temperature is
here very limited. Summer and winter are only known as the dry and the
rainy seasons; flowers, vegetables, grapes, in short, all plants, grow
thriftily the whole year round in the open air. Tropical and hardy
plants are equally at home; Scottish firs and Indian palms, oranges,
lemons, india-rubber trees, and the lime thrive side by side. As in
Japan, so it is here. One can gather a pretty bouquet out of doors any
day in the year.

At Auckland, we are in the vicinity of the famous Hot Lake District of
New Zealand, the veritable wonderland of these regions, to reach which
we take the cars for a distance of a hundred and thirty miles, then
proceed thirty miles further by stage to the native town of Ohinemutu,
on Lake Rotorua. This route carries us in a southeast course and leads
into the very heart of the North Island, among the aborigines. The
railway passes through a level country or valley, which, however, is
bounded on either side, five or six miles away, by lofty hills,
presenting a confusion of irregular forms. These hills contain an
abundance of mineral wealth in the form of gold, silver, iron, coal, and
manganese. Many low-lying marshy fields of native flax are seen, and the
Waikato River is three times crossed in its winding course, as we thread
our way through the valley. Large plantations, each containing several
thousand young pine-trees of the American species, are seen, covering
gentle slopes, and many broad acres of level land, where the government
is endeavoring to establish artificial forests throughout wide reaches
of unwooded country. These trees grow more rapidly here even than in
their native soil. Small Maori encampments, composed of a dozen lodges
each, are scattered along the way, the lazy tattooed natives--men and
women--lingering about the stations, with blackened pipes in their
mouths, smoking the rankest sort of tobacco, while they chatter together
like Benares monkeys.

The last part of this brief journey, that from Oxford to Ohinemutu,
takes us through one of the grandest forests in all New Zealand,
extending eighteen or twenty miles, with scarcely a human habitation or
sign of life, save the cabin where we change horses, and the occasional
flutter of a bird. In this forest, mingled with tall columnar trees of
various species, are seen frequent examples of the fern-tree thirty feet
in height, and of surpassing beauty, spreading out their plumed summits
like Egyptian palms, wh