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.