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planted by European domesticated plants, and the weeds always 
accompanying the latter are mingling with the remnants of the 
indigenous flora. Roads are intersecting in all directions the hilly 
country between the Waitemata and the Manukau. Cottages and 
farms are dotting the smiling landscape between Auckland and 
Oneliunga. The premises are very substantially fenced in by solid 
basalt-walls and quick-set hedges; and wherever the nature of the 
soil or the structure of the ground admits of cultivation, there grass 
and clover paddocks , and gardens and fields have been laid out. 
Cattle are browsing in the meadows; omnibuses enliven the roads; 
here a farmer’s family in the one-horse dog-cart; there ladies 
and gentlemen mounted on horse-back: — a picture full of fresh- 
ness and vigour and of gay and merry life, as in the happy, 
idyllic spots and cherished haunts of our native home. 
Like mirrors artificially enframed , the ponds , set in the 
old circular tuff-craters , are glistening afar. The sea is dashing 
far into the land, as though water and land had as yet not sti- 
pulated for their proper limits. Towards North arises the majestic 
liangitoto from the waters of the Waitemata; and opposite to it, 
the smaller cones of the Northshore. Sailing vessels are passing 
in and out through the channel , and boats are racing over the 
harbour. On the other side of the Isthmus , on the waters of the 
Manukau, the mail-steamer, with its long whirling columns of 
smoke, is bringing us letters and taking along our greetings to “the 
loved ones at home.” On surveying all this, how should the stranger 
realize, that lie is in New Zealand at the Antipodes. 
Only yonder in the distant horizon, towards West and 
South , where sombre shadows are hovering over lofty mountain- 
ranges, there are still traces to remind us of virgin forest and of 
primeval wilderness. Yet, the curly wreath of smoke ascending 
there, is a proof, that even there the son of man has fixed his 
abode. There are the first settlers, pioneering for generations to 
come. A small log-house is standing in the midst of the dusky bush, 
it is the scanty shelter of a family, that has come many a thou- 
sand miles far o’er the deep , to found a new homestead in a new 
Hoc hs tetter, New Zealand. 16 
