to the Association, thus pictures the religious services which fell to his lot:

'There are two clergymen on board; we have the Church service on deck in the morning on Sunday. In the afternoon, a north-countryman, an Independent minister, holds forth for an hour; but he says the same things so many, many times over, and his dialect is so strong, that it is anything but pleasant to listen to him; he seems, however, a good sort of person.'

A great event in a long voyage is meeting another vessel, especially if homeward bound. Our MS. authority thus graphically admits us into the scene occasioned by it:

'One evening, in the Tropics, we bespoke a ship bound for New York, and, as we were nearly becalmed, we asked her if she would carry our letters for England. Her captain replied that he would do so with pleasure, and she hove to. It is impossible to describe the scene that followed. Passengers scampering about in all parts of the ship; everybody looking in a violent hurry; some borrowing ink, some paper, and others asking if you had got any sealing-wax, &c. &c. Fortunately, I had written my letter in case of an emergency, so that I just added a few words, and it was ready. I could then listen the better to the noise of pens writing words of comfort to friends far away, and still to be further. In a few minutes about 150 letters were put into a bag and sent off to the stranger-ship. The splashing of the boat is now heard and listened to attentively, sometimes almost lost to view, and, as though hid by the waves, again rising, till at length they reach the other ship. Although we were nearly becalmed, there was a heavy swell on at the time. Then they return. Everyone, of course, is anxious to know what the strange captain had to say. They bring a hat full of cigars as a present to our captain, with a polite request that he would send them a bag of bread, as they feared they might be short, and accordingly it was sent off. After a few words more, spoken through trumpets, they wish each other a prosperous voyage, and all goes on as before.'

Eating and drinking form another important mode of passing time on board ship. One of our voyagers, with a large family of children, thus describes the unceasing claims of this occupation :

What with the children's breakfast at half-past seven, our own at nine o'clock, children's dinner at one o'clock, our lunch at the same hour, and then our dinner at four o'clock, children's tea at six, ours at seven o'clock, we seem to live but to eat.'

Mr. Adams brings a serious charge against the Association for not supplying a proper quantity of salt or preserved meats, a complaint we do not hear of from others, as the following testimony from a passenger in another of their ships will show :

In no part of our passage were we driven to the necessity of eating salt provisions, and our captain declared he never knew ships better provisioned than those sent out by the Canterbury Association.'

The latter part of the voyage is rough and stormy, with occasional calms; in a diary before us we read:

'On Sunday night last, we entered Bass's Straits. A calm came on on Monday, and we were obliged to keep on tacking. Many times we found ourselves at night in no better position than we were in the morning; if it

was not a calm, the wind was dead against us. No one can tell the disappointment at not being able to get on at sea unless they have experienced the going over the same track day after day, as we have done. The beauty of the scenery in Bass's Straits, to me at least, quite made up for the delay. The mountains of Van Diemen's Land, tipped with snow, appeared in the distance; as we neared them, they assumed the finest forms; lesser mountains and hills, covered with wood, came down to the water's edge; beautiful headlands or islands were dotted about most picturesquely. Either it was that the eye, having, as it were, hungered so long after a sight of land was more easily gratified, or I, not having expected such scenery, was the more struck with it. It appeared to me that these mountains were of grander shapes and proportions than any I had before seen. The country under them was most lovely, the forms and lines of the hills rolling about in a manner which no artist who had not studied the old masters in their best period could hope to execute.'

In the month of October all our several voyagers drew near to the promised land, perceiving it afar off, at the distance of eighty miles, by the delicious perfumes of the Manuca, a beautiful heath, the scent of which Mr. Adams compares to that of a hayfield. Another informant, however, tells us that this comparison gives no adequate idea of its sweetness, and that it was no small treat to him to be called out of bed in order to enjoy it. The aspect of the country as they neared Port Lyttelton is thus most favourably portrayed by Mr. Adams:

'It was on a magnificent spring morning that we rounded Banks Peninsula, and sailed slowly along its northern shore, towards Port Lyttelton, or Port Cooper, its name in New Zealand. After a weary four months' voyage, with no relief to the undying monotony of sea and sky, the country we were now passing seemed like a scene from fairy-land. Richly-wooded hills presenting an endless variety of form and colouring,lovely bays running deep into the shore, and sheltered from every wind,rich pastures dotted with sheep and cattle,-canoes and fishing-boats gliding along the shore,-whilst the bright warm sun poured its rich floods of light over wood and hill and valley, and lighted up the deep blue sea with myriads of glittering stars, which danced and sparkled with every motion of our majestic ship.

