streets, which on maps look like fluttering ribbons, so rambling are they, are macadamized. If an earthquake should bring ruin to Wellington,—which, judging by past experiences, is not an improbability,—the people in these straitened commercial streets would have to be very agile to escape falling walls.
In addition to being forced to climb hills every day, and knowing, if he accepts prophecy, that they may fall upon him at any hour, the Wellingtonian frequently has to brace himself against a strong wind. Astonishing to say, the encircling hills give him little protection from gales off the coast.
"I hear that Wellington is a windy place," I said to a man who had lived thirty years in the capital.
"Oh," he replied, "it can blow. I have seen it blow a horse and cart along."
But winds and earthquakes are not enough to quench the spirit of Wellington. It still has the enthusiasm which actuated it in the days of its youth, and which, after many disappointing years, largely enabled it to become the capital in 1864. Because it had a larger European population than any other settlement in the colony, Wellington believed it was entitled to be the seat of the first government of New Zealand. Governor Hobson thought otherwise, and established the capital at Russell, whence, after a short time, he removed it to Auckland, which retained it for more than twenty years.
For convenience the exasperated Port Nicholson settlers established a temporary government of their own in
