250 KERI-KERI RIVER. [PART II. 



fall is called Waianiwaniwa in the native language, 

 meaning rainbow-waters) has a very picturesque 

 effect. The river is only about twenty yards broad, 

 but the fall is over a basaltic escarpment ninety-five 

 feet in height. This basalt overhangs a soft forma- 

 tion of a grey volcanic sand, which has been washed 

 away from under it for about thirty feet, so that one 

 can walk behind the falling cascade. The spray of 

 the waters gives rise to a vigorous vegetation all 

 around, and this place was a favourite spot of that 

 excellent botanist Mr. Cunningham. There is, 

 indeed, a greater assemblage of the flora of New 

 Zealand in this neighbourhood than in any other 

 place so near a shipping-place. 



The banks of the Keri-keri are also the only 

 known habitat of the elegant Clianthus puniceus, 

 a leguminous plant, which the natives appropriately 

 call parrot's-bill ko-waingutu kaka. In the neigh- 

 bourhood of the mission-station are the remains of 

 the pa of E' Ongi, the scourge of New Zealand. 

 His warlike extravagancies, however, have more 

 than anything else contributed, by exhausting the 

 strength of the natives, to bring about that state of 

 repose so favourable to the progress of European 

 civilization. The blood spilt with the sword which 

 he received from the hands of royalty, when in 

 England, was, as it were, the fertilizing dew in the 

 hearts of the survivors, preparing them for the seeds 

 of civilization, as he had too much weakened his 

 enemies for them to think of revenge. But the man 



