28 QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S SOUND. [PART i. 



katoa has sometimes a stem of about a foot in 

 I 



diameter, and affords the hardest and most durable 

 wood found in New Zealand : it is of this wood that 

 the natives make their agricultural implements. It 

 appeared to me as if this wood was admirably adapted 

 for the purposes of engraving and cotton-printing. 

 The manuka supplies the place of the tea-shrub, as 

 its leaves furnish a balsamic and agreeable beverage. 

 The phormium tenax also grows upon the hills : it 

 is indeed found everywhere, in swamps, on the driest 

 hills, and on the sea-side, where it is exposed to the 

 spray of the salt-water. 



Where wood covers the summits of the hills the 

 trees are stunted, and the forest becomes more open, 

 as the liands seldom grow at an altitude of more 

 than 800 feet. 



I ascended the two highest hills at the back of 

 Ship Cove, which from our anchorage bore to the 

 north-west and south-west. The latter was without 

 wood on its summit, and was found by a trigonome- 

 trical measurement to be 900 feet high. The former 

 was covered with wood to its top ; and from the 

 height of the point of boiling- water, namely, 208, 

 with a mean temperature of 40, I judged it to be 

 2093 feet. The hills in this neighbourhood do not 

 appear to average more than 1200 feet in height. 



The native who accompanied me was acquainted 

 with the names of all the trees and birds, which 

 he would tell me when I rested, after a tiresome 

 scramble through the dense underwood. Whilst 



