CHAPTER XII.
[Image of page 231]
CHAPTER XII.
Christchurch, the City of the Plains--Its Streets, Houses, and Shops--Market-Day--Squatters and Farmers-- Plague of Flies--The Climate--The Cathedral and Church Accommodation--Dearness of Articles of Consumption--Post Office System--Police--Roads.
CHRISTCHURCH, the city of the plains, stands about five miles from the foot of the peninsula, between two singular streams. That on which it is situated, called the Avon, wells up from the ground a few miles off, and its clear cold stream curves and bends with a quick course, till it discharges itself into an estuary where the peninsula meets the sea. The growth of the city is towards the other stream, named the Heathcote, which winds round the spurs of the peninsula, rising and flowing like the Avon, till it mingles with its sister stream in the same
[Image of page 232]
CHRISTCHURCH.
estuary. To the eye the country is a dead level, much of it being of a swampy, peaty nature, but more dry and gravelly.
The plan of the city was settled in England before the colonists landed, and there was little difficulty in transferring the paper plan to the soil, the space being so bare and flat. The labour of a few men for a few months cut the footpaths, rounded the streets, and heavily metalled them with unbroken stone from the neighbouring gravel pits. The plan is therefore very clear, and the broad streets intersecting each other in straight lines, and running away into the distance, give a town-like aspect, even though there are no houses. The principal is Colombo Street, from the general terminus of the railway in progress, and those in futurity, through the heart of the town to the North Road.
A square has been reserved in the centre for the proposed cathedral, by which this highway is carried, and over the Avon near the Government buildings. I believe it will become the show-street of Christchurch, though, at present, Cashel Street is of more importance, crossing it at right angles, and cutting the city in halves in the other direction.
[Image of page 233]
PUBLIC BUILDINGS.
The erratic course of the Avon in some measure breaks the formality of these straight and rectangular highways. In one of its wide bends, it encloses a space wisely reserved for a park, one day to become as useful as it will be ornamental. Except where the Avon breaks into the monotonous figures, the town has been ruled out by the surveyor into squares and parallelograms. It struck me that the citizens had joined with the stream to war against this formality by the quaintness of their designs in building.
Queer houses lined the straight paths, with overhanging storeys, Elizabethan gables, fantastic roofs, new designs in doors and windows, with old designs in porticoes and verandahs, showing the architects at strife with the surveyors. In public buildings there is a Post-Office like nothing else in the world; and a range of Government offices--if like anything else, the grotesque structure it resembles has not been seen by me. Although I often heard these prettily-placed turrets by the blue waters of the Avon abused, I plead guilty to liking the edifice standing where it does, however it might look if removed to another city.
[Image of page 234]
GENTLEMEN'S HOUSES.
The shops are good, and well provided for a place so small, and so far from the source whence supplies are mostly drawn. But in judging of this colonial town he who estimates its population, and thence deduces the probable amount of business done, would go far astray, for every peasant spends an income equal to the pay of a subaltern, A gigantic establishment constructed of galvanised iron attracts attention, with its huge tilted roof, its rows of stalls, and stands for carriages--it is a horse repository, and though extensive in accommodation, by no means the only one in the town.
Some of the gentlemen's houses take in the oblong formed by the right angled streets, hedging in their pleasure-ground with a luxuriant growth of broom, quick, or gorse, lined by poplars and gum-trees. If the eye can penetrate the hedging, all the fruit-trees and flowers of an English garden may be seen growing vigorously. Most of the parallelograms, however, are either open common, with perhaps the framework of a wooden box rising up in a corner, or fenced in, with a few cows or horses grazing.
The hammer rings in every direction, nailing
[Image of page 235]
AGRICULTURAL INTEREST.
the weather-boards on the slight frames of the houses springing up like mushrooms around. In a country where brick can be readily made, and stone abounds, it is a pity the buildings should be of wood. Though the cheap and quick erection gives a temporary accommodation, the citizens in the end will pay heavily. When the town grows into a collected mass, it will surely be destroyed by fire. A north-wester and a spark will one day leave the site as bare as when Captain Thomas selected it for a city.
