Chapman. — 0)i the Islands soutJi of Neio Zealand. 501 



Eeef. The aspect of the northern coast of the main island is 

 by no means miattractive. A cm-sory inspection wonld lead 

 the observer on a fine day, such as we had, to think that it 

 was a well-grassed country, something like that of some of the 

 bare hills of Banks Peninsula. Here is a fine-looking sheep-run, 

 and at a good harbour at the north-west corner of the island 

 is a fine site for a woolshed, stockyard, and shipping appliances. 

 There is a sealers' track from Port Eoss to this harbour. I 

 am afraid, however, that the suggestion of a shipping harbour 

 for the sheep-run, with sheds, &c., is a purely superficial view. 

 "What looks like rolhng hills of grass is a wilderness of high 

 tussocks standing in deep peat, such as we struggled through 

 in other places, in struggling through which years ago the 

 " Invercauld's" survivors lost four of their number, who died, 

 I suppose, really of the fatigue consequent on traversing a few 

 miles of this country. When the Auckland Islands come to 

 be settled it will not be by sheep-farmers, but by people who 

 can manage with their own labour to burn off this tussock 

 and get at a good soil said to underlie the peat. A good deal 

 of top-soil has from time to time passed through my hands 

 w^ith plants collected in the islands. I have worked it between 

 my fingers, and even between my teeth, and am unable to 

 find even a trace of grit in it, so entirely is it composed of 

 dead vegetable matter. In lifting large-leaved herbaceous 

 plants, their dead leaves, the accumulation of a number of 

 years, are often found under the gi'owing leaves, already form- 

 ing themselves into a peaty soil. Here, too, may be seen the 

 earlier stages of the formation of peat, lignite, and brown coal 

 of the purest kind. 



Thp. north coast is almost without wood : this may be due 

 to the want of shelter. The west coast is too steep for trees ; 

 so is the external part of the south coast. But everywhere 

 within the extensive harbours timber is found. It forms a 

 regular fringe along the shore, extending up to about 200ft. 

 above the sea — a low limit which attests the severity of the- 

 climate ; thence it merges into scrub for a few hundred feet 

 more ; then come tussock-grass and herbaceous plants. The 

 wood is mainly rata, with several species of Coprosma and a 

 large Dracophyllum — a timber-tree allied to the heaths, but in 

 ai:)pearance resembling a pine, which is common in New Zea- 

 land, but does not grow so large. The forest is easy travel- 

 ling near the shore, but even there you have often to bend to 

 pass under branches. The scrub is extremely hard to pass 

 through. I found a heavy hunting-knife of the greatest as- 

 sistance in clearing the way. The bush is everywhere full of 

 bell-birds or korimako, whose beautiful note, I was told by a 

 passenger who listened carefully, varied in different localities, 

 as it does in New Zealand. 



