of Christchurch for the time being. It is through the courtesy of Bishop Julius that the author has been privileged to read it and to make use of some of the good material with which it abounds.
Christchurch, when Mr. Sewell landed in February, 1853, was an odd straggling place, with small wooden buildings dotted about, and a few gardens enclosed by rough palings. Mr. Sewell found it entirely unattractive, though assured by its inhabitants that, like olives, it improved on further acquaintance. The most striking feature was its lack of trees, not one tree being in sight nearer than the Riccarton Bush. The town was, in fact, so open that everyone could see what everyone else was doing at any hour of the day.
Christchurch and Lyttelton were then rivals, and Mr. Sewell’s anticipation was that Lyttelton, as the port and centre of distribution, would become the chief city. He did not give pride of place to Christchurch even on the plains, believing that a more important town would grow up at Kaiapoi, and possibly another in the Ellesmere district, within easy reach of Lyttelton by way of the low saddle at the head of Gebbie’s Valley.
Mr. Sewell experienced a great deal of bad weather on his arrival, and his early diary is full of ravings against the climate. “Oh, this New Zealand climate—this South of France with Italian skies. I am told that the present season is exceptional—so it was last year, perhaps it will be the same next: speak as you find it, is my motte.” The climate has changed since then under the influence of plantations and the cultivation of the plains. Those were the days of the old-fashioned sou’-westers, when the track between Lyttelton and Christchurch became impassable. However, in later entries, Mr. Sewell retracted a good deal of his criticism.
A feature of New Zealand life in those days was the scarcity of labour. The Victorian gold diggings had just been discovered, and it was very little use bringing