Christchurch is a purely agricultural town, acknowledging no divided allegiance, the pastoral and tilling interests being the parents to which it owes birth and sustenance. Erected on so broad a basis, it rises with a security no other foundation can give, and bears the marks of wealth and stability. Hong-Kong is a city of trade, dependent for its existence on a freak of commerce; Melbourne and Dunedin are cities of gold, overflowing or deserted according to the chance discoveries of auriferous fields; but Christchurch, though an infant, is an agricultural town.
On Saturdays, when market is held, the streets are alive with business. Carts roll in piled, with.
[Image of page 236]
SQUATTERS.
farm produce, and dames in gay attire condescend to sit on sacks of corn. Occasionally teams of bullocks bring in heavy drays, though horses do nearly all the work. Vehicles of every description fill up the broad-ways--here a dog-cart, there a waggonette, now something new from England, then something old from no one knows where. The horses look well, with shiny coats, as if well fed and well groomed, though some never taste oats, and few know what a currycomb means.
Most of the squatters live on their runs, and the farmers on their estates. The producers, therefore, who are the real wealth of the country, reside outside the city. The squatter, some thirty miles off, mounts a horse, and in less than three hours rides into the town. The farmer drives in with his wife and family, and all add greatly to the life and bustle of the streets. It is no wonder that the horse repositories thrive, the plains being covered with active young men, who pay some six shillings per night for the stabling, and two shillings for an extra feed. An excellent club, where the gentlemen find good accommodation, is not likely to lessen the inclination towards the city.
The hotels are numerous, and some of them are
[Image of page 237]
ORIGINAL BARENESS OF THE COUNTRY.
good. The best is a boarding-house called the Ladies' Club, which is generally filled with residents, or with ladies coming in from the sheep stations. When a family do not live on the run whence their income is derived, they seldom reside in the town. A plot of ground is purchased a few miles away, and there they build, plant, and beautify. This tends greatly to give to the environs a neatly cultivated and finished appearance.
When first settled, the country was looked upon as hopelessly ugly. The bare land--half shingle, half swamp--was held to be irreclaimably plain, and perhaps its future will owe much to the bald and treeless site. To nourish plantations became the fashion, and even the subject of legislation. A shrubbery added to the value of a situation. People compared the growth of the infant shoots, and took their visitors to look at the little oaks, ash, and walnuts, at the acacia that might, if closely observed, be seen to grow, and at the blue gums, like poplars in a row, throwing up their slender branches with a rapidity astonishing even to the Australians.
In spite of the intense heat, many of the meadows bore a brilliant green sward, and the gorse
[Image of page 238]
SMALL ANNOYANCES.
made some of the lanes yellow with the profusion of its flowers.
I never entered Christchurch without being sensible of a small pest that marks the season as well as fruit or flowers, detracting from comfort and marring enjoyment. The common English house-fly had invaded the town like a plague; they lay dead in myriads in windows, poisoned by the fly-papers spread about. Around the butchers' shops the air was alive, and they hung like a cloud in those of the confectioners, settling in swarms over the glass bottles, and covering as a coat of tar any sweetmeat left exposed. I experienced no other annoyance of the kind in New Zealand, and I only once saw a mosquito, though for a portion of the time I lived close to a swamp. Indeed an exemption from such nuisances, as well as from more noxious animals, is one of the advantages of the country. I was sensible, however, of a pest of another kind. The shingle spread over the streets is impregnated with the sand of the soil. A sea breeze rises with the sun, and blows fiercely at noonday, driving along clouds of this sand and dust. The wind is in itself sufficiently disagreeable, but bearing such a load it becomes insufferable.
[Image of page 239]
CLIMATE.
It did not surprise me to learn there was much sickness in a town built on land so flat, low, and swampy, requiring a system of drainage beyond its means. On such a locality the accumulation of people must quickly lead to a condition productive of disease. I fully believe this unhealthiness to be temporary, depending on sanitary measures for removal, not from anything radically defective in the site, though some spoke despondingly on the subject. If the site were in fault, how is it that so many years have elapsed before it has been shown? Would a town similarly placed in any part of the world be healthy before a good system of drainage were carried out? Certainly not; then why should it be so in New Zealand? The fact is this climate has been so over-praised, that people have a vague idea it ought to change the laws of nature. If they trust to their climate to bear them harmless in the neglect of work it is ordained they should do, nature will repay them--as it has repaid the Chinese and all others who have so acted--by desolating plagues. Low fevers have prevailed this summer; the next very hot season may bring rampant typhus, and that may be followed by cholera.
