Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/123

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ASHORE IN AUCKLAND
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the late Sir John Logan Campbell, "the Father of Auckland," and its three hundred acres have been estimated to be worth more than one million dollars. In Albert Park are cannon from Waterloo, Crimea, South Africa, and New Zealand battle-fields; and around the bandstand Admiral Sperry and other officers of the United States Navy planted sixteen oak trees in August, 1908.

Another attractive reserve is the Domain, an area of two hundred acres embowered in wild and cultivated verdure. On its reclaimed swamp are cricket grounds where nearly a dozen cricket matches are played simultaneously every bright Saturday afternoon in the cricket season.

From Albert Park it is worth while to step into the public art gallery, adjoining. In this art exhibition, the best in the Dominion, are good examples of landscapes, marines, and portraits by New Zealanders.

In the Auckland Museum, also near Albert Park, is to be found New Zealand art of another sort. There, in the best display of its kind in the Dominion, are exceptional specimens of the intricate carvings of the Maoris. The section is populated by a multitude of carved wooden figures with miens ferocious, grotesque, solemn, and dull. There are tattooed faces, rows of big teeth that seem eager to crunch; tongues from one to two feet long that silently defy; three-fingered hands grasping war-clubs; other hands resting on abdomens, as though their owners had the stomach-ache. From pataka and whare, from isolated panels, statues, and ancient