It would be a rather ugly city except for the terraced hill in the background, where we find some of the finest buildings. If we look closely at some of these, we may be struck by a remarkable feature in their construction; many of them are made entirely of wood. The chief reason for this was the fear of the earthquakes to which the whole of this district is subject. Here is another curious result of the same thing. We see a fine cricket-ground, on which a match is in progress between Australian and New Zealand teams: the ground is in the Basin Reserve, which was 10 originally intended for a dock but was raised in level during the great earthquake of 1848. The Government offices are said to be the largest wooden buildings in the world; notice the curious 11 style of the architecture and contrast it with some of the many public buildings of stone which we saw in Australia. Even the Houses of Parliament are of wood. Parliament meets here, since Wellington is now the capital and seat of Government for the whole Dominion. The present meeting place is the old Government 12 House, since the former Parliamentary Buildings were burnt down in the summer of 1907. Only a fragment of them remains, chiefly the library which we see in this picture; the marble statue in 13 front is that of John Ballance, a former Premier of New Zealand. Wellington, by its position, is a natural centre for politics and for trade, whether across the ocean or round the coasts; it is the chief port of the island and the starting point of a whole system of railways which has grown outward from it. As a trading centre, Auckland comes a good second, and Lyttelton third.