CHAPTER II.
BY THE WATERS OF WESTLAND.
A land of streams! Some like a downward-smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush’d: and dew’d with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
Those who go to Ross do not usually visit it for pleasure—though I once knew a lady who spent a week there, but I think it was because she could not go any farther. It is strictly a place that minds its own business, which is gold-getting; and those who go there, go either directly or indirectly because of the gold. It is rather a fascinating place, reminding one a little of a French town, with its houses perched about on reddish-coloured hills from which the bush has been cleared. There is no attempt at regularity, it straggles about, up and down the hills, and a very little way outside, the bush closes in again and rolls away, range beyond range, hill beyond hill, clothed as with dark green fur. To seawards a yellow flat stretches to the sand-dunes. Gaunt, dead trees stand on the flat, and a ragged forest of white-pine borders it; there are pools and bogs surrounded
