m 4 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



the Rautaniwha Plains stretching away to the west, far beyond the line of vision. 

 Nine miles farther on, Ormondville is reached, and the line enters the Seventy-mile 

 Bush, where some of the finest sylvan scenery in the colony is to be met with. This 

 tract of country contains also almost unlimited supplies of some of the most valuable 

 indigenous timber ; and the land, when cleared, is admirably suited for agricultural 

 purposes. The great bulk of the forest is in the hands of the Government, and it has 

 established there two settlements of Scandinavian immigrants Norsewood and Danevirke 

 while a considerable trade is also done in timber. In March, 1888, during a particu- 

 larly dry season, a fire broke out in this part of the bush and completely destroyed the 

 Norsewood settlement, many of the settlers saving their lives with difficulty. After 

 several hours' journey through the magnificent forest, with its occasional stump clearings, 

 rising settlements and, sequestered homesteads, the line emerges finally from its shade, 

 and reaching Woodville the tourist finds himself at the present terminus of the railway. 

 This is a promising centre of inland traffic, and its saw-mills and dairy factory indicate 

 the chief occupation of its people. The portion of the line required to effect a junction 

 with the Foxton-Wellington Railway at Palmerston North is still in course of construction, 

 and when it is completed Wellington will be in uninterrupted communication by land 

 with Napier on the east coast, as it now is with New Plymouth on the west coast. 



THROUGH THE MAXAWATU GORGK TO WAXGAXTI. 



Through the Gorge to Palmerston the journey is by coach. This Gorge is a chasm, 

 or tremendous rift, in the Rauhine Mountains, by which the River Manawatu, on leaving 

 Hawke's Bay, enters the province of Wellington. Two miles out of Woodville a gently 

 sloping and winding avenue leads down to the entrance of the Gorge, where the River 

 is spanned by a fine bridge. Fifty feet below rolls the stream, on the farther side of 

 which the buttresses of the hills slope sharply back, covered from the water's edge to 

 the summits with a dense and varied vegetation tree ferns, nikau palms, creepers, pines 

 whatever in New Zealand forest life is rich and beautiful ; whilst overhead from the 

 narrow shelf of road the hills ascend for many hundred feet with an ascent so steep 

 that it strains the eye to follow them to the top. At intervals- the sides of the Gorge 

 are seamed with deep ravines, darkened to perpetual twilight by the overspreading green 

 of shrubs and ferns that luxuriate in their dark recesses, down which the cool pellucid 

 runnels tumble from the hills to mix with the yellow water of the River. Owing to 

 the windings of the Gorge, its full magnificence is not at once revealed, and there is 

 something delightful in the feeling of expectation with which one looks for fresh revela- 

 tions at each successive turn of the road. After passing several pretty cascades that 

 tumble down the hill-side, and rush through culverts underneath the road to the River, 

 the Gorge gradually widens, and presently the coach is out in the open. Beyond the 

 Manawatu the country is level ; and, until reaching Palmerston, verdant with rolling grass 

 or grain, and affluent with its herds of sleek-coated cattle. Palmerston North, so qualified 

 in its designation to distinguish it from the other Palmerston in the province of Otago, 

 has been laid out on a large scale. It was originally founded by a colony of Danes 

 and Norwegians, but their identity has been lost in the flowing tide of Anglo-Saxon 

 colonization. Taking the train at Palmerston for New Plymouth, the traveller passes the 



