Page:Our New Zealand Cousins.djvu/185

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Our New Zealand Cousins.
169

secure lists of passengers and odd items of news; but he will sell you books, periodicals, refreshments, wild ducks, and other game shot by himself, and, as in this case, celluloid collars and cuffs. I daresay the young gentleman would have insured our lives, or taken our portraits had we been so disposed; and he possibly would have been able to arrange for our funerals in case of an accident. We live and learn. Literature, commerce, and sport, here go hand in hand.

At Puketeraki there is a small native settlement of about fifty adults, and here we pass the first native bush we have seen to-day. This is one of the very few remaining native settlements in Otago. There are only now some six or eight families. "How are the mighty fallen!" No more war dances and freebooting forays, ending with a cannibal feast nowadays. The men farm a little now, and subsist on the keep of a few sheep.

We are now nearing Dunedin. Through the gathering gloom we can see the white gleam of curling breakers on the cliffs beneath us. We are dashing along at a breakneck pace above the moaning sea, midway up the cliffy heights. The scenery here, we are told, is very grand and awe-inspiring. We can well believe it, but alas for the veil of darkness which hides each charm from view. Soon we see the motley heights of Port Chalmers; anon, the long serried rows of lamp lights in the steep streets of the great city itself. They look like the watch-fires of a great army, bivouacking among the hills. The train rolls into