Our New Zealand Cousins

In 1885, James Inglis returned to New Zealand after two decades away, and what he found stunned him. This is his luminous account of a young nation's extraordinary transformation, captured in prose that alternates between pastoral reverie and industrial wonder. Traveling from the thermal wonderland of Rotorua to the majestic fjords of the south, Inglis documents a land caught between ancient Māori culture and ambitious colonial ambition, where geysers still steamed and gold still lured dreamers from distant shores. His comparisons between New South Wales and New Zealand reveal the competitive optimism of the age, while his observations on forestry, mining, and education trace the building of a modern nation. The appendix carries an ominous weight, documenting the catastrophic Tarawera eruption of 1886 as it unfolded in distant newspaper reports, a mountain's violent awakening captured in real time. For readers who crave historical travel writing at its most vivid, who want to see New Zealand through colonial eyes before the twentieth century transformed it utterly, this is an indispensable window into a vanished world.