110 cook's second voyage may, 



The country is exceedingly mountainous ; not 

 only about Dusky Bay, but through all the southern 

 part of this western coast of Tavia Poenammoo. A 

 prospect more rude and craggy is rarely to be met 

 with ; for inland appears nothing but the summits of 

 mountains of a stupendous height, and consisting of 

 rocks that are totally barren and naked, except 

 where they are covered with snow. But the land 

 bordering on the sea coast, and all the islands, are 

 thickly clothed with wood, almost down to the 

 water's edge. The trees are of various kinds, such 

 as are common to other parts of this country, and 

 are fit for the shipwright, house-carpenter, cabinet- 

 maker, and many other uses. Except in the river 

 Thames I have not seen finer timber in all New- 

 Zealand : both here and in that river, the most con- 

 siderable for size is the spruce tree, as we called it, 

 from the similarity of its foliage to the American 

 spruce, though the wood is more ponderous and 

 bears a greater resemblance to the pitch pine. Many 

 of these trees are from six to eight, and ten feet in 

 girt, and from sixty to eighty or one hundred feet in 

 length ; large enough to make a main-mast for a 

 fifty-gun ship. 



Here are, as well as in all other parts of New Zea- 

 land, a great number of aromatic trees and shrubs, 

 most of the myrtle kind ; but amidst all this variety 

 we met with none which bore fruit fit to eat. 



In many parts the woods are so over-run with 

 supple-jacks, that it is scarcely possible to force one's 

 way amongst them. I have seen several which were 

 fifty or sixty fathoms long. 



The soil is a deep black mould, evidently composed 

 of decayed vegetables, and so loose that it sinks 

 under you at every step ; and this may be the reason 

 why we meet with so many large trees as we do, 

 blown down by the wind, even in the thickest part 

 of the woods. All the ground amongst the trees is 

 covered with moss and fern, of both which there is 



