shooting, too,—Mr Dash says that they spend a day in each place to allow the passengers a chance of having some sport!”
“And miss McKinnon’s Pass and a fine chance of getting some decent exercise after being cramped for weeks in railway carriages and coaches! No, thank you, my dear! But you and Mary can go in the “Waikare” if you like,—I’ll meet you at Milford Sound. Only if you do that we must leave Australia out of the programme and go straight from Auckland by the shortest possible route, for I must get home, you know.”
“But Mrs Greendays would not agree to that, and as I, too, was looking forward to the walk over the famous Pass that we had heard so much about from Colonel Deane and from every traveller we had met out here who had done it, I was openly delighted and told Mrs Greendays in a whisper that she was beginning to put on weight,—a suggestion that always made her ready to walk any distance!
Though it had been a perfectly still and beautiful morning when we set out there was quite a gale blowing when we left the shelter of the ships’ decks. The sky was cloudless and the sun shining brightly as possible, yet were we almost taken off our feet by the wind that whistled round the corners as we stood on the wharf. And when we remarked not too kindly upon it Mr Dash laughed, and said,
“Did no one tell you that this is called ‘Windy’ Wellington? Look in the window of the first stationer you come to, and you will see local postcards depicting the inhabitants clinging to their hats or chasing them along the road,—we get more wind here than anywhere else I think, and New Zealand is the home of Boreas, but we look upon it as a blessing rather than an evil, for it blows all the ills away!”
He invited us to lunch with him on the “Mokoia,” another big boat, which had just arrived from the South en route for Sydney, and afterwards, to show us the contrast between twenty-five years ago and now, he took us over the “Takapuna.” She is a small boat of only 1036 g.r., though she has 2000 h.p., but her decorations were almost as lavish as those of her big sisters, and we were greatly amused by her captain’s immense pride in her and her achievements.
New Zealand has certainly every reason to be proud of her coastal service. The Union Company have a fleet of fifty-five vessels, mostly passenger boats, all vieing with one another as to speed, comfort, and decoration, and the service is second to none in the world for punctuality, speed, and moderate charges, while the Company prides itself on its generous treatment of its employees.
We did very little in the afternoon except stroll through the Museum, which is very well off in Maori carvings and pictures of Maoris and subjects relating to New Zealand in general, mostly by local artists.
