INTRODUCTION
Westland is a land of contrasts. Wild rocky mountains lie reflected in placid lakes nestled in dense forest. The forests themselves, profuse in growth suggestive of tropical jungle, reach up and give welcome embrace to encroaching glaciers. As with its natural features so with its people. To-day they are a quiet industrious community—only yesterday they were a turbulent race of milling, struggling adventurers risking everything, even life itself, in the mad rushes of its goldfields. As with its features and its people so with the regard of those who consider it. To those who do not know it and take it upon hearsay it is a desolate district of perpetual rain. To those who have seen it occasionally in its brighter moods it is an area of attractive bush backed by rugged mountains and with some spectacular glaciers which it shows for profit to spendthrift tourists. But to those who are of it and who love it Westland is a country of extraordinary beauty. These know its glorious wooded valleys, its forest-fringed lakes, its sweeping beaches, noble rivers and majestic mountains. These know that despite its rains it has more than its share of sunshine and sparkling, brilliant days. These know the beauties of its dawnings and its sunsets.
