At length we reach Tahoraite, the present terminus, eighty-two miles from Napier. The air is keen and bracing. Around us we can see countless leagues of forest country and wooded ranges stretching to the far-off plains below, and climbing in rugged succession, range on range, right up to the topmost peaks of the main mountain chain above us.
The fourteen-mile drive to Woodville is very beautiful. It is through the New Zealand bush. Having said that, I have said enough. At Woodville, the public school and various public buildings were neat, but, evidently, inexpensive edifices of wood—not the extravagant palaces which the cupidity of the electors, the plasticity of Cabinets, and the log-rolling of members have peppered down in every hamlet in New South Wales, where the money might have been infinitely better expended on reproductive works of public utility. But there!! "Off the track again, you see!"
At Woodville you have the choice of three routes. The one, to take coach to Masterton, and thence by rail to Wellington; another to go on through the famous Manawatu Gorge to Palmerston, thence by rail to Foxton on the coast, and then either by coach along the beach, or by steamer to Wellington; or, thirdly, from Palmerston by rail to Wanganui, and then on to the capital by steamer.
We chose the last mentioned, as we had business in Wanganui.
