ii 32 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED, 



convinced that they are building up the frame-work of a large and important inland 

 city. So far pastoral pursuits predominate in the district, and holdings ranging in area 

 from forty to forty thousand acres. The rabbit is a colonizing agent which compels 

 greater attention here than in any other part of the North Island, and the settlers 

 have long ago come to the conclusion that the pest takes up too much room and must 

 be extirpated. How to accomplish that end remains a problem yet to be solved. 



Twelve miles beyond Masterton by rail lies the Scandinavian settlement of Maurice- 

 ville, planted in the midst of the forest out of which its site has been hewn. The 

 railway line is open for four miles farther, and it is being actively pushed on to 

 Woodville, with which, ere long, it will connect, thus affording a direct alternative route 

 to Napier. Meanwhile the existing gap is bridged by coaching through the Forty-Mile 

 Bush, where the road runs parallel to that through the Seventy-Mile Bush, and both 

 introduce the tourist to some of the best specimens of virgin forest to be found in 

 New Zealand. They are bound to be the seats of a large industrial population, while 

 the timber is a legacy of natural wealth whose value is incalculable. In this connection 

 it may be noted that the colony's annual output of kauri timber amounts altogether to 

 about one hundred and ten million feet, while the timber in the kauri forests at present 

 known is estimated at twenty-three billion feet. The tree rises to a height of one 

 hundred feet without a branch, and the timber is largely exported in what is called 

 "junk," the logs being squared with an axe. In view of the large demands of the 

 trade, and its great value to the colony, the question of forest conservation in New 

 Zealand is becoming an important one. 



THE TOPOGRAPHY OF NEW ZEALAND. 



The islands which appertain to the northern division of the colony may be set 

 down as the Chatham and Kermadec Groups, and the three islands which form the 

 Chatham Group lie about four hundred miles to the eastward of Cook Strait, and are 

 in regular communication with Akaroa. They are distinguished from the other islands 

 by their greater extent, superior fertility supporting as they do a population of some 

 seven hundred and milder climate, while the ethnologist will find them especially attrac- 

 tive from the fact that they contain the remnants of the Morioris, an undersized dark 

 and Papuan race, whom the Maoris are said to have dispossessed when they landed in 

 New Zealand. Chatham Island itself is forty miles long, of irregular shape, and marked 

 by numerous bights on the coast-line, with small lakes. The land generally lies low, 

 and the principal pursuits of the people are pastoral and agricultural. Wild pigs abound, 

 and wild ducks, curlew, plover and pigeons furnish plenty of sport. The area of land 

 is about six hundred thousand acres. In spite of the fact that Lieutenant Broughton, 

 R.N., in 1791 took nominal possession of the Islands for the British Crown, the New 

 Zealand Land Company, in 1841, claiming exclusive possession, proposed to sell them to 

 a German company which intended to place them under the national flag of the Hanse 

 Towns. Lord Stanley, however, promptly interfered, and defeated the imprudent project 

 by asserting the paramount authority of the Crown. 



The Kermadec Group is the latest addition to New Zealand territory. Great Britain 

 hoisted her flag over these islands in 1886, and when she checked New Zealand's 



