THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 



tobacco, and sometimes, through the persuasions of the mis- 

 sionaries, for soap. Mr. Davies's eldest son, who manages a 

 farm of his own, is the man of business in the market. The 

 children of the missionaries, who came while young to the 

 island, understand the language better than their parents, 

 and can get anything more readily done by the natives. 



A. little before noon Messrs. Williams and Davies walked 

 with me to a part of a neighbouring forest, to show me the 

 famous kauri pine. I measured one of the noble trees, and 

 found it thirty-one feet in circumference above the roots. 

 There was another close by, which I did not see, thirty-three 

 feet; and I heard of one no less than forty feet. These trees 

 are remarkable for their smooth cylindrical boles, which run 

 up to a height of sixty, and even ninety feet, with a nearly 

 equal diameter, and without a single branch. The crown 

 of branches at the summit is out of all proportion small to 

 the trunk; and the leaves are likewise small compared with 

 the branches. The forest was here almost composed of the 

 kauri; and the largest trees, from the parallelism of their 

 sides, stood up like gigantic columns of wood. The timber 

 of the kauri is the most valuable production of the island; 

 moreover, a quantity of resin oozes from the bark, which is 

 sold at a penny a pound to the Americans, but its use was 

 then unknown. Some of the New Zealand forest must be 

 impenetrable to an extraordinary degree. Mr. Matthews 

 informed me that one forest only thirty-four miles in width, 

 and separating two inhabited districts, had only lately, for 

 the first time, been crossed. He and another missionary, 

 each with a party of about fifty men, undertook to open a 

 road; but it cost more than a fortnight's labour! In 

 the woods I saw very few birds. With regard to animals, 

 it is a most remarkable fact, that so large an island, extend- 

 ing over more than 700 miles in latitude, and in many parts 

 ninety broad, with varied stations, a fine climate, and land 

 of all heights, from 14,000 feet downwards, with the excep- 

 tion of a small rat, did not possess one indigenous animal. 

 The several species of that gigantic genus of birds, the Dei- 

 norms seem here to have replaced mammiferous quadrupeds, 

 in the same manner as the reptiles still do at the Galapagos 

 archipelago. It is said that the common Norway rat, in 



