Synrn. —C a pfni /I Dumont D'UrviUe's Visit in 1827. 421 



were only able to shoot a few species on the shore ; we did, however, notice 

 a quail analogous to that of Europe. All along that beach we felt a heat 

 to which we had not been accustomed since our arrival on the New Zealand 

 coast. 



At half an hour after noon we re-embarked to cross the arm of the sea, 

 and landed on the southern shore. At the side of the water we found an 

 abandoned village, comj)osed of over a hundred houses ; but we saw 

 they were merely huts built of branches, constructed solely to serve as a 

 temporary shelter for the Natives on their great fishing excursions, or on 

 some military, expedition.* 



Always occupied with the idea that the ocean would l;)e found at a 

 short distance to the south, I resolved to cross the narrow isthmus which 

 separated it from us, or at least reach a mount distant about two leagues 

 [? Mount Eden], froi:g. the summit of which I hoped to discover the two seas. 

 I took Simonet with me, and MM. Lottin and Gaimard, to whom I com- 

 municated my project, and who wished to accompany me. Their society 

 was as useful as agreeable, for in traversing these unknown solitudes one 

 runs the risk of meeting at any moment with savages whose intentions 

 might be suspected. For the rest, I placed confidence in the fact that I 

 carried nothing that might excite their cupidity. Simonet alone had an 

 indifferent gun. 



We were at first favoured by a little well-trodden path, which led pre- 

 cisely in the direction I wanted to go. For a long time I thought it would 

 lead us to some habitation. For about an hour we passed across hillocks 

 covered with high fern, scrub, and sometimes coppices, cut up by gullies 

 in which ran streams of fresh water. To our great regret our path vanished 

 by degrees, and ended at a small but thick wood. However, as we were 

 not more than two miles fiom the eminence which I wished to attain, we 

 therefore tried to continue our route ; but after half an hour of unheard-of 

 efforts and extraordinary fatigue, which barely permitted us to advance 

 two hundred paces, we found ourselves in a place so swampy and inter- 

 laced with ferns, dry shrubs, and brushwood that it became impossible 

 to place one foot before the other. In an attempt to proceed farther 

 M. Gaimard had a fall, and was near being dangerously hurt.f It became 

 necessary to return, a task rendered more difficult on account of our ex- 

 haustion. The ligneous Veronica, Leptosperma, Epacrids, and some Cype- 

 races, and, above all, the edible fern, formed the principal vegetation of these 

 deserts. No trace of cultivation offered to our view. Beyond the path 

 which we followed we saw no other vestiges of the presence of man except 

 some fallen trees and a few places where the earth had been freshly turned 

 over to procure roots of the fern (ngadoua) [aruhe], one of the principal 

 bases of nutriment of the inhabitants of these regioii^. 



[Apparently D'Urville passed from the harbour through what is now 

 Parnell, and the place he finally turned back from was the wood and 

 swampy ground that formerly existed on the site of the present Newmarket.] 



* [It seems ya-obable that the point where D'Urville landed was either in .Judge's 

 or St. George's Bay. None of the Ngati-Whatua were li\-ing about the Waiten^ata 

 at that peiiod, having abandoned the country and gone to lower Waikato and Manukan, 

 in consequence of their great defeat at the Battle of Te Ika-a-ranga-nui. in Febrnary, 

 1826, at the hands of Hongi. — Tkanslator.] 



t See note 14 [extract from M. Gaimard's journal, of no particular interest. 

 Translator]. 



