New Zealand being now a British colony, we may cast a glance at the region-its aspect, its resources, its geographical divisions, its climate, and its people. Afterwards we may follow the fortunes of the young settlements formed upon its soil, and conclude with a fair view of its actual state. In all these details there is something of the remarkable, and much to rouse in us a regret that the islands have not been more liberally developed. New Zealand lies in the immense Austral Ocean between New Holland and Cape Horn. On the east that ocean rolls to South America, on the south to the Pole, on the west to Van Diemen's Land, and on the north it stretches boundlessly away to the Arctic Circle. The group is situated between 34 and 48 degrees south latitude, and between 160 and 179 degrees east longitude. It consists of two large islands—the North and the Middle, otherwise New Ulster and New Munster, with a lesser one called Stewart's, or New Leinster, and several scattered islets. The extreme length from North to South Cape exceeds 1100 miles; its breadth varies from 300 to 1 mile, though 100 is the average. The larger islands are separated by Cook's Strait, and Stewart's is divided from the Middle Island by Fourneaux's Strait. The North Island contains, it has been computed, about 31,174,400 acres of area; the Middle 46,126,080; and Stewart's 1,000,000.

To afford the reader an idea, by familiar comparison, of their extent, we may say that the North Island is about a thirty-second part less than England, exclusive of Scotland and Wales; that the Middle is about a ninth less; and that the whole group contains 78,300,480 acres, or not more than 50,000 acres less than the whole of Great Britain and Ireland with all the adjacent isles: consequently we have in New Zealand an extensive country, capable, in respect of its size, of accommodating 25,000,000 persons at the least. Its natural capabilities are by no means of inferior proportion. Tracts of barren hills, irreclaimable bogs, naked sandflats, and considerable expanses of water-surface, there certainly are ; but amply allowing for these, it appears no exaggeration to assert that at least two-thirds, or about 52,000,000 acres, are fitted for settlement, and might yield abundant sustenance to a population, whether by herds and flocks, or vintage and grain. New Zealand is most nearly of all countries the antipodes of Great Britain. It lies 1200 miles east of the mighty island of New Holland; and if we suppose an immense semicircle formed by the continents of Asia, Africa, and America, extending in a sweep from Cape Horn, by Behring's Strait, to the Cape of Good Hope, encompassing the Indian and Polynesian Archipelagos, and comprising the greatest oceans on the globe, New Zealand occupies nearly the centre.

New Zealand, like many other groups in the Southern Sea, is of volcanic origin. A chain of lofty hills, broken into high sharp peaks, runs along the Middle Island from north to south, their summits towering in some instances to a height of 14,000 feet. The most elevated pinnacles are wrapped in a robe of everlasting snow; and during the winter season, when the whole ridge is clothed in this magnificent covering, its effect is beyond the power of art to describe. The mariner has compared it to a gigantic crest of foam rolled up by the billows of the Austral Ocean, and appearing ever ready to sink down and disperse over the waves. In the North Island the hills are lower and less distinctly connected; but a few of their

isolated peaks invade the regions of perpetual snow. One of them, Mount Egmont, is an extinct volcano, reckoned to be 8840 feet high: it is situated at the South-West Cape, near Cook's Strait. The first person who ascended it was the intelligent traveller Dr Dieffenbach in 1839. Tongarroo, a volcano still active, and Ruaperhue, whose fires have long been extinguished, stand in the centre of the island-one 6200, the other loftier, both crowned with perpetual snow, and forming, with two or three others, a magnificent group of mountains, reared in the middle of a more level but picturesque country. Mount Edgecombe is an extinct volcano near the Bay of Plenty. No one has ever been known to ascend its summit, which is supposed to be about 7000 feet high. Hence the surface of the island north-east to Mount Egmont wears the traces of violent volcanic action, chiefly proceeding from the crater of Tongarroo. Boiling fountains break from the ground in many places, geysers spout up their foam, fumeroles emit columns of sulphury steam, solfataras shoot forth clouds of luminous vapour, and hot springs in constant ebullition spread over the district in an extended line. In White Island, lying in the Bay of Plenty, exists a low crater, with the rim composed of alloyed sulphur. A chain of lakes, connected closely with the volcanic agencies we have enumerated, gives additional proof of the formation of the region. Lake Tago, in the south-west, is the most extensive. Of an irregular triangular shape, its greatest length is about thirty-six miles, its width twenty-five. Many little creeks indent its borders, and several streams feed it from the south; while the Waikato River, flowing away westward, bears to the sea the superabundant waters. Around spreads a broad level tract or table-land, beyond which the surface is depressed, and gradually formed into hills and valleys, where the drainage of the peaks, ranges, and plateaus, accumulated in the beds of streams, is carried to the ocean. Detached ridges, more or less elevated, diversify the aspect of New Zealand, lying almost invariably in one direction-from north to south-and dividing the low alluvial plains from the high tablelands.

