From Hokitika the route was by train, via the labour-controlled township of Greymouth, and up the fine Brunner valley, passing a number of winding-shafts of mines producing good steam-coal, where miners were making £2 5_s_. daily, and more of them were urgently needed. In the afternoon Otira was reached, where New Zealand's longest railway tunnel, which when finished will complete the hitherto broken connexion across the island, was in active course of construction. Here the Prince left the railway and travelled partly by a four-horsed coach, and partly on foot, amidst heights and glaciers, over the magnificent Arthur's pass, which overlies the tunnel, itself two thousand feet above sea level. The tunnel is one of the big engineering achievements of the century. It is five and a quarter miles long, and has been so accurately laid out that when, a few months since, the excavations from the two ends met in the middle, they were out only by three-quarters of an inch in alignment and one and a half inches in level, a minuteness of error of which Mr. Holmes, Engineer-in-Chief, and his technical staff may rightly be proud. Cheers, every few minutes, from people it was too dark to see, broke in upon the rattle of the Royal train speeding to reach Christchurch by dinner-time. Jolts at intervals informed us that we were crossing sidings in the suburbs of a considerable city. Presently light shone into the windows from outside, and we came to a standstill in a railway station that might have been that of Oxford. Upon a red carpet, stretched from the entrance to where the Prince's saloon drew up, was standing Mayor Thacker, with ermine, chain and cocked hat, also members of the corporation, waiting to welcome the Royal guest. By the time one could get through the throng upon the platform from the front of the train, the Prince, who was in the rear where a lane had been kept, was inspecting a captain's guard of men and colours in the presence of the dense, cheering crowd that pressed on the rope-barriers. A procession followed, through two miles of decorated, illuminated, cheering, flag-waving streets, the route kept with difficulty by police and territorials. The cars soon separated from one another in the press. Those who were towards the tail of the procession lost sight of the Prince. Small boys waved paper flags in their faces, and had to be discouraged from climbing on the radiator. Larrikins decided that one correspondent was the Prince's doctor and christened him "Pills." Another, the substantial representative of the "Daily Telegraph," was found to resemble Mr. Massey, and was cheered as "Bill." Presently the procession came to a standstill altogether, the crowd being squeezed tight up all round, in front, as well as on the steps and mud-guards. Horn-tooting and endeavours to move forward an inch at a time, coupled with the vigorous assistance of the police, gradually got us on the move