Cheeseman. — Notes on the Three Kings Islands. 417 



ineAullaris) was noticed. Of smaller ferns, tli;j most remark- 

 able was Lovuiria acuminata, wliich is plentiful on the Ker- 

 madec Islands, but extremely rare in Nev,- Zealand proper. 

 In open sunny places were large masses of Colcnsoa physa- 

 loidcs, its bold foliage and pretty blue flowers making it very 

 conspicuous. 



Anxious to find out what became of the stream, we de- 

 cided to follow it down ; but there was little change in the 

 vegetation along its whole course. After awhile the sides of 

 the valley contracted, the stream running over a rocky bed, 

 with a steep grassy hill on one side, and a very similar one 

 covered with tea-tree on the other. Still following the 

 stream, and turning the corner of a knoll covered with pohu- 

 tukawa-trees — the finest seen on the island — we suddenly 

 reached the edge of the cliffs, the stream discharging itself 

 over them in a cascade which must be nearly, if not quite, 

 "iOOft. in height. Climbing up the hill to the left, and looking 

 over the cliffs, we saw that the stream fell into the head of a 

 little bay, probably one of the most picturesque localities on 

 the island. Afterwards we took the steamer into it, and thus 

 oljtained a better view than could be had by a peep over the 

 cliffs. The western end is formed by a high perpendicular 

 bluff, to the seaward of which three huge rocks, fretted and 

 worn by the waves into fantastic points and pinnacles, stand 

 out in a line. Some distance inside the bluff the cliffs slope 

 away more gradually, and in one place there is a compara- 

 tively easy ascent from the shore to the top, startitig from a 

 shelving rock which would form an excellent landing-place 

 with the wind off the shore. It was obvious that we had 

 found the place where Tasman attempted to water his vessel, 

 but which we had failed to notice during our previous visit, 

 probaoly from keeping too far from the shore while steaming 

 round the island. It may not be uninteresting to quote the 

 paragraph relating to it in Tasman's journal, taking the trans- 

 lation given in Burney's " South Sea Discoveries," vol. 3. 

 After mentioning his discovery of the islands, and describing 

 their appearance, he says: "About noon we sent Francis 

 Jacobsz m our shallop, and the supercargo, Mr. Gillimans, in 

 tlie " Zehaan's" boat, to the island to try if fresh water could 

 be got. In the evening they returned and reported that they 

 had been at a safe small bay, where fresh water came in 

 abundance from a high mountain, but that there was a great 

 surf on the shore, which would make watering there trouble- 

 some and dangerous. . . . Our people saw no trees, nor 

 did they observe any cultivated land, except that near the 

 fresh water there were some square plots of ground green and. 

 very pleasant, but of what kind the greens were they could 

 not distinguish. Two canoes were drawn up on the shoi'e." 

 27 



