292 
Memoranda of an Excursion 
their credit be it recorded, willingly went, although 
they had to force a passage through mud and under¬ 
wood the whole distance! At night they returned, with 
two whites, in an old patched-up and leaky boat, in 
which w T e gladly left this miserable place, where the 
mosquitoes were more numerous and intolerably annoy¬ 
ing than I had ever before found them. So thick and 
tormenting were they at night, that I was obliged to 
leave my tent, and wander about in my cloak from place 
to place as they successively found me out. We had, 
in hopes of avoiding them, pitched on the top of the 
hill, more than a mile from the water below, but with¬ 
out the least change for the better. 
On the morning of the 12th, after encountering no 
little hardship and danger, we landed near the upper 
end of Otamatea inlet, on the N.E. side of Kaipara. 
Here, the boat left us, and we soon found that our 
situation w r as ten times worse than it was before; for 
there was not any path, nor the slightest indication of 
the treading of a human foot on these solitary and path¬ 
less deserts. Return, we could not, as our boat was 
gone; stand still, w r e dared not, as our small supply of 
food was fast diminishing; proceed, we hardly cared to 
think of, not knowing whither our tortuous course 
would end—in a country like this, in which we now 
for the first time were, hemmed in among tangled 
brakes and primaeval forests, bounded by a distant 
horizon of high and broken hills. In this exigency I 
determined on proceeding by compass, in as straight a 
line as possible to the eastern coast; for, although I had 
not a map w r ith me, I was well aware that the island 
was narrow in these parts. Words, however, fail to 
describe what we had to undergo, in forcing our way 
