The Thames is a large place with better hotels than Auckland. The people here appear to be chiefly Irish. We spent a day at the Thames, walking round the gold mines. At one end of the town the gold which occurs in quartz reefs is only near the surface, while at the other end it is deep. The gold is alloyed with silver, and is pale in colour and very poor. Some of it is only worth £2 17s. per ounce, while gold in other districts has fetched £4 5s. per ounce. The method of extraction is by mercury plates and blankets.
At one mine we were shown some heavy pumping machinery. We had often heard of this machinery before reaching the Thames. By-and-by it will be sent to a museum.
Great excitement prevailed in this part of the world about some new furnaces which were being put up to extract gold and silver by smelting. They had been used very successfully in Victoria and New South Wales.
From the Thames we returned to Auckland in a dirty little steamer called the Enterprise. There were two notices in the saloon. One was for passengers to take off their boots before lying on the cushions. The cushions were strips of dirty carpet. The second was, that smoking was strictly prohibited.
The steward enforced the first regulation, but he and the captain disregarded the second notice by smoking and expectorating all over the cabin.
A SYSTEMATIC GUIDE-BOOK.
When I was in New Zealand I commenced to write a guide-book for the country. My objects were manifold. I wished to increase the traveller’s pleasure by pointing out to him the sights best worth visiting. I was desirous of placing in the hands of those who had visited this Wonderland the means of reviving their impressions. I wanted to give to those who live in distant countries, and are not blessed with the ways and means of journeying to New Zealand, an accurate and faithful account of all its marvels. In short, I wanted to benefit mankind. I did not want to sell thousands of editions of my work. I did not want to induce people to go by steamers or stay at hotels in which I had an interest. All that I wanted was to be purely and ideally philanthropic.
I regret to say that my noble intentions have been frustrated. Others have been before me in the field, and authors have already launched upon the traveller’s world many a vade mecum to New Zealand. I have read these books with the greatest interest, and their accurate and vivid descriptions have made an indelible impression on my mind. The phraseology of these works, among which ‘Maori-land’ stands pre-eminent, have entered so deeply into my soul, that I feel I shall in future be continually in danger of jeopardizing my reputation by plagiaristic quotations.
If therefore, in the following brief samples of what my guide-book would have been, quotations from ‘Maori-land’ and other books are recognised, I trust that the authors of these monuments of literary art will grant me their forgiveness.
All that I can claim for my notes is that they are a faithful and systematic description of my impressions. The charge of overcolouring the pictures I have endeavoured to present has been studiously avoided. Ethereal nothingness has been carefully suppressed. The only fault of which critics can accuse me, is that I have unavoidably presented pictures in tints which are too subdued. I have endeavoured to curb imagination, and to describe things as they really are; and in this I feel that I have admirably succeeded.