The very name of this city betokens its Church-
[Image of page 240]
HIGH PRICE OP PROVISIONS.
of-England origin; every street is called after a bishop, and it is a bishop's see. Here at least the settler would look for good church accommodation, yet he would look for it in vain. The cathedral is a mere castle in the air, and there is not even a parish church, unless the patched-up wooden building may be so styled. If the race to St. Michael's, when it is open, speaks well for the citizens as churchmen, still it is not an edifying spectacle to see people scramble for seats in the house of God as in a theatre. However commendable the enterprise and the ambition that designed so fine a structure as the cathedral, and that pay so largely to carry it out, yet it might be asked if for the present a parish church less pretending, but more readily attainable, would not be more suitable.
Families will find Christchurch a most expensive place. Although the capital of an agricultural district, agricultural produce entering into household consumption is excessively dear. It is of little advantage that wheat is four shillings and sixpence a bushel, if bread is tenpence for a four-pound loaf. Fowls were sold at seven shillings and sixpence a couple, turkeys about fourteen shillings each, eggs
[Image of page 241]
LIVING IN NEW ZEALAND.
three shillings per dozen, butter two shillings a pound; beef and mutton about the English price; coal some five pounds a ton, and wood three pounds the cord. The shop price of English produce was more than a hundred per cent. dearer than at home, and I doubt if a hundred and fifty per cent extra would cover the expense of servants and house rent --the single item of washing costing from three shillings and sixpence to four shillings per dozen.
This may demolish some pleasing ideas of living in the midst of plenty in so fine a farming district, but I hold it to be most important for correct information to be circulated at home; A family proceeding to Canterbury under the impression that their income will go further there than in heavily-taxed England, would make a disastrous move. To create an income from the investment of realized capital there, is a very different thing, and might be well worth the attention of those of moderate means; but to go with a fixed income, as they proceed to the continent, might lead to most bitter and unavailing regret.
These remarks apply to one province and to one period only. Whether consumption overtakes increase, rendering the place still dearer, or increase
[Image of page 242]
POST OFFICE SYSTEM.
overtakes consumption, lowering materially the price of most necessaries, is mere speculation. I write simply of what I saw, and my remarks may be as little applicable to the Christchurch of two or three years hence, as the hand-books of the Southern Provinces, written a few years ago, now are to these settlements, so rapidly becoming highly organised communities.
The Post Office system I considered so good in America was adopted, I saw, in Christchurch; private boxes being attached to the building, the holder of each number having the key in his possession, and removing his letters, which are slipped in when sorted, at his convenience. There were mounted postmen also delivering letters at the houses. Little boys cried the Daily Press through the streets, and placards announced important news from Taranaki, or summaries just brought by the English mail. The poles and telegraph wire that skirted the bridle path in my ascent from Lyttelton, came by the side way along Colombo Street, and entered a building where a board hung giving the shipping intelligence. The Albatross, with fifty passengers and one hundred assisted emigrants, anchored; mail signalled from the North; Ladybird sails at two
[Image of page 243]
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENTS.
o'clock for Dunedin; cattle ship outside from Australia.
I only noticed one hawker, and he sold muffins; but though the goods were not carried to the consumer, great efforts were made to bring the consumer to the goods. Large red-printed bills drew attention to "sales by auction," advertised for days previously, and were further assisted by mounted criers, who rang bells and shouted down the streets while the sale was progressing.
When a prisoner in my sitting-room at Lyttelton, a man hoarse with constant bawling walked round so often with these announcements, that I retain an accurate impression of the goods patronized by the Canterbury settlers. Once, after a jumble of drapery and "gents' hose," he electrified me by stating, "in lots to suit purchasers, one Australian cockatoo, terms at sale." Sometimes he added, "a champagne lunch provided," never omitting, "God save the Queen!"
The number of commission-agents gives an idea of the vast amount of property constantly changing hands. To judge from the advertisements, it might be supposed that the province was in the market. Indeed, this is a peculiarity of all young countries,
[Image of page 244]
THE POLICE.
and tends so much to give the trading tone to society, that everything is for sale--no land, no house, no article being sacred from the profanation of an auctioneer's hammer.
