It goes without saying that Dunedin has all the usual educational and philanthropic institutions which a community of fifty thousand people demand in our day. Especially is it well supplied with educational advantages, which seem to be conscientiously improved by the rising generation. The sum expended upon the public schools by the Government is very large; the exact amount is not now remembered, but we recollect being impressed with the fact that it was remarkable for a community of no greater numbers. Throughout New Zealand there are over eight hundred registered public schools of the various grades. The public buildings, notably the University, High School, Provincial Council Hall, and the Presbyterian Church,—this last of a very white stone, nearly as white as marble,—are all imposing and elegant structures.
These cities have not escaped the nuisance of the "Salvation Army," whose principal arguments consist of instrumental noise and torchlight parades. Here in Dunedin, as in Sydney and Melbourne, Auckland and elsewhere in the colonies, they constitute a chronic bore. They are composed of about one third women, and two thirds men and boys; the women beat crazy tambourines, wear poke bonnets, and sing aloud in cracked voices, while the men form themselves into instrumental bands, and produce the most hideous discord. These designing, or deluded, creatures tramp through the streets, in rain or shine, howling and uttering meaningless shouts until they are hoarse. The authorities do not interfere with such demonstrations, though they are clearly a public nuisance; but the mob deride and jeer them. Doubtless the persistent and remarkable exhibitions indulged in by these noisy religionists attract the vulgar imagination, and make followers if not converts. The public house at which we were stopping—the Grand Hotel—faces upon Prince's Street, which is the principal thoroughfare of the city, and in which is a square, ornamented by a monument erected to the memory of Captain William Cargill, the leading pioneer of this region. About the base of this well-lighted monument, it being night, a band of Salvationists were alternately playing upon brass instruments and singing hymns while we were endeavoring to write. The impression was thus strongly forced upon us that this open-air piety, this noisy and gratuitous religious serenading is more disagreeable than efficacious for good.
Having spoken of the Grand Hotel of Dunedin, let us add that it is one of the best houses of public entertainment we have found in all Australasia. It is a large, elegantly-appointed freestone building, under admirable management,—a little in advance perhaps of the present requirements of the city, but the population is rapidly increasing, to which end a first-class hotel largely contributes by attracting strangers and making their visit agreeable in all that conduces to their domestic comfort.
Within about seventy-five miles of Dunedin are some of the most productive gold-fields in the country. Gabriel's Gulch, so called, has proved to be a mint of the precious metal so rich that all the tailings of the diggings which have been once worked at a handsome profit, are just being submitted to a second and more scientific process in order to obtain the gold which is known still to remain in them. The amount of these tailings in gross weight is doubtless hundreds of thousands of tons; what percentage of gold to the ton will be realized, remains to be seen. An interested party informed us that it was confidently expected that more profit would be obtained by this second treatment than had been realized by the first. Some average samples sent to England for scientific treatment yielded at the rate of two ounces and one half of gold to the ton of tailings. If even two ounces can be realized, these diggings of Gabriel's Gulch will prove a Bonanza indeed.
New Zealand in proportion is nearly as rich in gold deposits as is Australia, and the precious metal is found under very nearly the same conditions; that is, in quartz reefs and in alluvial deposits. Much gold has been found here in what are termed pockets, under bowlders and large stones that lie on the sandy beach of the west coast. This gold is popularly believed to have been washed up out of the sea in heavy weather; but undoubtedly it was first washed down from the mountains by the rivers, and deposited along the shore. Official returns show that New Zealand has produced over fifty million pounds sterling in gold, or two hundred and fifty million dollars, since its first discovery there. Besides Europeans there are several thousand Chinese engaged in mining for gold; and here as in Australia these Asiatics work upon such claims and such tailings as have been abandoned by others.
Fern-trees abound in and about Dunedin, often growing to a height of thirty feet, with noble coronals of leaves,—far more effective and graceful than the fan-palm which is seen in such abundance at Singapore, Penang, and in Equatorial regions. The fuchsias grow to mammoth proportions and to a giant height here. We have never seen this favorite so large elsewhere, with one exception,—in the Summer Gardens of St. Petersburg, where an exotic plant of this beautiful flowering shrub had grown to the size of a tree, twenty feet high. About the suburban residences of this colonial capital laburnums, roses, laurels, and lilies abound, blooming all the year round. Innumerable exotics have been brought hither, and as was remarked to us by a citizen who was exhibiting a fine display on his own grounds, "the plant that will not thrive in New Zealand in any month of the year with ordinary care, out of doors, is yet to be found." This gentleman showed us a tiny flower in bloom, so like the Swiss edelweiss that we asked whence it came, and learned that it is a native of the mountain regions of New Zealand. It was surely an edelweiss, the simple but beautiful betrothal flower of the European Alps. It has a different name here, which we cannot recall. As to trees, the elm, beech, willow, fir, ash, and oak have so long been introduced from England, have been so multiplied, and have grown to such proportions, that they seem native here. Botanists tell us that there are not quite fifty different species of trees in England; but we are assured by equally good authority that there are a hundred and fifty different species found in New Zealand,—an assertion we could easily believe after having been in the country a few weeks, and enjoyed the beauty of its abundant forests.
