222 
Memoranda of an Excursion 
1 remained at this village a clay or two, and could but con¬ 
trast with thankfulness, the wonderful change, outward at 
least, which had taken place in the people of this district, 
since my former visit with the Rev. (now Archdeacon) W. 
Williams, in 1838. Then, the inhabitants were living in the 
grossest darkness of heathenism ; none knew how to read— 
none knew anything of an hereafter: note , nearly 700 persons 
assembled for service in the chapel of this village, a building 
which they had themselves built of the hark of the Totara 
tree ( Podocarpus ? Totarra Don.), measuring nearly 80 feet 
by 40; while in the school, after morning prayers, l had, 
1st class, readers in the New Testament, 77; 2nd ditto, 
readers who required prompting, 92; 3rd ditto, 128; 4th 
ditto, rehearsers of catechisms, &c. 240; and infants, 98— 
making a total at school, on a week-day, when numbers were 
absent at their plantations, of 63-5 persons, of whom more 
than 100 could read well. 
Early in the morning of the 1st December, I re-commenced 
my journey. I had proceeded but a few yards, ere 1 dis¬ 
covered a very pretty procumbent Ranunculus, with impari- 
pinnate leaves. Two fine species of Graminece , which grew 
here on the river’s banks, I also secured. Crossing the stream, 
which at the ford was not waist deep, I found a curious little 
Lobelia, growing in grassy spots. Here, also, that pretty 
little thyme-scented species of Lubiatce, Micromeria Cun - 
ninghamii, Benth., abounded. Leaving the grassy plains of 
Waiapu, and proceeding towards the sea, through a long 
winding and stony watercourse, I defended to the beach, 
without detecting any thing new by the way, save a few 
mosses. Continuing on by the shore for a few miles, I ar¬ 
rived at Wareponga, a small village close to the sea. In my 
way thither, I noticed the great quantities of whole timber 
which every where protruded from underneath the cliffs, 
buried in some places under hills of earth from 20 to 50 feet 
in perpendicular height; a faithful testimony to the convul- 
