THE NEW ZEALAND EDINBURGH
The town of Dunedin is Scotch in name and origin and in the number
of its inhabitants who are of Scotch descent, and is renowned for
the enterprise of its settlers and the solid worth of its buildings
and institutions. It was founded, in 1848, by Scotch Presbyterians;
and though there is now an Anglican Bishop of Dunedin, and
Ministers of various denominations, Presbyterianism is yet the
dominant form of Christianity. Like other New Zealand settlements,
the new Scotch colony consisted in its early days of a few small
huts at the edge of the forest. A part of one of these huts, made
of "wattle and daub," has been preserved, and is to be seen in
the "Early Settlers' Hall." Here, too, are portraits of the "old
identities," and pictures of the small sailing vessels in which
they crossed the ocean, and of Prince's Street, the one street of
the embryo town. Such grim, determined faces those early settlers
had, and it must have needed all their courage to face life in a
strange land among possibly unfriendly natives, with no roads, an
almost complete absence of eatable fruits or vegetables, no fresh
meat except fish and birds; and in a country covered either with
impenetrable forest or rough tussock grass. Now all round Dunedin
the forests have been cleared, and the low hills, which rose on
either side of Otago Harbour from the Heads to the town wharves,
are sown with British grass, and the land is divided up into sheep
runs and dairy farms.
[Illustration: OTAGO HARBOUR. _To face page 59._]
Dunedin itself is a city set on a hill facing the harbour. Half-way
up the hill, adding greatly to the health and beauty of the place,
is the Town Belt--a broad band of native bush, left uncut between
the business part of the town and residential suburbs, to keep for
all time a forest way into the open country beyond. From some point
above this belt of trees, you may look down upon the present city
with the spires and towers of Churches, University and other fine
buildings; upon the narrow harbour and the long neck of undulating
hilly country, which on the south divides it from the open ocean.
On the north are hills and valleys, with a sprinkling of houses and
thick groves of trees; and as you walk or ride towards the west,
you see a wide green plain stretching inland to distant hills; and
immediately below, on the edge of the plain, rise the chimneys of
the Mosgiel woollen factory, whose rugs are famous the world over.
Between Prince's Street and the harbour lay in the beginning
some furlongs of uninhabitable swamp-land, soon reclaimed by the
zeal of the early colonists. These intrepid settlers cut off the
top of the small hill on which the chief Presbyterian Church now
stands, and with the material thus obtained they filled in the
marsh and procured a good foundation for many of their public
buildings--railway station, Post Office, University, banks, and the
offices of the shipping companies.
The railway station is a very pretty one--the finest in the
Dominion--of grey stone, with projecting turrets and tall slender
clock-tower, faced with stone and red brick; the trains run into
it by way of a dangerous level crossing over a wide street between
town and harbour. The Post Office is, like others in colonial
towns, a large building, with separate departments for everything:
stamps in one room, money orders in another, private letter-boxes
in another part, and here the telegraph and cable department is in
a distinct block in another street; private letter-boxes are found
in New Zealand even in small post offices, deliveries are not very
frequent, and people often find it more convenient to fetch their
own letters. A New Zealand post office is planned with scrupulous
regard to efficiency, and is straightforward enough when you have
learnt your way about it, but at first each fresh one is, like the
different tramway systems, exceedingly puzzling.
Dunedin publishes three daily newspapers and three weekly ones--a
fair number for a town of sixty thousand people--but in New Zealand
all towns of any size publish one or more daily papers, and nearly
every small country township has a local paper once or twice a
week. The weekly papers here and in other large towns have capital
illustrations and give news of the world and of New Zealand
generally; the daily papers have the latest cables from London and
all parts of the world, and for other news are chiefly concerned
with the happenings in their own particular town and province;
so that in Dunedin you hear very little of what is going on in
Auckland.
Dunedin has large public gardens laid out with green lawns and
many-coloured flower-beds; in the gardens are greenhouses too, with
orchids, palms, high pink begonias and trailing red fuchsias; among
groups of dark trees flows the Water of Leith, and on a shady lake
swim black swans and Paradise ducks; the latter are native birds of
particularly gay and attractive plumage.
In these gardens, as well as in all other public gardens in the
Dominion, there is a bandstand where a band plays frequently, and
here in the summer the citizens hold garden fêtes. I went with
friends to one such fête on a sunny afternoon in March. It was held
with the object of obtaining money for the further beautifying of
the town by planting waste spaces with trees and flowers. Many
hundreds of spectators stood round a large platform, erected for
the display of the competitions; there were "poster" competitions
for the children, gymnastic exhibitions by different schools,
decorated bicycles and go-carts, and children danced with coloured
ribbons round a maypole. On the lawns were putting and bowling
contests for grownups. Tea was served in big tents, and all who
could spent the afternoon either in helping or in being entertained.
Dunedin and Otago generally have the reputation of being the most
friendly and hospitable parts of the Dominion: personally I found
Dunedin people entirely kind; they took me on trust and made me
welcome in the happiest way, and I felt as though I had known them
all my life.