 stars and clear night-air keeping me from sleep. The Southern 

 Cross had climbed to its zenith, almost directly overhead, and 



