It is not yet a hundred and twenty years since Captain Cook first landed in New Zealand, and the numerous native population that then swarmed upon its shores have dwindled to a comparative shadow of a once formidable race. But it is the present, not the past, with which we have mostly to do,--the present aspect of mountains, valleys, rivers, and lakes; with the wonderful volcanic developments and present activity of submerged forces that are exhibited in this peculiar country. Though heroic deeds and historic associations have not hallowed these localities, they are sufficiently unique in their own inherent charms to be intensely attractive. One does not pause amid burning mountains, boiling springs, and rushing geysers, to dwell on the want of human or historic background; the marvellous sublimity of Nature is sufficient. The bleaching bones of men and of extinct enormous birds, found among the brown tussocks of these lonely plains and in these curious caves, tell of a period long past,--and yet a period unhistoric and unheroic. These pages will clearly show that there is no lack of grandeur and beauty in this isolated land, but there is an utter lack of pathos.
Unlike Australia, New Zealand is rarely visited by drought; the whole eastern coast, north and south, abounds in good natural harbors, while the rivers and streams are ever-flowing and innumerable. Though it is a mountainous country, it differs for instance from Switzerland, in that it has no lack of extensive plains, which seem to have been left by Nature ready to the hand of the farmer, requiring scarcely ordinary cultivation to insure large crops of cereals. The diversity of surface, as well as the fact that these islands extend over thirteen degrees of latitude, give New Zealand a varied climate; but it is a remarkably temperate one, its salubrity far surpassing that of England or any portion of the United States. While snow is never seen in the North Island except upon the highest mountain peaks, the plains of the South Island--as far south as Otago--are sometimes sprinkled with it, but only to disappear almost immediately. The rivers are generally destitute of fish, and the forests of game. It is no sportsman's country; but vegetation runs riot, the soil being remarkably fertile, clothing the wild lands with perpetual verdure and vigorous freshness. Persons competent to express an opinion, compare the climate in the north, say at Auckland, with that of Spain; the middle, represented by Wellington, with that of France; and the southern, say at Invercargill, with that of England. The area of the islands is about one hundred thousand square miles, being a few more than are contained in England, Wales, and Ireland combined. The entire coast line is four thousand miles in length. There are here nearly seventy million acres of land, forty millions of which are deemed worthy of cultivation. The soil being light and easily worked, favors the agriculturist, and New Zealand is free from all noxious animals and venomous reptiles.