I 120 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA TED. 



country. He himself recognizes the futility of struggling longer, even on the lines of a passive 

 resistance, against the inroads of the Pakcha, as he long since satisfied himself of the impolicy of 

 active hostility, and therefore he now counsels obedience and resignation to the white man's rule. 



.THE CITY OF WELLINGTON. 



From New Plymouth to Port Nicholson and Wellington the journey may be 

 comfortably performed in one of the Union Company's well-appointed steam-ships. The 

 entrance to the capital of New Zealand lies between Pencarrow and Palmer Heads, and 

 the only impediment to the navigation is the Barrett Reef, which stands right in the 

 fair-way, but well above the surface, and with a clear breadth of not less than half-a- 

 dozen cables in the main channel. Passing Waddel Point and Ward Island, Halswell 

 Point is at length reached, and rounding it there spreads before the eyes of the traveller 

 a fine view of the capacious land-locked harbour of Wellington, six miles long by 

 six miles broad, with Soames' Island and its quarantine station set right in the 

 centre of a noble expanse of water. Straight in front is Wellington, its business centre 

 grouped along the shores of what was formerly called Lambton Harbour, and its 

 environs extending beyond it on either side, but still from the natural conformation of 

 the ground courting the vicinity of the sea. Immediately behind the city, lofty and 

 sombre-looking ranges tower up in fantastic ruggedness, their base converging towards 



the Harbour at the 

 point where lie the 

 wharves and the centre 

 of commerce, but re- 

 ceding inward on either 

 side and thus opening 

 out the flats of Te 

 Aro and Thorndon. 



Highly unpromis- 

 ing was the original 

 site of Wellington for 

 the location of a large 

 and important city. 

 Well might the earliest 

 Governor of New Zea- 

 land feel his heart sink 

 with dismay as he sur- 

 veyed the infant settle- 

 ment planted upon a 



narrow strip of land, bounded by deep water, and overhung by frowning ranges which seemed 

 to interpose an impassable barrier to its expansion. But when the New Zealand Company 

 selected Port Nicholson as the chief seat of its colonizing er'erprise, its Directors 

 discerned how richly the future could be made to justify the wisdom of their choice. 

 The two great natural advantages which dominated all other considerations of straitened 

 limits, boisterous gales and proneness to earthquake tremors, were the central position of 



WELLINGTON HEAD. 



