1835.] A DENSE FOREST. 421 



likewise small compared with the brandies. 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 

 extraordinary 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 Deinomis, 

 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. 

 Tlie 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. 1 think it would be difficult to 

 find a body of men better adapted for the high office which 

 they fulfil. 



Christmas-Day.— \n a few more days the fourth year of 

 our absence from England will be completed. Our first 



