thousand feet in height, which uplifts its massive crest, like a lion couchant, with the paws in the sea. Between us and the beach several lines of heavy surf, through which the narrow bar entrance to a river is just visible, and on the shore a clearing in the forest, with wooden buildings, tents, and corrugated iron structures, which form the metropolis of the new El Dorado, named in Maori "Hokitika." "So this is the place you are going to," said a fellow passenger to me, as we stood admiring the view, "are you going to land?" "No," said I, "I must go on in this boat to Christchurch to report myself, and then return by coach across those mountains, by a road which I hear has just been opened." "Well," said he, "I am going ashore for a few hours on business, and will report on my return what I have seen." Presently he returned. "I'll give you a year or two there at the most; such a place, and such a crowd! One long, narrow irregular street, over a mile in length, of wooden houses, built right on the sandy beach, just clear of huge trees, some fallen; its suburbs a wilderness of gigantic stumps; crowds of men, rough and rowdy; their talk of gold; deep and shallow sinking; new rushes; water races and sluicing. Eighty so-called Hotels in one street; strings of pack-horses heavily laden; no vehicles, for there are only narrow paths through the forest; a few coaches which run up and down the beach. Forty thousand, they say, are at work within a few miles of the town, getting gold by handfuls; everyone evidently flush of money, and yet I didn't see the sign of any sort of weapon or revolver, and only a few well set-up mounted police. Talk was running on the capture and trial of a gang of Australian bushrangers, who have been lurking in