In the Middle Island also there are several bodies of fresh water of various capacity. Lakes Arthur and Howick are the principal in the north-west, Waiora in the south-west. They contribute at once to adorn and to fertilise the country, resting in beds hollowed out no doubt by volcanic action. Earthquakes are not infrequent, but the shocks are slight, and little regarded by the people: numerous outlets easily allowing the subterranean power to discharge itself, render the region, indeed, safe from these terrific and destructive explosions which in the Indian Archipelago have cleft islands asunder, and covered a plain with the ruins of a mountain. Formerly, according to tradition, severe convulsions of the earth took place; but the memory of no living man reaches so far back as a time when any terrible calamity was caused by them, unless the loss of property to the amount of £15,000 in 1848 may be reckoned as such. The natives consequently betray no fear when they happen, and even the settlers are becoming habituated to them.

New Zealand has in many of its natural characteristics been placed in close comparison with Italy. It is a narrow, lengthy tract of land, divided into sections by chains of hills, watered by streams of long course, but

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inferior capacity for navigation, containing many provinces adapted for rich culture, and covered in many parts with a fertile volcanic tufaceous soil, resembling that which in the south of Europe favours the cultivation of the vine. It resembles the beautiful Peninsula-the crown of the ancient world and cradle of the arts-in offering opportunities for a species of colonisation similar to that which peopled it—namely, the settlement of numerous independent communities, each with abundant resources in its own territory, and little facility for communication with its neighbours, except by sea. It has been compared also to the British Isles in its irregular, straggling, oblong shape, its detached position from the nearest continents, the ready means of water-communication between all parts of the coast, its numerous estuaries and bays, and its natural capacities for trade. Like Great Britain, its climate is influenced by the sea-breezes; and its coast abounds in fish of the greatest delicacy and variety.

Casting a general glance at the aspect of the country, we find it very various: it is not all beautiful nor all unpicturesque. Near the river Thames the voyager approaching casts his view over a tract of low, rolling hills, clothed with fern, and surmounted by one or two black, scoria-covered volcanic peaks, dull, barren, and cheerless to the eye. In other parts an impenetrable forest is spread over the surface, a mass of evergreen trees and shrubs, matted and twined together with supple-jacks, creepers, and wild vines. Precipitous hills, deep, black, boggy ravines, and dismal gullies, spread in monotonous succession for miles. Then perhaps you emerge on a wide country of valley and plain, lake and forest, with snow-capped mountains glittering in the distance, long grassy slopes, and all the features of English scenery. Fields of vivid green, streams winding among them, hills with blue or rosy peaks, and woods fringed with flowery thickets, vary the landscape, which is made still more enchanting by the light brilliant atmosphere, the fresh breeze, and the sky unblemished by a cloud.

As in most countries presenting similar geographical features, New Zealand presents numerous indications of mineral wealth. Copper, silver, and iron, with coal, sulphur, and manganese, have been discovered, each in at least one spot, and worked with considerable success. They already form articles of exportation, and will probably furnish materials for manufacturing on a large scale. Lead-ore, tin-ore, and what is supposed to be nickel, have been detected, but not hitherto procured in any extraordinary abundance. Many other riches remain, doubtless, for further research to discover; but it will be well if what has been already brought to light is developed even to a moderate extent. Compared with the geological formation of the Andes, the ranges of New Zealand present very similar characteristics, and it is believed they may contain even the more costly metal which is found in the giant chain of South America.

In these mountains are traced the sources of streams and rivers which flow into the sea at various points along the extensive coast-line. Some rise from many springs, play down the slopes in rivulets, accumulating and meeting until their associated waters form a river. Others gush from copious fountains, and break into many brooks, which ramify until they shoot like threads of silver over the surface of the plains. Rising, as all the streams do, at a considerable elevation above the level of the sea,

into which they discharge themselves after a very abrupt course, or long windings through a rugged country, they are not generally navigable for any great distance. Some, however, tortuous and broken as they are by falls and rapids, flow one, and even two hundred miles. The high peaks of the hills, intercepting masses of cloud formed by the congregated vapours of the surrounding ocean, bring them down in floods, which supply the rivers with a perennial flow, affording an exhaustless water-power in every hollow and valley of New Zealand. Advantageous as they would thus be were the region densely peopled in the more elevated tracts, they are in the lower provinces blessings to the population, spreading out wide alluvial flats, fertile beyond exaggeration, large spaces of which are now ready for the plough and the drill; while in others the axe of the woodman and the task of drainage still remain to render the land susceptible of cultivation.

