CHAP. xv.J 235 



CHAPTER XV. 



Harbour of Wangaroa. 



THE harbour of Wangaroa has already obtained 

 some celebrity by the catastrophe which happened 

 to the Boyd, and the murder of her crew and pas- v 

 sengers by the natives, in the year 1809. It is 

 situated about twenty-five miles to the northward 

 of the Bay of Islands. From Point Surville to the 

 entrance of this harbour the coast is cliffy and steep, 

 consisting of fragments of volcanic rock very firmly 

 cemented together into a conglomerate. The en- 

 trance to the harbour is formed by towering per- 

 pendicular rocks of the same description, and is 

 only about 150 yards broad. Pohutukaua- trees 

 and others overhang these black walls, and form a 

 very picturesque contrast with them. The entrance 

 looks as if the solid rocks had been rent asunder by 

 an earthquake, and the steep opposite sides had un- 

 dergone a continued friction before they parted. 

 Deep fissures penetrate the coast, and high cubical 

 masses are piled one above another in-shore to the 

 height of several hundred feet. The most remark- 

 able is Waihi, or St. Peter, a cluster of these solid 



