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AUTHOR OF "THREE HUNDRED YEARS HENCE," "THE DOOM OF THE GREAT CITY," ETC.
"Queen of the seas, enlarge thyself! Send thou thy swarms abroad! For in the years to come,-- Where'er thy progeny, Thy language and thy spirit shall be found,-- If-- --in that Austral world long sought, The many-isled Pacific,-- When islands shall have grown, and cities risen In cocoa-groves embower'd; Where'er thy language lives. By whatsoever name the land be call'd, That land is English Still."
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCELES.
This book is descriptive of things as they are in a part of New Zealand, together with some reference to past history. It does not attempt to handle the colony as a whole, but refers to scenes within the northern half of the North Island only. This part of the country, the natural home of the kauri pine, is what I here intend to specify under the title of Northern New Zealand.
I am not an emigration-tout, a land-salesman, or a tourist. When I went to New Zealand I went there as an emigrant. Not until a few days before I left its shores had I any other idea but that the rest of my life was destined to be that of a colonist, and that New Zealand was my fixed and permanent home. I have, therefore, written from the point of view of a settler. Circumstances, which have nothing to do with this chronicle, caused me to lay down axe and spade, and eventually to become a spoiler of paper instead of a bushman. The materials of this work, gathered together in the previous condition of life, are now put in print in the other.
I trust no one of my colonial friends will feel offended, should he think that he discovers a caricature of himself in these pages. I have used disguises to veil real identities, occasionally taking liberties as regards time, situation, and personality. I think that no one but themselves could recognize my characters.
The substance of one or two chapters of this book has, in part, been already placed before the public in papers that I contributed to _The Field_ last year, and is used again here by kind permission of the proprietor of that newspaper. Also, I have made the Kaipara the scene of several tales and sketches, which have appeared in sundry periodicals.