About the centre of the broad-stretching vale, we discern a little patch of what looks like grass and cleared land. There is here a cluster of houses, whitely gleaming beside the river, and that hamlet is Helensville—the future town and metropolis of the Kaipara.
The road, from the hill-top where we are, winds in a long descent of about two miles down to the township. It is scarcely needful to say that Dandy Jack considers it incumbent on him to make his entrance into Helensville with as much flourish and éclat as possible. Accordingly, we proceed along the downhill track at breakneck speed, and come clattering and shouting into the village, amid much bustle and excitement. We are finally halted in an open space before the hotel, which is evidently intended to represent a village green or public square, the half-dozen houses of the place being scattered round it.
The entire population has turned out to witness our arrival: a score or so of bearded, sunburnt, rough-looking men, three or four women, and a group of boys and children. A babel of conversation ensues. We, as new-chums, are speedily surrounded by a group anxious to make our acquaintance, and are eagerly questioned as to our intentions.
Several persons present are acquainted with Old Colonial, and when it is known that we are going to join him, we are at once placed on the footing of personal friends. Hospitality is offered, invitations to take a drink at the bar are given us on all sides. We accept, for we are not total abstainers—or sich!—and are in that condition when the foaming tankard is an idea of supreme bliss.
The hotel is larger and more pretentious than that at Riverhead. It is better built, and has a second storey and a balcony above the verandah. It is furnished, too, in a style that would do credit to Auckland—we particularly noticing some capital cabinet-work in the beautiful wood of the mottled kauri.
And then we are treated to a dissertation on the wonderful advantages and prospects of Helensville, some day to be a city and seaport, a manufacturing centre and emporium of the vast trade of the great fertile tracts of the Kaipara districts. We are assured that there is no place in all New Zealand where it could be more advantageous to our future to settle in than here. And so to supper, and finally to bed, to sleep, and to dream of the wonders that shall be; to dream of cathedrals and factories and theatres rising here, and supplanting the forest and scrub around us; to dream of splendid streets along the banks of the Kaipara, but streets which ever end in rocky wooded gullies, down which we plunge incessantly, behind a rushing nightmare that is driven either by a demon or by Dandy Jack.
CHAPTER IV.
IN THE KAIPARA.
The next morning after our arrival at Helensville, we go down to the wharf, close behind the hotel, and embark on board the steamer Lily. This vessel is the only regular means of communication, at present, with the young settlements lying round the Kaipara. She is a much larger craft than the Gemini, but she is of the same ancient and ruinous character. One would have thought that, on these new waters, such craft as there were must necessarily be new also.[4] Such does not appear to be the case, however, for the steam service on the Waitemata and the Kaipara is conducted by very second-hand old rattle-traps. Where they were worn out I know not. Bad as they are, they are considered a local improvement, for, until quite recently, settlers had to depend on small sailing-boats, that plied very irregularly.