tl ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND, Chap. IV. 
enclosed house above ground. I returned to Tata in 
a canoe, along a reach of the river which is flanked 
by successive buttresses of cliflp, in form like round 
towers. 
«J It was not till the 19th that the party was ready to 
start. The loads were packed and distributed among 
the natives. I had with me a large quantity of goods, 
both for the purchase of mats and for presents to my 
friends. So one carrier had a large kit full of blankets, 
and another a bundle of half-a-dozen pieces of printed 
calico. A hundred-weight of tobacco formed another 
load ; a tin-box, containing tea, sugar, and bottles of 
jjepper, salt, and mustard ; another, containing journal- 
books, sketch-book, pencils, and other necessary nick- 
nacks ; pipes among the blankets, spare boots or baked 
legs of pork fastened to the top of baskets full of 
shirts ; bags of shot, tinder-boxes, cartouch-boxes, 
canisters of powder, hand-lamps, a bottle of oil, toma- 
hawks, leathern valises with spare clothes, pea-jackets, 
and a light tent, figured among the baggage. One 
man looked like Atlas, as he went along with a huge 
damper on the top of his pack. This is a loaf baked 
in the ashes, which has the advantage of never getting 
much harder than on the day it is baked. 
J The tent packed into very small space. It was 
composed of unbleached calico. It stretched over two 
uprights four feet high, and a ridge pole six feet long, 
to the breadth of about four or five feet. The necessary 
poles and the pegs for the bottom were cut at the en- 
campment each night, or carried from the wood in 
passing when we had to encamp in the open country. 
When rolled up, the tent was not so bulky as a great- 
coat, and yet, when well stretched, it aflforded ample 
shelter from a night's heavy rain to two people. 
. On the 19th, then, we got into the canoes, to 
