any trace of uniformity in building. Quite close to the
busy parts, so it seems to us, houses stand in their own wide gardens;
the streets and roads are lost amid the embowering foliage of trees and
shrubs. The house-structures are built on every conceivable plan, up and
down the wooded shores; every builder has evidently been his own
architect to a great extent, and there is no lack of elbow-room
hereaway.

What surprise us most are the evidences of taste and cultivation and
general prosperity everywhere in view. Our previous glimpses at the
shore of our new country had not prepared us for anything like this. It
is decidedly encouraging to new-comers, who are disturbed somewhat by
the prospect of doing battle with the wilderness, to find a sort of
Anglo-Saxon Naples here in the Southern Sea.

We had an idea that our arrival would have been quite an event in this
little place. Nothing of the sort; Aucklanders are too well used to the
arrival of emigrant ships. One or two enter the harbour every month,
besides other craft; and then the Pacific Mail steamers, large and
splendidly equipped vessels, call here twice a month on their way to and
fro between Sydney and San Francisco.

There are one or two vessels like ours lying out in the stream at the
present time, others are lying alongside the principal wharf, or its
cross-tees, amid a forest of spars belonging to small coasting craft.
Plenty of shore boats have come off to us on one errand or another; but
it is evident that our arrival has not created that impression upon the
city which we had had a notion that it would have done.

The morning papers will notice our advent, with a brief account of the
voyage, and will give exceedingly inaccurate lists of our passengers.
Only those people who expect friends or cargo by us will take any
special interest in us; the evening promenaders on the wharf will glance
at our ship with a brief passing interest; and the current of Auckland
life will flow on unchanged, regardless of the fact that some three
hundred more souls have been absorbed into its population.

Breakfast this morning is partaken of in the midst of a hurry-skurry of
excitement, but, for all that, it is an imposing meal, and comprises all
sorts of luxuries to which we have long been strangers. Beefsteaks,
milk, eggs, fruit, and vegetables, fresh fish just caught over the side,
and other fondly-loved delicacies are on the bill of fare. By-and-by,
all formalities