-WEKA PASS ROCK-PAINTINGS. 13 
their embodiment in some one or other amongst us; so that we 
had the means not only of extracting from the journey the neces- 
sary holiday enjoyment, but of procuring, to a great extent, a 
sufficiently fair guide to correct judgment on the paintings them- 
selves. During the time occupied in reaching Amberley there 
was plenty of opportunity for inspection of the country passed 
through; and, without now desiring to run into uncalled-for 
ecstacies, it may be safely said that on such a morning no settler 
in New Zealand need require excuse for feeling proud of the work 
done and the results achieved, level and tame as the plains might 
appear to eyes accustomed to the more varied beauties of hill and 
vale ; there was a richness in the very flatness of the country, a 
wealth of deep green vegetation, a suggestion of full garners and 
fat herds in the closely packed farms and homesteads, a thorough 
air of agricultural prosperity in all that the eye rested on, that 
could not but gladden the heart. To borrow the words of a 
colonial poet “from the top of the Port Hills, 
: in wide expansion spreads the myriad-coloured plain, 
Dusky woodlands, emerald meadows, laughing fields of waving grain. 
Far away the shadowy mountains run their dim mysterious ring, 
Till the huge Kaikoura, towering, wears his snow-crown as their king. 
Yes, indeed, the land is fair, and memory, swiftly glancing back 
Through the vista of the years as o’er some half-forgotten track, 
Sees the stages of its progress ; sees how, each old mark effaced, 
Less than half a life-time’s span has made a garden of the waste.”’ 
Arriving at Amberley, we found a four-horse coach, specially 
engaged, waiting to carry us on the sixteen miles or so to our 
destination. Amberley, a prosperous little village, where, seven 
or eight years ago, there could be seen nothing but tusssocks and 
sheep, is the present terminus of the northern railway; at least 
the line is finished to the Waipara River, some six miles further, 
but only goods trains run thereon at present. From the Wai- 
para therailway cuttings arebeing made through the Weka Pass to 
Waikari, and the opening of this line is supposed to be fixed for 
January, 1882. At Waikari (the northern extremity of the Pass) 
the railway, for the present, stops dead at a collection of half a 
dozen shanties and a public house; in the more or less immediate 
vicinity of which are, I believe, several thousand acres of land 
under crop, but these are not visible from the “hotel.” Whether 
the Government will for some years to come carry the railway 
farther north, I cannot say ; but the proposed West Coast Rail- 
way scheme will, if effected, soon connect Waikari, Amberley, 
and Christchurch with the rich goldfields and timber forests of 
Westland. But these are matters with which our excursion party 
nothing todo. Two things, however, formed the subject of much 
comment amongst some of our number. One was the absence 
of, and the urgent necessity for, extensive plantations in the 
district north of Amberley. The whole of the northern portion 
of Canterbury suffers greatly from the dryness of its climate. 
When a north-westerly wind blows, as it does, off and on, half the 
year, the clouds are seen rigidly confined to the hill ranges and 
