KERI-KERI. 93 



scrub. At length we arrived in sig-ht of the water- 

 fall, then in full force from the quantity of rain 

 which had lately fallen. 



The Keri-Keri, after a long' course through a 

 country composed chiefly of upland moors and g'ently 

 undulating- hills, here suddenly precipitates itself over 

 a rocky wall into a larg'e circular pool eighty feet 

 below, then continues its course for a while between 

 steep and densely wooded banks. Behind the fall 

 the rock is hollowed out into a wide and deeply 

 arched cave, formed by the falling out of masses of 

 columnar rock. A winding path leads to the foot 

 of the fall, whence the view is very grand. Some 

 of the party crept over the slippery rocks, and 

 reached the cave behind the fall, where they were 

 much gratified with the novelty of the scene. The 

 luxuriant and varied vegetation in the ravine affords 

 a fine field for the botanist. The variety of crypto- 

 gamic plants is very great— every rock, and the 

 trunk of each tree, being covered with ferns, lichens, 

 and mosses. Among the trees I noticed the pale 

 scarlet flowers of the puriri or New Zealand Teak 

 {Vitex littoralis), the hardest* and most durable 



* This wood was much used in the construction of the pahs 

 which, in 1845, under the Maorie chiefs Heke and Kawiti, long 

 resisted the attacks of disciplined forces, aided by artillery. In 

 reference to the puriri wood used in the palisading of one of 

 these, it was oflBcially stated, that " many of our six-pound shot 

 were picked out of the posts, not having actually entered far 

 enough to hide themselves." 



