338: ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. XIII. 
easy road, the one by which he originally came to assist 
Rawperaha. It communicated between the " Sacred 
Sand," at the foot of Ruapehu and the country at the 
head of the Rangitikei river ; and E Ahu assured me 
that, with a very little labour, this path might be made 
passable for a horse. Our method of assignation had 
been one peculiar to the natives : we were to start when 
the rata should be in bloom. This is a curious but 
very common plant, which is at first a parasite, winding 
round large trees of the forest till it encircles and 
destroys them, when its numerous coils join together 
in one hollow trunk, leaving their victim to rot inside. 
The rata thus full-grown is certainly the monarch 
of the New Zealand forest. In the gnarled form and 
tough contortions of its limbs, it much resembles the 
oak, and is therefore highly valued by ship-builders for 
knees and timbers. The foliage has also the noble ap- 
pearance at a distance of the English forest-king. But 
the plant is of the myrtle kind, and bears a bright 
crimson blossom* in such abundance that, at its time 
of flowering, the forests look as though some playful 
giant had dipped every other tree in crimson dye and 
stuck them up again. 
This tree is somewhat irregular in its flowering, and 
earlier in some parts of the country than in others. 
But this fairy hue is generally thrown over the wooded 
steeps soon after the middle of summer, about harvest- 
time. The numerous engagements of E Ahu in start- 
ing the flax-trade put our trip out of the question for 
this season. 
* I must again refer the reader to the Lithographic Plates. 
