CHAPTER IX 
Letter VIII. Dunedin.— A railway ride— A busy dty— Kingstown — 
Magnificent mountain scenery — Rabbits, rabbits everywhere — A 
gloomy passenger — Through Purgatory to Paradise — Gold -mining — 
Tame birds — The German doctor — Back at Dunedin — The growth of 
wealth — A land of olive and honey. 
Dunedin. 
Christchurch is truly English in character, and many 
are the associations awakened by Christchurch ways and 
talk, and the rich level meadows, trim gardens, and tall 
spires, on the dainty, willow-fringed banks of the Avon, 
where in the deep shady pools many speckled trout lie 
hidden. But I was not sorry to turn my back on 
it all. The weather was now intensely cold, and 
before I left most of the mountains were white with 
snow. Though the cold of Dunedin, my next point, is 
perhaps greater, it is a crisper, drier air. The express 
left at eleven in the morning, and in its variety the 
day's journey was a great contrast to one in Australia. 
At one time we ran for miles along the coast close to 
the breakers, and heard nothing but the sound of the 
swell, and the solemn boom of the waves on the shore. 
Then came Oamaru, the white city, with its break- 
water enclosing a basin of 60 acres. Then we pass 
through an agricultural district which boasts of the 
largest wheat and flour mills in the colony. Later, 
the line runs on to high clifls, with the sea hundreds of 
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