Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand/Introduction
INTRODUCTION.
The Nineteenth Century is an Age of Travel. Every accessible point of interest and coigne of vantage on the universal globe is becoming, year by year, a scene of pilgrimage for increasing bands of tourists. Journeyings and wanderings to and fro, which, to the past generation, would have seemed daring deeds and “enterprises of great pith and moment,” are in these days of progression deemed but ordinary occurrences. Given but the means, the way is clear to the tourist, even to the “nethermost parts of the earth.” New Zealand, the Britain of the South, admittedly presents a diversity of scenery, unsurpassed in its variety, magnificence, and grandeur, by any other part of the world. It is, in sooth, a land of picturesque wonders, wherein the admirer of the sublime may “look from Nature up to Nature’s God” in never-ceasing awe and admiration. Foremost in its wide and long continuing stretch of panoramic beauty, forest and glade, and hill and dale, mountains overtopping mountains, “Ossa piled upon Pilion,” woodland, lakes, wide brimming rivers, and deep-sea sounds, cleaving their way into wild solitudes—offspring of the mighty Pacific wooing in their homes the Sylvan deities—stands the West Coast of the South Island.
Time was, and not so long since, when its solitudes were untrodden by European footsteps. The mariner, scudding along the coast, viewed from afar off the stupendous mountain system rising, apparently, from the very bosom of the sea, and cared not for closer vicinage, save when driven by stress of wind or tempest, of which few save himself knew the extent and beauty. Gold, the all-potent agency of civilisation, at last lured hither expectant and self-reliant thousands, the waste places were inhabited, towns sprang up as if by magic, migration from all parts of the Australasian Colonies came henceward, and settlement on the West Coast became a mighty factor in the work of colonisation. Improved steamboat communication, and increased facilities for inland travel, now offer inducements, which tourists are beginning to understand and appreciate. Every succeeding summer witnesses an increase of visitors, who go away, at once delighted and amazed, to spread in widening circles their tales of this wonderland. It would be no extravagant prediction to assert that in a few years hence the West Coast will become a recognised stage in the grand tour, which to miss will be to mar all pleasurable recollections.
Already the need has arisen for a work of this kind, which is intended partly as a vade mecum, to direct travellers on pleasure bent, what to seek and what to avoid, how to order their goings to and fro, and how to attain the maximum of pleasure, at a minimum of expense and exertion; and partly as a descriptive history, with illustrations, of the West Coast of New Zealand. Such is the intent, in unpretentious form, of the present volume.
The Sounds of the West Coast of Otago first call for reference, and in the description we shall introduce to our readers, we shall endeavour to fulfil a twofold object. First to place at their disposal one of the earliest of the many descriptions, published in fugitive form, of the West Coast Sounds; and secondly, to keep the memory green of a journalist who, ranking high in his profession, was identified with the earliest history of the coast, was well esteemed by all who knew him—and they were many—and whose untimely end was a source of profound regret. We refer to the late Alexander Reid, formerly editor of the West Coast Times.
A journalist’s repute is at the best but evanescent. Writing but of the passing topics of the hour, each day brings its new duty, wiping off the record of the day that is past. His abiding influence is felt rather than seen, he moulds public opinion even while he expresses its passing phases, he chronicles the story of our lives from day to day, but unlike the historian who hands down his laborious tomes as heirlooms to posterity, the journalist gains but ephemeral fame. Like the “poor player,” he “struts his brief hour,” and then passes out of the land of shadows, not unwept, but oft “unhonoured and unsung.”
The other chapters are mostly descriptive of occasional rides and rambles in various parts of this new “land of the mountain and the flood,”—the Golden Coast of New Zealand—a spot of beauty, full of goodly prospect.
R. C. R.
Hokitika, N.Z.,
1st August 1884.