At little Akaloa, a small bay on the north side of the Peninsula, we took a fisherman on board, to pilot us into Port Lyttelton. On that afternoon we had service on board for the last time; and, almost in sight of our destined port, united in offering up our thanksgivings for a safe voyage past, and prayers for happiness and prosperity in the new life that was fast dawning upon many of us.

'Slowly the vessel glided on before the gentle breeze that scarcely filled her canvass, and the sun was setting as we neared the mouth of the harbour. On our left lay the richly-wooded Peninsula, the scenery of which resembles in many respects that of the back of the Isle of Wight, but on a larger and grander scale: on our right were the Canterbury Plains, extending to the hilly region which stretched far away beyond the snow-capped Kaikoras, to the distant mountains of the Northern Island. But straight before us lay our land of promise,-the harbour towards which, for four long, weary months, we had shaped our solitary course,-the land where the losses and errors of the old life in the old country were to be retrieved, -the future home of many an anxiously expectant colonist.'-Pp. 14—16.

The chapter on 'first impressions' conveys a strange lesson

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of how apt men are to be discouraged when they have worked their hopes by remote anticipations of good, and do not, all at once, when the visible goal is reached, enter upon the entire fulfilment of their dreams. Another ship, the Midlothian, had arrived about a fortnight before Mr. Adams. The passengers by this ship had been greeted by an unpleasant sou-wester, accompanied with rainy, miserable weather. The colonists had also alarmed them by accounts of the high price of provisions, and of house-room; the consequence of which was, that they were all in a panic, which they lost no time in communicating to the fresh arrival. The following solemn interview took place :

'It was midnight when the boat which brought these harbingers of evil came alongside. They were immediately ushered into the cuddy; and there, until three o'clock, we sat in conclave, listening in breathless attention to their dismal stories. At each succeeding tale the visages of the land-purchasers grew visibly longer. They heard with dismay of provisions at ruinous prices; of houses not even water-tight, at exorbitant rents; of land partly sand hills and partly irreclaimable swamp; of young gentlemen, who had come out with bright expectations and small capitals, reduced to work on the roads, or employed at daily wages by those they had brought out as servants.'-Pp. 19, 20.

Mark, however, how Mr. Adams continues:

These and other stories of similar character, are indeed sufficiently startling to adventurers fresh from the old world; but a very short experience of colonial life shows them to be evils inseparable from the condition of a new country; and though ruinous to the indolent and desponding, are easily surmounted by a stout heart and a willing hand, and sink into actual insignificance when compared with the advantages afforded by a new and uncrowded field for industry or speculation. In confirmation of this view, I would add that our visitors and their friends subsequently found occasion to alter their opinion, and that when I left the colony they were all comfortably settled in Canterbury, and were doing well.'-P. 20.

The same wind and rain also greeted Mr. Adams's ship the next morning, as it lay in the harbour, and sadly dejected were all on board; but their actual approach, in a small boat, to the town of Lyttelton, presents another and more cheering picture :

'After the dismal accounts of our visitors of the preceding evening, it may well be supposed that we did not expect to be enchanted with our first view of the town of Lyttelton. What then was our astonishment at he panorama that opened before us as we pulled slowly round the little point! Wide streets, neat houses, shops, stores, hotels, coffee-rooms, emigration barracks, a neat sea-wall, and an excellent and convenient jetty, with vessels discharging their cargoes upon it, met our view; whilst a momentary ray of sunshine lit up the shingled roofs and the green hills in the background, until the whole place seemed to break into a bright triumphant smile at our surprise.

There are few prettier towns than Lyttelton as seen from the sea.

