CHAP. XXVII.] REKA-REKA. 399 



served similar alterations to those on the eastern; 

 the lake had encroached upon the shore, and broken 

 trunks of trees in their natural position were stand- 

 ing under water at some distance from the present 

 margin. We passed a native settlement, Reka- 

 Reka : the land around it consisted of low, fern- 

 covered, and fertile hills ; but the natives had their 

 plantations about three miles from the lake, near 

 the forest, where the land was still more fertile. 

 Here we pitched our tent in the midst of the tribe. 

 I observed that many of the natives were occupied 

 in preparing a kind of food which I had not seen 

 before : it consisted of the amylaceous seed-covers 

 of the hinau (Elacocarpus hinau), which they pow- 

 dered and made into cakes. It appeared to me to 

 be rather insipid, although it is, I have no doubt, 

 very nourishing. 



The next day .we entered the forest covering the 

 hills which run along the eastern coast, and which 

 separate the interior and comparatively open table- 

 land from the sea. The forest was mostly tawai 

 (Leiospermum racemosum), miro, and hinau ; the 

 Dracophyllum, which often grows to the size of a 

 small tree, and the reddish leaves of which render 

 it a very remarkable and beautiful shrub, was here 

 and there to be met with. If the reader can ima- 

 gine a pink that has become so gigantic as to have 

 reached the size of the hazel-nut tree, he will have 

 some idea of the appearance of this shrub. I also 



