WATMATE 45: 



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 fort- 

 night'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 1 4,000 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 Dein- 

 ornis, 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 the}' 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 Montes ; this fifth here ; and the next, I 

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

 service in the chapel of Pahia ; part of the service being read 

 in English, and part in the native language. Whilst at New 

 Zealand we did not hear of any recent acts of cannibalism ; but 