Situated in a small but picturesque bay, it is, as it were, framed in the bold and rugged hills, by which it is on three sides surrounded, and whose wild and uncultivated aspect contrasts very effectively with the neat houses and busy streets of the town. The most striking object is the jetty: it is well built and convenient, running into the sea for about a hundred yards, and is, I believe, the best in New Zealand. On landing there, a wide street leads directly up the hill towards the Police Court and the upper part of the town. The Emigration Barracks are neat and commodious buildings, standing in a spacious area immediately on the right of the jetty. One of them is at present used as a church, another is converted into schools; the remaining space is appropriated to the accommodation of immigrants on their first landing.'-Pp. 24, 25,

Another informant gives much the same account of the first intelligence received by his ship as to the state of the colony. The pilot, who came on board to take them up the harbour, had to answer many questions, and unfavourable were the impressions thereby caused;-provisions dear, rent dear, very little land in a state of cultivation. Sorrowful countenances were to be seen on all sides; and some few who were going on to other settlements, began to make sport of the Association. As if to add to these troubles, a set of evil-disposed persons came off in a boat from shore, and gave the worst accounts of the place they could. These men were supposed to be escaped convicts, and were afterwards often seen hanging about, apparently for no good purpose. Many of the accounts thus received, especially about the land, were discovered to have been entirely false. A great deal of alarm, however was caused. 'One 'poor man seemed almost out of his mind. He had brought with him a wife and dependent family of five or six children, ' and was, of course, most anxious to provide for them a means ' of subsistence. But of all the labouring class he had the least cause to fear. He was by trade a carpenter, and these were "receiving wages of from ninepence to one shilling per hour.'

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The experience of the other emigrants was also cheering after a little time for inspection.

'But now for what happened after we landed. We took a walk up the Bridle Path, and at length reached the summit of the hill, from whence we had a view of Christ Church. We had previously determined to ask those we met what their opinion was of the place. They all declared that they were comfortable; that provisions were, for the present, dear, but that wages were very high; and some said they would not return to England on any account. In our party were two who were landowners (one of whom, in his first panic, had offered me fifty acres for one hundred pounds), and they were not a little cheered by such assurances. We left both behind us, although they had half resolved to go to some other colony. Our emigrants, too, who went on shore, some in the deepest distress, I was rejoiced to meet, a few days afterwards, with smiling faces, and to hear from their own lips that they were beginning to like the place, and that they had no fear of finding work.'

Our correspondent did indeed meet one discontented indi

vidual during his rambles up the hill, in the person of a gentleman, arrived a few days before by a previous ship, but who had not, before this, attempted the ascent. He had managed to get nearly at the top of the hill with his lady, and also with a lapdog, for which he had given thirty guineas, but apparently with very little information as to the place in which he was, or his future plans, except that he thought of going to another colony. A few days after, however, the gentleman was seen very creditably dressed, as if prepared to rough it, and had resolved to stay.

In the descriptive portions of Mr. Adams's book, where he refers to his actual experience and observations of Lyttelton, we have no doubt that he means to be impartial; but there is a certain want of style in his writing-a youthful unconnectedness and absence of flow when on any general subjects of interest, which, together with a disposition towards finding fault, give a disappreciating character to the book, although the admissions here and there, incidentally made, would, if put together, contain most substantial facts in favour of the colony's success. His eloquence is confined to his own personal adventures, rather than topoints which illustrate the history of the place; and yet he is very free in short and deprecatory remarks, of a kind which convince us that he was not practically aware of the age of the colony at the time he writes of. He never seems, in his own mind, to make allowance for the fact that the colony was then only of about nine months existence.

Soon after landing he ascended the hill, in order to survey the Canterbury plains; but as there was a south-west rain blowing in his face (to which England is equally subject,) he hastily sets it down as a dreary, swampy, desolate landscape: yet two pages after we read the following description of a farm:

'The house is situated on the bank of a beautiful stream of very pure water. There is a considerable quantity of land in a state of cultivation, and the soil of the greater portion is very rich. Some part of it yielded sixty bushels per acre when first cropped with wheat.'—P. 34.

The discouraging accounts with regard to scenery are fully counterbalanced by the following description of a view from Banks's Peninsula, which was seen during the course of a rather serious adventure in which he lost his way for two days:

'The sun was rising as we gained the highest summit of the range we were thus traversing, and certainly a more magnificent view I never beheld. Far down beneath our feet lay the harbour and town of Lyttelton. From the height on which we stood, the range at the back of the town presented no obstacle to a clear view of the plains, and we could see them stretching far away to the foot of the snowy mountains. Still further north, range after range of bold rough hills, now rising into mountains and