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.

We know that a very few years ago, Auckland really was but what we had fancied it still would be, and so we comprehend now how little the people at home actually realize of the conditions of life at their Antipodes. Moreover, as we pass along the streets of this British city, set down here on the shaggy shores of Britain's under-world, in the very heart of recent Maori-dom, so remote and far removed from the tracks of ancient civilization, we look around us and are filled with wonder and a feeling akin to awe. This is what colonization means; this is the work of colonists; this is the evidence of energy that may well seem titanic, of industry that appears herculean; this is Progress! The thought thrills us through and through. We, too, have made our entry into the new world; we, too, have crossed the threshold of colonial life; and thus to-day, at the outset of our new life, our minds have opened to receive the first true lesson of the colonist.

CHAPTER II.

AUCKLAND.

Passing up Queen Street, after landing on the wharf, a party of us notice—or fancy we notice—a rather singular feature in the Aucklanders we meet. The men are grave and serious in deportment, and nearly all are profusely bearded; but one of us draws attention to the fact that all have strangely aquiline noses. Hebrews they are not—we know, they are of the same nationality as ourselves—so we seek explanation from a whimsical fellow-voyager, himself an old Aucklander.

"Ah!" says he, "that's a peculiarity of the climate. You'll have long noses, too, after a year or so. There's an Auckland proverb, that a new-chum never does any good until his nose has grown. You've got to learn the truth of that pretty soon."

Following up these remarks, he proceeded to add—

"It's like the proverbial cutting of the wisdom-teeth. After inhaling this magnificent air of ours for a year or two, your nose will grow bigger to receive it; and about the same time you will have spent the money you brought with you, gone in for hard work, learnt common-sense, and become 'colonized.'"

The reader will understand that a new-chum is, throughout the colonies, regarded as food for mirth. He is treated with good-humoured contempt and kindly patronage. He is looked upon as a legitimate butt, and a sort of grown-up and incapable infant. His doings are watched with interest, to see what new eccentricities he will develop; and shouts of laughter are raised at every fresh tale of some new-chum's inexperienced attempts and failures. Half the stories that circulate in conversation have a new-chum as the comic man of the piece; and if any unheard of undertaking is noised about, "Oh, he's a new-chum!" is considered sufficient explanation.

However, the new-chum is not supposed to be altogether a fool, since he will sooner or later develop into the full-blown colonist, and since sometimes it happens that one of his order will show colonists "a thing or two." He is one of the recognized characters of colonial society, and as he affords much material that seems infinitely ludicrous to the older colonist, so his faults and failings meet with lenient condonation.

Even the law seems to feel that the new-chum is scarcely a responsible being. At the time I write of, drunkenness was severely legislated against in New Zealand. A man who was merely drunk, without being actually incapable or riotous, was liable, if any constable saw fit, to be haled before the magistrate and fined one pound; and, on a subsequent conviction, might be sent to the Stockade (prison), without the option of a fine at all. The law stood something like that, and was impartially administered by the Auckland Dogberry. However, if an individual were pulled up, charged with even the most excessive tipsiness, including riot, assault, incapability, or what not, and could show that he was a new-chum, the sacred folly attributed to that state of being was held sufficient to bear him blameless, and he was always discharged on his promise not to do it again. I do not know whether this was intended as a sort of indulgence to newly-arrived voyagers, or whether, in the eye of the law, a new-chum was held to be an irresponsible being, who had not yet arrived at the moral manhood of a New Zealander. Certain it is, it was fact, and was largely taken advantage of, too.

In order to bear out one of the received theories regarding new-chums, namely, their utter want of frugality, we, some half-a-dozen young "gentlemen," who have come out in the cabin, go to put up at one of the leading hotels of the city. We have looked in at some of the minor hotels and houses of accommodation, but are daunted by the rough, rude, navvy-like men, who appear to chiefly frequent them; and we do not care to go to any of the boarding-houses, where parsons, missionaries, and people of that class mostly abound, and tincture the very air with a savour of godliness and respectability that is, alas! repugnant to our scapegrace youth.

We are young fellows with slender purses but boundless hopes, an immense belief in ourselves and our golden prospects; but with the vaguest possible idea of what manual labour, roughing it, and colonial work really mean. Therefore, we have decided that there is no reason to plunge at once into the middle of things, that we will look about a bit, let ourselves down gently, and taste a little comfort before proceeding further.

Our hotel is a solid, comfortable-looking edifice of stone, standing on a wide street that traverses a high ridge, and commanding a fine view of the harbour. It is well furnished throughout in English fashion, resembling any first-class family and commercial hotel of the old country. There is a long bar or saloon occupying the ground floor, with a parlour behind it; there are also a spacious dining-room and business-room. Upstairs there is a billiard-room, smoking-room, ladies' drawing-room, and bedrooms capable of accommodating thirty or forty guests. Behind the house is a large courtyard, round which are ranged the bath-rooms, kitchens, offices, and stables; while further back is the garden, principally used for strictly utilitarian purposes.

According to colonial custom there is little or no privacy, no private sitting-rooms, and if a visitor have a bedroom to himself, it is not quite such a sanctum as it would be in Britain. People stopping in the house are free to permeate it from kitchen