Intersected as its surface is by rugged tracts or lines of peaked hills, extensive plateaus variously elevated, and alluvial districts, New Zealand is still further varied by large fens, which might easily be drained, and are generally situated near the sea. In these divisions four peculiar classes of vegetation severally thrive—forest, grass, fern, or a mixture of grass, fern, and native flax, and a few humble shrubs and clumps of trees, including the cabbage-palm.

Few regions in the world in comparison with the extent of coast-lineabout three thousand miles-equal New Zealand in the excellence and abundance of their harbours. Here a commodious, safe, and central rendezvous is offered to the vast shipping trade of the Southern Seas, including myriads of islands, many of them the most fruitful in the world. It might form the entrepôt of commerce between the Indian and Polynesian Archipelagos, and will probably, when its affairs have been liberally settled, literally become, as many orators, writers, and economists have prophesied, another Great Britain in the Austral Ocean.

To the British emigrant, however, one consideration is paramount above all views of profit. It is nothing to him that a region abounds in harbours, ports, and bays; that it has a fertile soil, is rich in minerals, abounds with timber, and promises wealth to the industrious settler, unless its climate be genial to the European constitution. A mine of gold or an estate near Cape Coast Castle would not induce him to make his habitation there; the gold-washings of Borneo will not allure him to live amid its marshes; but in New Zealand soil and climate equally invite his enterprise. We have with respect to this subject heard many erroneous statements; but a careful examination of accounts by the most competent authorities imposes on us but one belief. We maintain without reserve that the climate of New Zealand is better adapted to the English constitution than that of any other British colony. The immense preponderance of water over land in those latitudes causes a less degree of average heat than in the northern region, where the land greatly preponderates over the water. In temperature, therefore, New Zealand resembles that of the country between the south of Portugal and the central departments of France, or rather that which, from its insular character, Great Britain would enjoy if its centre lay twelve hundred miles to the west of Cape Finisterre. The extremes of heat and cold in winter and summer range within very confined limits.

An immense expanse of ocean stretching away on all sides, tempers at once the heat of the tropics and the cold of the Antarctic Circle. England, indeed, in many phenomena of its climate differs widely from New Zealand. Its cold is more intense in winter, and some of its prevailing winds are more constant and disagreeable; but this would appear to arise more from the nearer proximity of a continent to us than to any of our possessions in the Austral Sea.

In the order and character of its seasons, the climate of New Zealand is not strongly distinguished from Australia itself, especially New South Wales. August ushers in the spring, to dress the country in the attractions of verdure exquisite in its variety of tint and form. In December summer comes, flourishing until March, when the leaves are gilt by autumn, the bloom of the earth fades, and winter falls in July. Temperate as the climate is, summer does not scorch, and winter does not nip with cold. Nowhere except in the southern districts, nearest the region of perpetual ice, does the water ever remain frozen under the beams of the risen sun. Snow never lies on the plains. Even at that extreme point where the coast is washed by a sea which rolls its unbroken billows to the pole, evergreen plants, more vigorous than any in Devonshire or the Isle of Wight, thrive to the edge of the water. At the Cape, and in New South Wales, hot winds occasionally prevail, drying up the ground, and producing disastrous droughts; but in New Zealand no such visitations occur. A supply of water which never fails is continually brought by the winds to the source of springs in the mountains, and the mild temperature renders it peculiarly refreshing to the soil.

Frosts, at times on the lofty plateaus, nip the acacia and the potato plant, but near the coast they never are observed; and the presence of winter is only felt by more frequent rains and more boisterous breezes, which to the stranger, as they whirl in savage gusts over the hills, appear as though announcing a disagreeable climate. They scarcely, however, prevent the bud from spreading into bloom. There is no absolutely rainy season. Showers continually fall, and a fortnight rarely passes without their descending to invigorate the sources of production. The country is speedily dried by a pleasant genial warmth. Still it is comparatively a moist atmosphere, like that of the Malay peninsula, and more rain probably falls in the year than in Great Britain. Winter and spring are the wettest. Heavy dews fall in those seasons, and in the morning foamy mists hang over the lakes and river channels: an hour of the sun, however, melts them away, and leaves the air perfectly pure and lucid. Indeed, from its geographical formation, and the character of its surface, water in New Zealand flows rapidly to the coast. Large outlets discharge the superabundant contents of the lakes; and the few swamps which exist might in almost all cases, as we have already noticed, be destroyed by a careful though simple system of drainage, such as was adopted to dry up the Lancashire morasses. In spots where a clayey subsoil lies deep, the waters accumulate in fens, but not in sufficient quantities to affect the climate. The harvest season is almost completely dry, the general average of showery days being 124 in the year. In Cornwall at home it is about 180; in Bristol, 140.

The moisture which generally charges the air invigorates the soil, and