i i SS 



A USTRALASIA ILL USTRA T1-I\ 



thirteen years ago it was the largest town in the colony. Within the last decade, however, 

 Auckland has recovered her pre-eminence, and bids fair to retain it. If not now, there- 

 fore, the most populous city of New Zealand, Uunedin, at any rate, yields to none 

 other in architectural effect. Indeed, it possesses within a circumscribed space a greater 



number of imposing buildings than any 

 other town in the colony. A few have 

 already been indicated, and, as the visitor 

 advances from Knox Church along George 

 Street to the immediate centre of business 

 activity, others will come into view. George 

 Street ends by expanding into the Octa- 

 gon, an open reserve whose shape is 

 suggested by its name, and consisting of 

 a number of grass-plots dotted with trees, 

 intersected by narrow asphalted walks, and 

 ornamented with a statue of Burns, which 

 represents the poet seated in an easy pos- 

 ture and with head uplifted as though 

 wrapt in meditation. 



Within the octagonal limits of Moray 

 Place is quite a collection of fine struc- 

 tures, among which the chief place must 

 be assigned to the Town Hall, a hand- 

 some - pile consisting of a basement and 



THE ROBERT BURNS STATUE, DUNEDiN. two upper storeys, with cupolas at the 



corners, and, springing from the centre, a 



tower of four stages, the first faced, with the dial-plates of the town clock, the 

 second being the bell-tower, the third bearing a small railed enclosure offering a 

 capital prospect, and the last stage finishing off with a flag-staff. Within the bounds 

 of Moray Place stand also the Young Men's Christian Association's new building, 

 St. Paul's Anglican Church fronting Stuart Street, and the Jewish Synagogue, as well 

 as First Church. At the corner of Dowling Street is the Garrison Hall and the 

 Lyceum. On the seaward side, the Bank of New Zealand occupies one of the 

 corners of Princes and Rattray Streets, with an attractive edifice built of Oamaru 

 and Port Chalmers stone, and at the opposite corner stands the Colonial Bank. Midway 

 between the two corners of these streets is reared the Cargill Monument, furnished with 

 drinking fountains. The Colonial Bank is flanked on one side by the Post Office, and 

 on the other, or nearer, side by the Telegraph Station. This is the very heart of the 

 city. It is also the dividing point between the old and the new portions of Prince's 

 Street. The part already described is narrow, with extremely contracted footpaths, and 

 with a gradual slope. The remainder of its length southward is spacious in width, as 

 becomes the leading avenue of business in a metropolis, and level withal. At this 

 point also it is ornamented with two of the handsomest hotels in the colony the Grand 

 Hotel, a four-storey pile just opposite the Monument, and Wain's, another four-storey 



