452 
NEW ZEALAND 
CHAP. 
The soil is volcanic ; in several parts we passed over 
slaggy lavas, and craters could clearly be distinguished on several 
of the neighbouring hills. Although the scenery is nowhere 
beautiful, and only occasionally pretty, I enjoyed my walk. I 
should have enjoyed it more, if my companion, the chief, had not 
possessed extraordinary conversational powers. I knew only 
three words: “good,” “bad,” and “yes;” and with these I 
answered all his remarks, without of course having understood 
one word he said. This, however, was quite sufficient : I was 
a good listener, an agreeable person, and he never ceased talking 
to me. 
At length we reached Waimate. After having passed over 
so many miles of an uninhabited useless country, the sudden 
appearance of an English farmhouse, and its well-dressed 
fields, placed there as if by an enchanters wand, was ex¬ 
ceedingly pleasant. Mr. Williams not being at home, I 
received in Mr. Davies’s house a cordial welcome. After 
drinking tea with his family party, we took a stroll about the 
farm. At Waimate there are three large houses, where the 
missionary gentlemen, Messrs. Williams, Davies, and Clarke, 
reside ; and near them are the huts of the native labourers. 
On an adjoining slope fine crops of barley and wheat were 
standing in full ear; and in another part fields of potatoes 
and clover. But I cannot attempt to describe all I saw ; there 
were large gardens, with every fruit and vegetable which 
England produces; and many belonging to a warmer clime. 
I may instance asparagus, kidney beans, cucumbers, rhubarb, 
apples, pears, figs, peaches, apricots, grapes, olives, gooseberries, 
currants, hops, gorse for fences, and English oaks ; also many 
kinds of flowers. Around the farmyard there were stables, a 
thrashing-barn with its winnowing machine, a blacksmith’s 
forge, and on the ground ploughshares and other tools : in the 
middle was that happy mixture of pigs and poultry, lying 
comfortably together, as in every English farmyard. At the 
distance of a few hundred yards, where the water of a little 
rill had been dammed up into a pool, there was a large and 
substantial water-mill. 
All this is very surprising when it is considered that five 
years ago nothing but the fern flourished here. Moreover, 
native workmanship, taught by the missionaries, has effected 
