DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NE\\' /J-ALAA'/>. , ,5, 



selves, did an heroic work in carving out of the wilderness so fine a city and province. 

 Let it be remembered that these pioneers landed at Lyttelton in December, 1850, and 

 that therefore all we now see is the work of less than forty years, and we obtain an 

 estimate of labours which can hardly be too highly extolled. 



So much for the past. Let us proceed to examine the present which it has evolved. 

 Alighting from the train, the visitor steps on the broad flagged pavement of the finest 

 railway station in New Zealand. It is built of brick, with white facings, and has 

 certainly a very pretentious appearance. Across the ample width of the well-formed 



GLOUCESTER STREET, CHRISTCHURCH. 



roadway from the Station stands a spacious family hotel, and in the intermediate distance 

 there is a group of neat-looking cabs. There are also steam-trams in waiting, offering 

 a cheap ride through the city to Sydenham or to Papanui, and as far as Heathcote 

 Bridge on the road to Sumner. The streets are broad and capitally macadamized, 

 the footpaths are trim and clean, and the deep concreted dish-channels on their sides 

 indicate an efficient system of drainage. Another feature particularly pleasing to the eye 

 is the presence of trees. As for the buildings, although Christchurch is not nearly so 

 advanced in the age of brick and stone as Auckland, still wood does not predominate 

 to any appreciable degree. In Colombo Street, High Street and Hereford Street, we 

 pass some stately edifices that would grace any metropolis. As, however, these recognized 

 avenues of business are reached, we begin to weary of the monotony of the dead level 

 of the site of the city, and to long for an eminence which will afford something like 

 a comprehensive survey of the place. Fortunately, art to a moderate extent supplies 

 the want which nature has ignored. In other words, the tower of the Cathedral, two 

 hundred and ten feet high, is the only real coign of vantage from which to view 

 the capital of Canterbury. 



This is the finest ecclesiastical structure in the colony, and its site has been well 

 chosen. It occupies the centre of a large public square in the very heart of the city, 



