1 204 A USTRALA SI A ILL US TRA TED. 



mountain whence its waters spring. The height of the Falls ranges from one hundred 

 to three hundred feet, and their breadth from fifteen to forty feet. Two other lakes 

 of great interest that should be visited before quitting this strangely romantic region, are 

 Wanaka and Hawea, the former of which is, in some respects, the most fascinating of 

 all the lakes. The route to Wanaka is by way of Arrowtown to Pembroke, some fifty- 

 nine miles, passing on the road either Cardrona or Cromwell, both mining townships. 

 Pembroke consists of a few houses standing on the shore of Wanaka, but it is the 

 point from which the steamer starts to make its weekly tour of the Lake. The chief 

 points to be visited are Glendhur, the Matukituki Valley and Mount Aspiring one of 

 the four highest peaks, and probably the most extensive snow mountain, in Australasia, 

 except Mount Cook Mounts Iron and Granclview, Brown's Bay, and the head of the 

 Clutha River. But the trip, par excellence, is that by steamer round the Lake. " From 

 the shore of Lake Wanaka," says Mr. N. Blair, C.E., "it is possible to see about thirty 

 named and measured peaks, from four thousand to nearly ten thousand feet high, and a 

 countless number that have been neither named nor measured." The height of Mount 

 Aspiring is nine thousand nine hundred and forty feet. Lake Hawea is only about six 

 miles distant from Pembroke, and there is a hotel near its shores. It is the smallest of 

 these lakes, being about fifteen miles long, three miles broad, and of a general 

 depth varying from nine hundred to one thousand two hundred feet, or as low as four 

 hundred and fifty feet near the head. The finest scenery in this enchanting neighbour- 

 hood is at its head. 



THE WEST COAST SOUNDS. 



Since 1887, when the Union Steam-ship Company first projected a holiday trip to 

 the Sounds, on the western coast of Otago, it has been continued as an annual fixture, 

 and of late years so highly has the excursion risen in repute that it has been found 

 necessary to make two trips annually at an interval of a few weeks apart. One of the 

 finest steam-ships of the Company sails from Dunedin for the Sounds during the month 

 of January, and for those who desire to be thrilled, delighted and impressed by the 

 sublime, lovely and majestic in Nature, no better opportunity will present itself. For a 

 distance of one hundred and ten miles, the western coast of Otago consists of towering 

 precipitous mountains, thickly clad with foliage of the most vivid verdure, carrying their 

 perpendicular fronts right out into the depths of the ocean, and with their iron-bound 

 sides penetrated by numerous fiords and sounds, which would seem to have been 

 laboriously chiselled out of the impenetrable adamant by a race of Titans, by the side 

 of whom those of the Grecian myth must sink into the proportions of pigmies. 



The scenery of this west coast is absolutely unique, and incomparably grand. To 

 imagine that the base of the frowning heights is submerged with a sheer descent into 

 the ocean without throwing out any submarine slopes that can be grappled by 

 a vessel's anchor, are a chain of half-submerged Himalayas, and that the deep and 

 narrow fissures on their sides, expanding after many a tortuous passage into lovely 

 sounds, mark the upper limits of beautiful and sequestered vales now sunk far down 

 beneath the wave, is not to give unbridled rein to a fantastic conceit, but to realize 

 what geologists assert to be actually the case. They may differ as to whether the 



