The morning papers will notice our advent, with a brief account of the voyage, and will give exceedingly inaccurate lists of our passengers. Only those people who expect friends or cargo by us will take any special interest in us; the evening promenaders on the wharf will glance at our ship with a brief passing interest; and the current of Auckland life will flow on unchanged, regardless of the fact that some three hundred more souls have been absorbed into its population.
Breakfast this morning is partaken of in the midst of a hurry-skurry of excitement, but, for all that, it is an imposing meal, and comprises all sorts of luxuries to which we have long been strangers. Beefsteaks, milk, eggs, fruit, and vegetables, fresh fish just caught over the side, and other fondly-loved delicacies are on the bill of fare. By-and-by, all formalities having been gone through, comes the parting with shipmates and the confusion of landing.
It is not without a strong feeling of astonishment that we step out of the boat that has brought us off, and enter the city. We were totally unprepared for the scene before us. From the accounts we had read and received, we had pictured Auckland to our minds as little better than a collection of log-huts, with here and there, perhaps, a slightly more comfortable frame-house. And here is the reality. A city that would put to shame many an old English town. A main street--Queen Street--that might even compare favourably with many a leading London thoroughfare in all its details. Fine handsome edifices of stone, with elaborate architecture and finish; large plate-glass shop-windows, filled with a display of wares; gas-lamps, pillar letter-boxes, pavements, awnings, carts, carriages, and cabs; all the necessities, luxuries, and appurtenances of city life, civilized and complete.
Truly, all this is a wonderful surprise to us. Our preconceived ideas, gathered from various books dating only a few years back, had led our fancies completely astray. Learning from these sources that, not much more than thirty years ago--in 1840,--the first ship-load of British emigrants landed in New Zealand; that since then the colony had struggled for bare life against many and great difficulties; that it had had to wage several desperate wars with the aborigines; had had its financial and legislative troubles; and was still so very very young, we were naturally prepared to find Auckland a rude, rough, and inchoate settlement, pitched down in the midst of a wilderness as savage and uncouth as those shores we passed along yesterday.