The best-dressed men in the streets are the police, a fine, well-drilled, and military-looking body. Sneers may often be heard at their attempts to ape dragoons, yet it is wise to give to them as complete an organization as possible, and they will be found, on emergencies that may arise soon, and which must arise late, to be worth whole corps of volunteers. Volunteering holds a place in the columns of newspapers, and is the subject of articles, of letters, and of talk, but occupies little, if any, of the settler's time. Time is more valuable in a colony than in England, and people are poorer, and with less patriotism; therefore the system which has given to England so fine an army of citizens, will never thrive in these new countries. The Provincial Government are right to foster as high a soldierly spirit of organization as possible, in the only force under their control.
Christchurch is fortunately placed for defence from a foreign foe; and though not urged by the citizens, this really forms the strongest argument
[Image of page 245]
DEFENCE OF THE COLONY.
for its being made the capital of New Zealand. Such questions are not of to-day, nor should they be now settled, for reasons that time will remove. Paris is strong, because it is the interior of a warlike nation. Dare the Emperor of Russia make war upon England, if St. Petersburgh were on the sea? If these islands are to become the Britain of the south, fleets will guard their coast, and they will rule in the Southern Hemisphere. The employment of war-ships betokens danger, and they are not ubiquitous. Nations who rule are the objects of envy, and they are never wholly free from the chance of attack. It would then be well to have a seat of government beyond the reach of projectiles from ships.
The army has to be formed that could land in the face of an enterprising enemy, in the heavy surf on the beach along the plain. The harbours of the peninsula are easy of defence, and the passes over the hills are positions so strong that they could not be forced, unless held by a people to whom strong positions were of no avail. In modern times the site of a capital should be like Christchurch, beyond the guns of an enemy's fleet.
[Image of page 246]
ROUTES TO THE PORT.
The connection of Christchurch with the port is, as yet, very imperfect, and this is the chief reason given for the expense of everything not produced on the plains. There are three routes. The bridle path, though macadamized, is suitable only for pack-horses and foot-passengers. An omnibus runs twice each day between the foot of the hills and the town. The carriers take the road by Sumner, leading by the lagoon, under the precipitous spurs of the peninsula, up the valley of Sumner, over Evan's Pass, and by the steep harbour-side into Lyttelton. The Ferry road bears all the traffic, the bridle path and the Sumner way uniting at the Ferry, some four miles from the city. It is, however, only half of this distance of four miles that is used for the transport of the bulk of merchandise, as it is carried by boats over the bar connecting the lagoon with the sea, and up the tidal stream of the Heathcote, till in one of its bends it touches the road, half-way to the Ferry, where wharves and warehouses have been established.
A fleet of small craft find employment between these wharves, and Lyttelton, and the bays of the peninsula, as well as some small steamers. Their profit may be judged from the fact that the carriage
[Image of page 247]
RAILWAY AND TUNNEL.
often costs as much as from England, and the danger to the goods is greater. Perhaps the most extensive work ever undertaken by so young a country is the railway in progress between the port and the town.
The tunnel will penetrate the range that shuts out the plains from the harbour of Lyttelton. Most of its length, a mile and a half, was completed when I paid a visit to the end emerging from the hills on the Christchurch side. It was arched with brick and faced with cut stone, the breadth being sufficient only for a single line of rails. The change this work will effect cannot be estimated till it comes into operation. On the completion of the extensive dock accommodation designed, this city, that cannot see the ocean, will have shipping advantages possessed by few.
When this system of communication is complete, no other town can hope to obtain a footing on the plains. Such places as Kiapoi, Saltwater Creek, and Timaru may hold their position as villages, and commission agents may puff into sale sites as yet unknown. The tendency of railroads is to centralize. Bad roads will make many villages, good roads will condense them into a few towns,
[Image of page 248]
FUTURE OF CHRISTCHURCH.
but railroads will concentrate them into one great metropolis. Whoever, therefore, hearkens to the syren voice of the auctioneer, and invests in positions with unheard-of advantages, may live to learn what the effect of railways will be on this prairie. Natural laws have decreed that one town only shall arise, to be fostered into greatness by all the wealth of a most productive country, and Christchurch, destined to exist without a rival, may well be termed "The City of the Plains."
