e best magazines and journals of the
times, including several of the most popular of our American issues.

Not to contain a Botanical Garden within its limits would be for the
place to take a retrograde step among its sister colonial cities; and so
Dunedin has a very creditable one, with many exotic trees and plants,
which have readily adapted themselves to the climate. Among these there
were observed some beautiful larches, junipers, cypresses, Chinese
gingko-trees, Irish yews, Indian cedars, American birches, and many
magnificent tree-ferns. Mingled with these were flower-beds of heath,
laurestinus, daphne, and yellow gorse, all in gorgeous bloom, though it
was mid-winter. The daphnes had both blossom and red berries upon their
stems at the same time. The palm-like cabbage-tree is indigenous, and
imparts an aspect of Equatorial Africa to the whole. To us there is a
pleasing revelation in these trees and plants, however simple they may
be in themselves. There is a refinement, a delicacy of taste, a love of
the beautiful in Nature evinced in all such gathering of the products of
widespread countries and different hemispheres, and placing them in
juxtaposition. Wonderful are the lovely contrasts and striking natural
peculiarities presented to the eye in so comparatively a small compass.
Time was when one must travel the wide world over to see these arboreal
representatives of varied climes; now they may be enjoyed in an
afternoon stroll through the flower-decked paths of some local botanical
garden.

Real appreciation looks deeper than the surface; there are stories and
legends always ready to be whispered into the ear of the inquiring
traveller. These singularly formed hills about Dunedin are not mere
barren rocks; they have their suggestiveness, speaking of volcanic
eruptions, of wild prehistoric upheavals dating back for many thousands
of years. Scientists tell us these islands are of the earliest earth
formations. The ground upon which this city stands, like that of
Auckland farther north, is composed of the fiery outflow of volcanic
matter.

It goes without saying that Dunedin has all the usual educational and
philanthropic institutions which a community of fifty thousand people
demand in our day. Especially is it well supplied with educational
advantages, which seem to be conscientiously improved by the rising
generation. The sum expended upon the public schools by the Government
is very large; the exact amount