Chap. XVII. FOUNDATION OF NEW PLYMOUTH. 447 
his way to his station at Porirua, was forced by the 
same circumstance to anchor alongside. We ex- 
changed news and civilities. I gave him the last 
Wellington newspaper and some baker's bread; he 
handed me some fine vegetables out of his garden. 
He had a nice place at Te-awa-iti, much improved 
since our first arrival. The seeds out of the Tory 
which we gave him had served to furnish a very pro- 
ductive garden : he had a flock of forty or fifty goats, 
and as many geese. Besides his two whaling-stations 
at Porirua and Te-awa-iti, he had another in Port 
Underwood, and had taken out licences for public- 
houses at all three. That at Porirua, especially, pro- 
mised to yield him profit, as the amount of travelling 
by land was rapidly increasing on the north side of 
the Strait since the foundation of the settlements at 
TVanganui and Taranaki. At one o'clock the flood 
made, and we sailed on our respective destinations. 
As we beat into the channel, and passed Te-awa-iti at 
a rapid rate, we took a baked leg of mutton and the 
fresh vegetables out of our stove, and enjoyed the 
scenery while we ate our dinner on deck. About half- 
way along the channel we met the Brougham, striving 
to beat up to Te-awa-iti, where she had to take in oil 
and bone for London. I went on board and told the 
captain that the flood-tide had made, and he therefore 
anchored in one of the bays till the next ebb. I then 
gathered from him the particulars of the location of 
the New Plymouth settlers. Mr. Carrington had 
at first fixed upon the banks of the river JVaitera as 
the site of the new town. The embouchure of this 
river is about twelve miles north of the Sugar-loaf 
Islands, and has a bar nearly dry at low-water, with a 
rise of twelve feet in the spring-tides. They had 
found, however, that a bad surf ran there at times 
