More than that, they are all possible friends, as I found before I had been two hours in Wellington. I asked some question of a lady in one of the tramcars, and after a little conversation she took me to a restaurant for "morning tea." Here, in a large and airy room, where all the small tables were decorated with vases of flowers on spotless white tablecloths, we were served with date-scones and sandwiches by girls tastefully dressed in green and white. The same day, my friend of the morning ent

STEWART ISLAND Stewart Island lies south of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated by Foveaux Strait, a channel only thirty miles wide; but usually the sea there is rough, and the passage from South Island to Stewart Island in a small steam tug an unpleasant one. Stewart Island is about forty miles long from north to south, and has a coastline of between five and six hundred miles. In addition to Stewart Island proper there are numerous small islands, named and unnamed, scattered round t

OVERLAND TO MILFORD SOUND The walk along the Milford Track from Lake Te Anau to Milford Sound has been described by a New Zealand writer as "the finest walk in the world." It is a walk of thirty-three miles, through scenery of ever-changing variety and beauty, and is now undertaken annually by hundreds of tourists during the summer months. Milford Track is in the South Island, among the lakes and fiords of Otago, and goes through an uninhabited and unexplored country of dense forest and inaccess

THE COLD LAKES OF OTAGO One of the favourite holiday excursions in the South Island is to the Cold Lakes of Otago. In England it is hardly necessary to explain that lakes are cold, but in New Zealand you never know—you find a pool of hot sulphur water under the Southern Alps, and hot creeks and lakes in the thermal district of North Island. The largest of the Otago lakes is Wakatipu—a lake like a beautiful blue serpent. It is fifty miles long and varies in width from one mile to three and a half

THE NEW ZEALAND EDINBURGH The town of Dunedin is Scotch in name and origin and in the number of its inhabitants who are of Scotch descent, and is renowned for the enterprise of its settlers and the solid worth of its buildings and institutions. It was founded, in 1848, by Scotch Presbyterians; and though there is now an Anglican Bishop of Dunedin, and Ministers of various denominations, Presbyterianism is yet the dominant form of Christianity. Like other New Zealand settlements, the new Scotch c

AMONG THE SOUTHERN ALPS My first experience of tourist travelling in New Zealand was a trip to the Southern Alps, with a stay among the mountains of only six days. It was a very short visit, but long enough for something of the fascination of the mountains to take hold of me and bring me back later for several months. From Christchurch the traveller sees, a hundred miles away, on the western side of the Canterbury Plain, the whole range of the Southern Alps, a wonderful rampart of snowy peaks; a

CHRISTCHURCH Christchurch ranks next to Auckland as the second largest city in the Dominion, and in its general plan and social atmosphere is the most English of New Zealand towns. It was founded in 1850 by members of the "Canterbury Association," with the Archbishop of Canterbury at their head, as a settlement in connection with the Church of England, and was named after Christchurch College, Oxford. The exclusive character of the colony was soon found to be impracticable—all colonists were mad

FROM CHRISTCHURCH TO THE WEST COAST At 8.30 one autumn morning, I left Christchurch, the City of the Plains, to travel across New Zealand from the Pacific Ocean to the Tasman Sea. The railway line runs westward through the great Canterbury Plain, a fertile country containing some of the best land in New Zealand for all kinds of farming. Long ago this plain must have been covered with bush, for early settlers tell how in ploughing they used to find the decayed stumps of forest trees; now, on eith

THREE WEEKS IN WESTLAND South Westland is a land apart from the rest of New Zealand—cut off by the mountains—an enchanted land, which if you once learn to know and love you never wish to leave, and when you do go away, you must always be wanting to return. It is a land of mountain and forest, of glacier and waterfall and rushing river, of blue sky and wide ocean. I first saw it in late autumn, when day after day the sun shone with steady radiance, warming you through and through as if it were st

THROUGH THE BULLER VALLEY I first went into Westland from Christchurch by way of the Otira Gorge: I left it for Wellington by way of the Buller Gorge and the town of Nelson. For three days the return journey is the same—the drive by coach to Ross and the railway to Greymouth: here, instead of turning east to cross the mountains, you go on still by railway, over the Grey River and into the province of Nelson as far as Reefton, where at present the line ends, though it is gradually being continued

THE COPLAND PASS As seen from the Hermitage, the Southern Alps form an apparently impassable barrier between Canterbury on the east and the Province of Westland lying between the mountains and the western sea. There are certainly no coach roads or bridle tracks across the snow, but with the help of a guide, a good walker, however inexperienced in mountaineering, can without much difficulty cross the mountains by one of the passes or saddles which divide some of the high peaks. Accordingly, early

THE WESTLAND GLACIERS I was back at Waiho Gorge and content—seventy miles from the nearest train, and with a mail once a week. At Waiho, there are a few small huts, three cottages and the hotel. The Glacier Hotel is a two-storied wooden building, with verandah and balcony, and accommodation for between thirty and forty; it has a dining-room, smoking-room and two sitting-rooms, in one of which is an excellent piano; there are two bathrooms with a good supply of hot and cold water, and soon the ho

THE WAITOMO CAVES As in other countries, so in New Zealand, there are limestone caves, with stalactites and stalagmites, and all their effect of wonder and mystery. They are found in some of the low hills which rise in the heart of the Maori-owned "King Country," and as they are only a few miles from the Main Trunk railway line, which connects Wellington with Auckland, they can be very conveniently visited by tourists going north or south. The distance from Wellington to the caves is three hundr

NEW ZEALAND'S WONDERLAND In the middle of the North Island of New Zealand is a marvellous district, stretching from White Island, in the Bay of Plenty, to the active volcano of Ngaruhoe, a hundred and fifty miles to the south, and varying in breadth from ten to twenty miles. Throughout the whole of this area no one knows what will happen next. Strange underground rumblings are heard; earthquake shocks are felt; in places the whole countryside is puffing out volumes of steam; and only twenty-seve

AUCKLAND The people of Auckland love to think of their city as "last, loneliest, loveliest, exquisite, apart," and when they are away from it, they miss its sunny climate, with the glint of the sunlight on the water and through the water of its spacious harbours. It is the largest town in New Zealand, and has a population of one hundred and ten thousand inhabitants. It is situated on a neck of land, at its narrowest only eight miles wide, with the shining sea on both sides; and it is to its posi