Neither is the general bravery and hardihood, or very great improvement in the body of the New Zealanders, so much talked of in England, very strikingly developed in these proceedings[1].
The country about Tawranga for about ten miles inland is almost a perfect level covered with fern; but the land is not bad, as it is light and contains a good proportion of undestroyed vegetable matter, which becomes apparent when it is stirred. I have seen very good clover and grass growing in the garden of the mission, or I might perhaps have thought the land was much worse than it is. It cannot indeed be called rich, as the constant destruction of the fern by fire is sufficient to impoverish any land; but in the long-run the light soils covered with fern will be preferable for agriculture to the clayey forest-lands where the cowrie grows, which are in general the only lands that have hitherto been the objects of purchase by Europeans,—if the terms by which they claim them can be called purchases, or if indeed the natives have any real idea of selling their lands, which at present I doubt.
There is going on at Tawranga a formation of coal which is very curious. It is in some places about a foot thick, and although quite recent, and containing nothing but the leaves, &c. of the living plants of the country, it is regularly separated by layers of soft earth of just the colour and appearance which the clayey strata of the coal-measures present, although entirely formed of partially decomposed pumice, which is also the basis of the entire soil of this part of the island, becoming very apparent when the natives, by constant planting of sweet potatoes, &c. near the villages, have exhausted all the vegetable part of the soil.
- ↑ I do not wish to undervalue the labours of the missionaries, but my business is to state facts, and to warn people against forming too hasty conclusions respecting the good that may be done by them.
