"We had a charming ride," said Frank, "over the railway to Oxford, where we took the coach in the direction of the famous region of New Zealand geysers. Much of the country through which the railway passes resembles England both in scenery and products; English fruit-trees grow well here, and English grasses seem adapted to the soil. American pines have been introduced and are doing well; they make a pleasing contrast to the New Zealand wattle-tree and cabbage-palm and the ferns which abound everywhere. The country is thinly settled, but will undoubtedly support a large population in course of time. Villages with European houses alternate with Maori encampments, the latter abounding with lazy aboriginals.
"One of the advantages claimed for New Zealand is its similarity to England in climate and products, with the great point in its favor that while the climate has all the mildness of that of England it lacks its severity. The average temperature of London is said to be seven degrees colder than that of North Island, and four degrees colder than the temperature of South Island.
"They tell us that snow seldom lies on the ground at the sea-level on North Island, and not very often on South Island; but the summit of Ruapehu, the highest mountain in North Island, and also the tops of the peaks of the great mountain chains in South Island, are perpetually covered with snow. The snow line is about seven thousand five hundred feet high.
"The sun was shining brightly and there was a genial warmth to the air when we left Auckland, but within an hour we were in a terrific rain that beat heavily against the windows of the railway-carriage and pattered like hail on the roof. 'This is our one drawback,' said a gentleman who accompanied us, when the rain began to fall. 'The changes of weather and temperature in New Zealand are very sudden. The alternations from heat to cold, from sunshine to storm, from calms to gales, are so frequent and marked as to defy calculation and prevent our saying with truthfulness that there is any uniformly wet or dry season throughout the year.'
"Then he went on to say that compared with Great Britain the climate seemed to be far superior when the death-rate was considered. It was less than eleven in one thousand annually, and lower than in any of the colonies of Australia. He claimed that the salubrity of the climate was due in great measure to the breezes for which New Zealand is noted, there being no less than one hundred and twenty-six gales or high winds in a single year (1885), and good winds for nearly all the rest of the time. The prevailing winds are from the north-west and south-west, with occasional storms from the opposite quarters. The annual rainfall is twenty-eight inches at Auckland, thirty-six inches at Wellington, and twenty-five inches at Dunedin, and there is more rain on the east coast than on the west."
We will learn in the next chapter what our friends saw among the Hot Lakes of New Zealand.
INLAND SCENERY.