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Chapter XVIII.
THE HOKITIKA RACES AND LAKE MAHINAPUA.
“Where summer bees sang of their happy lot,
And o’er dark ranges one great mountain looming,
God’s white forget-me-not.”
The sun appeared on Tuesday morning for just long enough to show us that Greymouth is not at all a bad little place, though it inspired us with no desire to pitch our tents there. Being hilly it escapes the flat ugliness of Westport, but like Westport it is simply a miner’s town and port, both coal and gold being worked in the district, and has therefore neither handsome houses with well-kept grounds nor a population that can afford to spend money on public gardens and an esplanade.
Our train left at 10.15, and was so unaccountably crowded that Captain Greendays asked the station-master what attraction was drawing all Greymouth to Hokitika, and found that it was a race-meeting. The prospect seemed but
