the Kaipara, and other ports in the north. The road along the river front, here, is shortly brought up abruptly at the base of a lofty bluff, whereon is a church and other buildings, near the site of old Fort Britomart.

Retracing our steps, we enter Queen Street, the main street of the city. All the lower portion of it abutting on to the wharf was, we are told, reclaimed from swamp and mud only a very few years ago. The street is a fine one, leading straight away from the river, curving imperceptibly to the right, and gradually ascending for about a mile, until it branches off into other streets and roads. Down at the lower end of the street most of the buildings are of brick and stone; and some of them are of tolerably fine architecture. There are banks and warehouses and merchants' stores of all kinds, interspersed with hotels and public buildings. Higher up Queen Street, and in the cross-streets, stone and brick edifices are less numerous, and wooden houses more plentiful.

The broad, well-paved thoroughfare is crowded at certain times of the day with carriages, cabs, buggies, omnibuses, equestrians, express-carts, waggons, drays, and every species of vehicle. The side-walks are thronged with passengers, who pass up and down under the awnings that stretch from the houses across the wide pavement. Many of the shop-windows would do no discredit to Oxford Street or the Strand, either as respects their size or the goods displayed in them.

Some distance up Queen Street, and turning a little out of it, is the Market House, where a very fine show of fruit, vegetables, and other eatables is frequently to be seen; and then there is the United Service Hotel, at the corner of Wellesley Street, which is a structure that Aucklanders point to with pride, as evidence of their progress in street architecture. At night, when the gas is lit in the streets, the shops, and the saloons, and one mingles with the crowd that throngs them, or pours into the theatre, the Choral Hall, the Mechanics' Institute, the Oddfellows' Hall, or other places of amusement, instruction, or dissipation, it is almost possible sometimes to imagine oneself back in the old country, in the streets of some English town.

New-chums are able to notice some of the peculiarities of Auckland street-life, wherein it most differs from an old-country town. These arise principally from that absence of conventionality, which, certainly in many external things, is the prerogative of colonists. There is a mingling of people who seem on terms of perfect equality, and who yet present the most extraordinary difference in appearance. The gentleman and the roughest of roughs may happen to get together on the same piece of work, and when their temporary chum-ship ends the one cannot entirely cut the other, such being a course quite inadmissible with colonial views of life. Only one man may be scouted by any one, and that is the loafer.

Of course there are good people here who would fain introduce all the class barriers that exist in the old country; but they cannot do more than form little cliques and coteries, which are constantly giving way and being broken down under the amalgamating process of colonization. Where these offer most resistance to the levelling influence is where they are cemented by religious denominational spite, which is, unhappily, very prevalent in Auckland.

This general fusion of all sorts of people together produces a very amiable and friendly state of things. Etiquette is resolved into simple courtesy, not very refined, perhaps, but which is sufficient "between man and man," as Micawber would say. Prejudice must not be entertained against any man on account of his birth, connections, education, poverty, or manner of work; he is "a man for a' that," and entitled to the same consideration as the more fortunate individual who possesses what he lacks. Only if he be a loafer, or dishonest, or otherwise positively objectionable, will any man find himself under the ban of colonial society. And this society is not a mere set of wealthy exclusives banded together against the rest of the world; it comprehends everybody.

One sees in the streets abundant evidence of these conditions of social relationship. In the first place, costume goes for little or nothing. Men—I am coming to your sex presently, ladies!—men wear just what they please at all times and in all places, and without remark from others. One sees men apparelled in all sorts of ways; and it would be impossible to guess at a man's condition from his coat, hereaway.

In Queen Street once, I saw a well-dressed and thriving store-keeper touch his hat to a ragged, disreputable-looking individual, who was carrying a hod full of bricks, where some building operations were going on. It was a sudden impulse of old habit, I suppose, which had wrung that very uncolonial salute from the sometime valet to his former master, in whose service he had originally come out. I knew of one case where master and servant actually came to change places, and I may add, to their mutual advantage eventually.

A man would not be likely to receive an invitation to the governor's ball unless he had some pretensions to gentility, or was locally important. Yet, I suppose that the recipient of such an invite might turn up at Government House in a grey jumper and moleskins, if he were so minded, and would pass unquestioned. In such a case it would only be surmised that Mr. So-and-so was "not doing very well at present."

Women, as a rule, dress "to death;" and the more gorgeous the toilette the more likely is it that the wearer is unmarried, and a worker of some sort. The merest Irish slut can earn her ten shillings a week as a domestic, besides being found in everything; and better-class girls get proportionately more; so it is not surprising that they can clothe themselves in fine raiment. But there is no rule to go by—the expensively dressed woman may be either mistress or maid, and the plain cotton gown may clothe either as well. Only one thing is certain, the Auckland woman of any class will dress as well as she knows how, on her own earnings or her husband's.

We new-chums observe one or two peculiarities of this kind as we stroll about the city, and they are explained to us by our colonial friend. Some extremely dowdy females we see riding in a barouche are the wife and daughters of a high official, who is stingy to his woman-kind, so they say. Two youths we pass are in striking contrast, as they walk along arm-in-arm. One is got up according to the fullest Auckland idea of Bond Street foppery, while the other prefers to go about in very "creeshy flannen;" yet the two sit at the same desk in one of the banks, and earn the same salary; and neither they themselves, nor anyone else, seems to notice any peculiarity in the costume of either.

Then comes along a more remarkable pair still: a "lady" and a "man" apparently, or so they might be described at home. She is dressed in the latest fashion and with killing effect—muslin, silk, embroidery, chains, bracelets, laces, ribbons, the newest thing in bonnets, and the last in parasols—and has quite the air of a fine lady. He is a burly rough, bearded to the eyes, the shapeless remnant of a coarse wide-awake covering a head of hair that has seemingly been long unknown to the barber; his blue flannel shirt, ragged jacket, breeches, and long riding-boots, are all crusted deep with mud, while a stock-whip is coiled round his shoulders. They walk amicably along together, conversing, though there is something of an air of constraint between them. Our colonial friend nods to the man as they pass; and we ask him who the strangely assorted couple may be.