The future home of the Waikato settlers

Abstract

Although some twenty-six years' have elapsed since the first English colony was founded in New Zealand, but little is known of the interior of those beautiful islands which now form part of the scattered empire of Great Britain. A few travellers have crossed some of the rivers, ascended the hills and skirted the lakes; missionaries have fixed themselves in places where native population invited their residence; and traders were located in spots easily accessible from the settlements: but, owing to the rugged nature of the Middle Island and to the jealousy of the natives in the North Island, the English race are to be found chiefly at the seaports and near the coast line. To the bulk of the colonists the interior of the islands has been hitherto a terra incognita.