sufficient: I was a good listener, an agreeable person, and he never
ceased talking to me.
At length we reached Waimate. After having passed over so many miles
of an uninhabited useless country, the sudden appearance of an English
farm-house, and its well-dressed fields, placed there as if by an
enchanter's wand, was exceedingly pleasant. Mr. Williams not being at
home, I received in Mr. Davies's house a cordial welcome. After
drinking tea with his family party, we took a stroll about the farm. At
Waimate there are three large houses, where the missionary gentlemen,
Messrs. Williams, Davies, and Clarke, reside; and near them are the
huts of the native labourers. On an adjoining slope, fine crops of
barley and wheat were standing in full ear; and in another part, fields
of potatoes and clover. But I cannot attempt to describe all I saw;
there were large gardens, with every fruit and vegetable which England
produces; and many belonging to a warmer clime. I may instance
asparagus, kidney beans, cucumbers, rhubarb, apples, pears, figs,
peaches, apricots, grapes, olives, gooseberries, currants, hops, gorse
for fences, and English oaks; also many kinds of flowers. Around the
farm-yard there were stables, a thrashing-barn with its winnowing
machine, a blacksmith's forge, and on the ground ploughshares and other
tools: in the middle was that happy mixture of pigs and poultry, lying
comfortably together, as in every English farm-yard. At the distance
of a few hundred yards, where the water of a little rill had been
dammed up into a pool, there was a large and substantial water-mill.
All this is very surprising, when it is considered that five years ago
nothing but the fern flourished here. Moreover, native workmanship,
taught by the missionaries, has effected this change;--the lesson of
the missionary is the enchanter's wand. The house had been built, the
windows framed, the fields ploughed, and even the trees grafted, by a
New Zealander. At the mill, a New Zealander was seen powdered white
with flower, like his brother miller in England. When I looked at this
whole scene, I thought it admirable. It was not merely that England
was brought vividly before my mind; yet, as the evening drew to a
close, the domestic sounds, the fields of corn, the distant undulating
country with its trees might well have been mistaken for our
fatherland: nor was it the triumphant feeling at seeing what Englishmen
could effect; but rather the high hopes thus inspired for the future
progress of this fine island.
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