WHALE-FISHERIES. 
27 
The Harbour of Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty, 
and a few leagues south of Mercury Bay, is re- 
sorted to by small craft, trading for flax. Its 
entrance is narrow, rocky, and dangerous: ves- 
sels are often detained a long time before they 
can enter it; and, at times, when they have 
entered, are as long before they can leave the 
harbour. 
During the last ten years, all parts of New 
Zealand, where harbours are found, have been 
visited by European vessels ; and in many places 
mercantile establishments have been formed, 
which have realized, on the whole, a tolerable 
return to the adventurers engaged in them ; 
though, as might be expected, in several instances 
they have failed. Vast numbers of whaling ves- 
sels touch at the various harbours on the eastern 
coast, for supplies of potatoes and pork and other 
fresh provision, the produce of the country. In 
the Bay of Islands there have been at anchor, 
at one time, as many as twenty-seven vessels, 
most of them upwards of three hundred tons’ 
burden ; all of which have been supplied, by the 
industry of the inhabitants, with a sufficient stock 
of fresh provision for a long whaling cruise. 
The harbours to the south of the Bay of Islands 
are resorted to by vessels trading for flax : and 
in Cloudy Bay are several large whaling esta- 
blishments ; as, in calving time, that large sheet of 
water is visited by immense numbers of the black 
whale, many of which are killed; and, as they 
c 2 
