seems to gleam with a kindly welcome to the returning wanderer.
Now we near the Heads. Dear me! How I remember the clustered rigging, thick with immigrants, as we clung to the shrouds and gazed on the land we had come so far to see. What changes since then! How many have gone down in life's fight and been trampled into the dust of forgetfulness. How many are scattered far and wide over the earth's circumference, for I have met shipmates in far-apart places. How very few have weathered all the storms and reached the quiet haven of cosy opulence and middle-aged leisure. Ah, well! it is the way of the world, and my fight is not by any means over yet.
The changes in Port Lyttelton are little short of phenomenal. What was but a bare harbour, with a shingly beach, on which we had to step from watermen's boats, which plied between ship and shore, is now a magnificent port, with an enormous embracing breakwater, with stately wharves on massive piles, reticulated with a network of rails, along which the busy locomotives snort and steam. Trucks laden with produce are propelled merrily along. Great sheds line the shores. A big terminal railway-station skirts the sea-face, where once the waves lapped the strand. A noble observatory crowns the promontory above. The quarantine-station is bright and gay with houses and gardens. The town runs its open streets up the steep hill and the houses overflow into every nook on the hillsides and jostle each other almost into the water.
