"Nelson is on a landlocked bay which is rather difficult of entrance, but forms a perfect anchorage for a ship that once gets inside. Picton has a situation very much like that of Nelson, and each is the centre of a farming and sheep-raising region. They had a great deal of trouble with the Maoris in the war times, and one of the sights of Picton is a hill a few miles from the town, which was the scene of the so-called Wairau massacre. Thirteen settlers were killed there in a fight with the natives, and after the affair was over nine other settlers who had been taken prisoners were murdered in cold blood."
At Port Lyttelton our friends left the steamer and proceeded to Christchurch, which is reached by a railway eight miles long, and largely tunnelled through the hills, one tunnel being nearly two miles in length. Before the days of the railway the means of communication was along a wagon-road which was known as the Zigzag, and occasionally at present the road is patronized by those who dislike railway travel or seek the picturesque. Lyttelton has a good harbor, which is principally due to the expenditure of a large amount of money for the construction of a breakwater and other purposes, and the place is picturesquely situated at the head of a bay.
HOME SCENE AT CHRISTCHURCH.
Christchurch owes its existence to a movement in England, near the end of the first half of the century, for establishing a thoroughly English colony in New Zealand. Its projectors proposed to retain everything that was best in English life, government, habits, manners, and above all the Church of England. The direction of the colony was to lie in the hands of the Canterbury Association at home, rather than in the control of the Government, though there was no intention of taking a position hostile to it.
One of the founders of the Canterbury colony had been instrumental in establishing a Scotch colony in another part of New Zealand, and being Scotch, it was naturally Presbyterian. There is a story about him that he once projected an Anglo-Hebrew colony, where the Hebrews should govern themselves according to their own laws, and have no Christians living among them. He proposed this to a wealthy Israelite, and hoped the scheme would be received favorably. The gentleman listened patiently to his proposition, and then said, "I do not see how my people can thrive in such a community; most of them live by trade, and will want to be where there's somebody to trade with." The plan of the new colony was rejected at once.
HARVEST-TIME IN CANTERBURY.