678 Transactions. — Miscellaneous 



Cove, on the slopes of a little valley, where every floor needed 

 levelling out, so that they are now easily seen, though all else 

 has nearly disappeared. The wreck people may have lived 

 there, and the sealers evidently built a few huts, for the 

 "pungas," or fern-tree stems, were cut with wide, sharp 

 axes ; but long before that every desirable site in the cove 

 and on the neighbouring islands was occupied by little huts 

 about 8 ft. long and 6 ft. wide, and in one spot I think there 

 was a big place, but this and all the little floors are now thinly 

 grown over with fern-trees from 6 ft. to 12 ft. high, and also a 

 dense growth of young trees, so that I had anchored several 

 times in the cove and did not know that there was subject for 

 so much interest within a stone's throw. < 



The sealers' huts are now mounds of " pungas," very 

 useful in showing stages in the decay of such material, which 

 is wonderfully slow — so slow that some of these huts, which 

 were a good size, may have been built by Mr. Eeven's men, 

 who came here in the " Britannia " in 1872, and started to 

 build their httle vessel there (perhaps), because it was the 

 nearest cove to the seals. 



All the good firewood has been long ago cut down, and only 

 a few red-pines are left standing. On one of these the date 

 1882 was chopped with an axe, and still looks quite fresh ; but 

 on the other was a very old mark, the common sailor's signa- 

 ture of the last century — X. I suppose the poor fellow did 

 his best, and that the date was too much for him — partly our 

 loss. 



I had no spade, and got no certain evidence of the presence 

 of Maoris, but there is no doubt about the great age, for a 

 rata-tree 1 ft. thick had grown on one of the floors, and was 

 cut down by the early sealers. It is the only possible place 

 for women and children to live in the sound, because there are 

 few or no sandflies there, and it is sunny, perfectly sheltered — 

 the most beautiful httle harbour you could imagine, and mild 

 because of the w^arm sea-current, which is often 55° on a 

 frosty morning up at our place. So we may be sure the 

 Maoris did hve there for centuries, when the sea was swarm- 

 ing with seals, which had secret breeding-places then ; and, 

 when a boat's crew could get a hundred a day, the Maori could 

 get plenty of the best of clothes, and, to his taste, dehcious 

 food also, abundance of fish in the smooth water, penguins in 

 season and their eggs, and mutton-birds on some of the 

 islands, so that we might expect the presence of a pa there. 

 But why did not Cook see it ? He was in there, and marked 

 the cove nicely on his map (a copy of which Mrs. Hocken 

 gave me), which none of the other map-makers have done or 

 even made a decent attempt at. If, however, there was a 

 fringe of trees round the water, and the natives, aware of his 



