The mayor and Mr. Charles Bowen, who has been prominent in the promotion of education, took C. over the University of New Zealand, Christ College, the High School for boys and girls, and the Normal Schools.
The university has affiliated colleges in Dunedin and Auckland. The degrees it grants are of the first order, and the examinations are conducted by English professors, through the post. Christ's College is a first-rate public school. It has 200 pupils, and boarders and day-boys. The terms are moderate, its premises very fine, and its system unequalled. At the High School for girls a first-rate education is given for sixteen guineas a year. C. found the president, a young lady of no small personal attraction, arrayed in a Master of Arts gown, teaching a class of girls the sixth book of Euclid; and another lady-professor was eloquently lecturing on the Latin derivation of French verbs. At the Normal Schools, an absolutely free and admirable education is given by the state to 1200 boys and girls, including many whose parents are in prosperous if not affluent circumstances.
There is very pleasant genial society at Christchurch, and it is by far the most English of all the towns in Australasia. We agreed afterwards in thinking that we should have chosen to live there, were we coming to settle in the colonies.
Friday, October 17th.—We left Christchurch by the express at 8 a.m. for Dunedin. It is called express only by comparison with the usual speed of fifteen miles, and I suppose travels about twenty miles an hour, taking just twelve hours to reach Dunedin.
We passed over the Canterbury Plains with their golden lines of yellow gorse hedges, bounded on one side by the Southern Alps,—that mighty backbone of the South Island, covered with freshly fallen snow—and by the ocean on the other.
The line gradually converged towards the sea, until we ran along the shore, as we reached Timaru.
After leaving Timaru, we ought to have seen the weather-worn peak of Mount Cook, the highest (10,000 feet) point of the Southern Alps, and familiar to many now, from the reading of Mr. Green's interesting account in the High Alps of New Zealand, of his ascent of Mount Cook.
After crossing the stony bed of the Waitaki, which forms the boundary-line between the provinces of Canterbury and Otago, the country may be said to be peopled and owned by the Scotch, who form in the province of Otago one large settlement.
We arrived at Oamaru in the course of the afternoon. The town is very remarkable for these parts, being built of cream-coloured stone, quarried in the neighbourhood and easy to work. It produced such a handsome, solid effect to us, accustomed by this time to the usual frail tenements of wood. A saloon carriage had been sent up from Dunedin for us, and was attached to the train, and I ought to have mentioned that the minister of public works had given us a free pass over all the New Zealand Railways. The railways throughout the country are under the control of government, and do not belong to companies. We noticed how the English names predominated in the stations along the Canterbury portion of the line, showing in many cases the homes of the first settlers in the old country, such as, Norwood, Chertsey, Ealing, Winchester, Richmond, Goodwood, and many others. It was unlike the North Island, where the names are chiefly Maori.
A very wild, beautiful bit of country, noticing the wonderful harbours nature has provided along the deeply indented coast and the train went over the Blueskin Cliffs.