from other parts of the Colony by reports of the proposed settlement, but they were so few and their occupation of the locality before the arrival of the first shipment of old identities was so brief, that one may say that these sturdy pioneers really formed their homes in an unpeopled wilderness. High though the hopes of these early settlers were, not one of them can have been so sanguine as to imagine that little more than forty years would reveal such a city as the Dunedin of to-day. The history of the settlement, and also an account of some of the most interesting features of Dunedin and its neighbourhood, will be found in the following pages; but it may not be out of place to take a cursory glance at the fair city which has arisen in the few short years which have elapsed since the foundation of the settlement. When one looks along the well formed streets, with their substantial buildings, filled with shops replete with all the requirements and luxuries of civilized life, and notes the evidences on every side of the energy of the Anglo-Saxon race, it is hard to realise that its site has so recently been wrested from the wilderness. The telephone wires forming a network overhead, the cable trams conveying their loaded cars up the steepest gradients, and other recent triumphs of human ingenuity, all speak of the activity and capacity of its inhabitants. Nor are there lacking evidences of other than material progress. Churches abound, of all denominations, some of them of no mean order of beauty. We see from the spacious district schools dotted over the city, the picturesquely situated Boys' High School and substantial University buildings, that education is not neglected. Our Art Society, with its annual exhibitions, our Flower Shows, our Athenæum, our musical societies, and our scientific and literary institute, all tell that opportunities of culture and refinement are not wholly lacking. Facilities for mutual assistance and friendly intercourse abound in our Masonic lodges, Friendly Societies, and other institutions. In short, we possess all that could be looked for in a community of some 40,000 souls, situated much nearer to the world's great centres of life and civilization, and Dunedinites have no need to be ashamed of their town, or to apologise for its youth, while of its beauty of situation they may justly be proud. In conclusion, we would ask if so much has been accomplished in less than fifty
