of some of the mad, harebrained escapades of "the boys" that would scarcely be believed in these more prosaic, steady-paced, and orderly latter-days. It certainly was a rough time, and a rough place then. But now, how changed!
Timaru has grown into a city. Solid blocks of stately shops, warehouses, and offices now line the principal streets. The hotels are quite up to metropolitan form. The very hills, as I have said, have been levelled, and stately churches, a theatre, convent, schools, banks, mills, a massive post and telegraph office, and countless cosy homes and handsome villas now stud the slopes where I have erstwhile seen the peaceful sheep quietly browsing among the tussocks.
When I first recollect the place, the postmistress has been heard to say to the young telegraph clerk: "I hear you had a telegram through this afternoon; why didn't you tell me?" Yes, in the primitive time the advent of a telegram was quite an incident. Now in the palatial post-office the service is conducted by an army of clerks and messengers. The hospital is really a magnificent stone building, and second to none I have yet seen in the colony. A great part of the bleak hill, on which stood the Royal Hotel, has been cut away to form the railway-station and shunting-yards, and quite, a large area has been reclaimed from the relentless surf.
Now, had any one twenty years ago told me that those shifting masses of shingle, those travelling acres of rattling roaring boulders
