farming district. There are numerous plantations of blue gum, and the town itself is very scattered and rural-looking. Poplars are prominent; and, indeed, this regard to tree adornment is a very pleasing feature of all New Zealand towns. Would it were so in New South Wales.
Twenty years ago I rode through Ashburton. It was then a bullock-teamster's camp. There was a "bush pub." and a blacksmith's shop and a police hut. These constituted the township then.
Now, look around! See the tall brick chimneys, the gas-works, the wide streets well lined with spacious shops and public buildings, hotels, churches, institutes, and even a theatre. Handsomely laid-out reserves and well-wooded parks, enormous wool and grain stores, coach factories, wool factories, butter and cheese factories; public library. I may well rub my eyes! It seems all a dream to me, that memory of the lumbering bullock team, ploughing its weary way over shifting shingle and through boggy hollows.
Across the sprawling river, where many a footsore bullock has been swept down to sea in the gone-by times; and many a swagsman has found a watery grave; we now spin gaily along over another very long wooden bridge—past gardens, nurseries, farms, plantations, hay-ricks, and threshing-mills, we dash. Mile after mile is left behind, till at Ealing, some seventy miles from Christchurch, we dip towards the bed of the fierce Rangitata, which we cross by another of the characteristic timber viaducts. The milky water,
