I835-] WAIMATE. 311 



A little before noon Messrs. Williams and Davies walked with me 

 to part of a neighbouring forest, to show me the famous kauri pine. 

 I measured one of these noble trees, and found it thirty-one feet in 

 circumference above the roots. There was another close by, which I 

 did not see, thirty-three feet ; and I heard of one no less than forty 

 feet. These trees are remarkable for their smooth cylindrical boles, 

 which run up to a height of sixty, and even ninety feet, with a nearly 

 equal diameter, and without a single branch. The crown of branches 

 at the summit is out of all proportion small to the trunk ; and the 

 leaves are likewise small compared with the branches. The forest 

 was here almost composed of the kauri ; and the largest trees, from 

 the parallelism of their sides, stood up like gigantic columns of wood. 

 The timber of the kauri is the most valuable production of the island ; 

 moreover, a quantity of resin oozes from the bark, which is sold at a 

 penny a pound to the Americans, but its use was then unknown. 

 Some of the New Zealand forests must be impenetrable to an extra- 

 ordinary degree. Mr. Matthews informed me that one forest only 

 thirty-four miles in width, and separating two inhabited districts, had 

 only lately, for the first time, been crossed. He and another missionary, 

 each with a party of about fifty men, undertook to open a road ; but 

 it cost them more than a fortnight's labour ! In the woods I saw very 

 few birds. With regard to animals, it is a most remarkable fact, that 

 so large an island, extending over more than 700 miles in latitude, 

 and in many parts ninety broad, with varied stations, a fine climate, 

 and land of all heights, from 14,000 feet downwards, with the exception 

 of a small rat, did not possess one indigenous animal. The several 

 species of that gigantic genus of birds, the Deinornis, seem here to 

 have replaced mammiferous quadrupeds, in the same manner as the 

 reptiles still do at the Galapagos Archipelago. It is said that the 

 common Norway rat, in the short space of two years, annihilated in 

 this northern end of the island the New Zealand species. In many 

 places I noticed several sorts of weeds, which, like the rats, I was 

 forced to own as countrymen. A leek has overrun whole districts, 

 and will prove very troublesome, but it was imported as a favour by 

 a French vessel. The common dock is also widely disseminated, and 

 will, I fear, for ever remain a proof of the rascality of an Englishman, 

 who sold the seeds for those of the tobacco plant. 



On returning from our pleasant walk to the house, I dined with Mr. 

 Williams ; and then, a horse being lent me, I returned to the Bay of 

 Islands. I took leave of the missionaries with thankfulness for their 

 kind welcome, and with feelings of high respect for their gentlemanlike, 

 useful, and upright characters. I think it would be difficult to find 

 a body of men better adapted for the high office which they fulfil. 



Christmas-Day. In a few more days the fourth year of our absence 

 from England will be completed. Our first Christmas-day was spent 

 at Plymouth ; the second at St. Martin's Cove, near Cape Horn ; the 

 third at Port Desire, in Patagonia ; the fourth at anchor in a wild 

 harbour in the peninsula of Tres Monies ; this fifth here ; and the 

 next, I trust in Providence, will be in England. We attended divine 



