260 REPOKT — 1891. 



Marsden's second and third visits were paid in quick suc- 

 cession in 1819 and 1820. Now, as on all occasions, the great 

 object of his solicitude was the planting of the gospel amongst 

 the New-Zealanders, and, whilst history has told how faithfully 

 he laboured for that great end, it has failed to place in relief his 

 work as an explorer. In 1820 he sailed from Sydney for the 

 Bay of Islands in H.M. storeship " Dromedary." On this 

 occasion he had as a fellow-passenger Captain Cruise, of the 

 84th Eegiment, author of the fourth English book on New 

 Zealand- — "Journal of a Ten Months' Eesidence." The 

 "Dromedary" was the first vessel to visit the mouth of the 

 Hokianga, but she found the soundings too unsafe to admit 

 of her entrance, so sought elsewhere for a load of kauri 

 spars. 



Mr. Marsden now transhipped into the " Coromandel," 

 about to sail for the Thames on a similar search. This vessel 

 gave her name to that well-known district, where thirty-five 

 years afterwards were made the first gold discoveries in New 

 Zealand. 



Leaving the " Coromandel," Mr. Marsden, then in his 

 fifty-seventh year, connnenced his really marvellous journey 

 into the interior, one which taxed all his courage and endurance. 

 He was absent from his ship between five and six weeks, travel- 

 ling by foot and canoe fully six hundred miles, through rivers, 

 creeks, swamps, and the rougliest tracks. His route was by 

 land to Mercury Bay, famous as the spot where Cook took 

 possession of New Zealand in the name of good King George. 

 Eeturuing, he crossed the Frith of the Thames, traversed inter- 

 vening country, sailed up the Wairoa and the Waitemata, 

 where from a hill-summit he viewed the Manukau and its 

 heads, and the site of future Auckland. Canoeing up the Kai- 

 para, called by him " Kiperro," and the river Wairoa, which 

 enters its northern portion, he crossed over to Whangarei ; 

 then, returning, he traversed the western, the desert, coast to 

 the mouth of the Hokianga, whi^h he ascended, and then 

 walked across to the Bay of Islands. He called the Hokianga 

 Kiver the Gambier after his friend Lord Gambler, President of 

 the Church Missionary Society — a name which it retained for 

 long on old maps. 



Marsden's later visits to New Zealand were almost confined 

 to the special purposes of his mission, and his account of them 

 abounds in glimpses of Native life and character, and of the 

 hardships and dangers he endured. Like his great exemplar 

 this apostle of New Zealand in his journeyings suffered ship- 

 wreck and hunger, and was in perils in the wilderness and 

 from the Natives. 



In 1825, under the modest title of "The New Zealand 

 Plax Society," a company was formed in London for the pur- 