When Captain Cook first came hither, he fully understood the cannibal habits of the native race, and desired to take some practical steps toward discouraging and effacing such inhuman practices. Upon his second visit, therefore, he introduced swine and some other domestic animals, including goats, in the vain hope that they would ultimately supply sufficient animal food for the savages and divert them from such wholesale roasting and eating of one another. The goats and some other animals were soon slaughtered and eaten, but the swine to a certain extent answered the purpose which Captain Cook had in view. That is to say, they ran wild, multiplied remarkably, and were hunted and eaten by the natives; but cannibalism was by no means abolished or even appreciably checked. Wild hogs are still quite abundant throughout the Northern Island, springing from the original animals introduced years ago.
With equally good intent, though not for a similar purpose, in later years rabbits were introduced into the country, but have in the mean time so multiplied as to become a terrible pest, consuming every green thing which comes in their way. "Like locusts they devour everything that grows out of the ground," said a stock farmer to us, "and would if left to themselves soon eat the sheep out of the fields." The flesh is recognized as good and suitable to eat, but it is so abundant that it is held in small repute, the skins only as a rule being preserved, and the carcasses left on the ground where they are killed, to be consumed by hawks and other carrion-eating birds. When brought to market, as they are daily, the retail price of rabbits is two pairs for sixpence, the seller retaining the skins and receiving the bounty paid by Government for their destruction. We were told that London and Paris are the largest consumers of the rabbit-skins, being freely used by the glove-makers for the manufacture of a certain grade of gloves. We also saw large cases of the skins securely packed and addressed to merchants in Vienna and Berlin. Thousands of bales of rabbit-skins are annually exported; indeed, so extensive is this trade that there is a large commercial room established in Dunedin called the Rabbit-Skin Exchange, where the article is bought and sold in enormous quantities. Thirty-five miles inland from this city, the author has seen by moonlight a whole sloping hillside which seemed to be moving, so completely was it covered by these little furry quadrupeds. They are poisoned, shot, trapped, and killed with clubs, but still so rapidly do they breed that there is no visible diminution of their numbers.
From Dunedin to Christchurch by sea is about two hundred miles, or the trip may be made by sail via Oamaru and Timaree. The harbor of Littleton, which stands in the same relation to Christchurch as Port Chalmers does to Dunedin, is a thoroughly sheltered deep bay, surrounded by a range of hills on three sides,—hills of cliff-like character rising abruptly out of the sea. Beyond those are higher elevations, their tops covered with snow, which the sun tinged with silvery hues as we sailed up the channel on a bright July morning. The surroundings are delightfully picturesque, the entrance to the harbor being as narrow as the harbor of Havana. It is formed by two breakwaters extending from opposite sides toward each other, each of which is over a thousand feet in length. Two huge dredging-machines were seen busily at work deepening the channel, so that vessels drawing not over twenty-two feet of water can lie at the wharves and discharge cargo. The spirit of commercial enterprise was very manifest here.
It was as late as the year 1850 that the first settlement was made at Christchurch, when a considerable company of immigrants, since called the "Canterbury Pilgrims," came from Liverpool intending to form a community devoted to the Church of England. This design however was only partially carried out, though Christchurch is the chief seat of the Church of England in New Zealand, and has a magnificent cathedral testifying to the design of the original founders. It is said that the first people who arrived freely expressed their disappointment when they climbed the hills of Littleton and looked off upon the Canterbury Plains, with scarce a tree or shrub upon them, and not even a hillock to break the dull monotony of the brown tussock and low clumps of wild flax. A little over thirty years have since passed, and how different is the view to-day! Those lonely, dreary plains are now covered with thrifty farms, divided by broad fields of grain and well-fenced orchards, dotted here and there with pleasant homesteads surrounded by ornamental trees and blooming gardens, while as the centre and motive of it all there lies in the foreground, close at hand, Christchurch, the cheerful and populous City of the Plains. The lonely aspect of thirty years ago has given place to one instinct with busy life and modern civilization.