is entrance into
Helensville with as much flourish and _eclat_ as possible. Accordingly,
we proceed along the downhill track at breakneck speed, and come
clattering and shouting into the village, amid much bustle and
excitement. We are finally halted in an open space before the hotel,
which is evidently intended to represent a village green or public
square, the half-dozen houses of the place being scattered round it.

The entire population has turned out to witness our arrival: a score or
so of bearded, sunburnt, rough-looking men, three or four women, and a
group of boys and children. A babel of conversation ensues. We, as
new-chums, are speedily surrounded by a group anxious to make our
acquaintance, and are eagerly questioned as to our intentions.

Several persons present are acquainted with Old Colonial, and when it is
known that we are going to join him, we are at once placed on the
footing of personal friends. Hospitality is offered, invitations to take
a drink at the bar are given us on all sides. We accept, for we are not
total abstainers--or sich!--and are in that condition when the foaming
tankard is an idea of supreme bliss.

The hotel is larger and more pretentious than that at Riverhead. It is
better built, and has a second storey and a balcony above the verandah.
It is furnished, too, in a style that would do credit to Auckland--we
particularly noticing some capital cabinet-work in the beautiful wood of
the mottled kauri.

And then we are treated to a dissertation on the wonderful advantages
and prospects of Helensville, some day to be a city and seaport, a
manufacturing centre and emporium of the vast trade of the great fertile
tracts of the Kaipara districts. We are assured that there is no place
in all New Zealand where it could be more advantageous to our future to
settle in than here. And so to supper, and finally to bed, to sleep, and
to dream of the wonders that shall be; to dream of cathedrals and
factories and theatres rising here, and supplanting the forest and scrub
around us; to dream of splendid streets along the banks of the Kaipara,
but streets which ever end in rocky wooded gullies, down which we plunge
incessantly, behind a rushing nightmare that is driven either by a demon
or by Dandy Jack.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: A railway across this portage was opened for traffic in
1876. It has since been continued from Riverhead to Auckland, and is
now--1882--being pushed forward to the nor