We crossed one river about fifteen yards wide and knee-deep, very rapid, and running over a smooth bottom of rock: it would form a fine mill-stream, as the banks are very high, and close to the edge of the river—which indeed seems to be a characteristic of nearly all the rivers I have seen in New Zealand.
February 18th.—The whole of the road to-day was through very thick woods; the land moderately level and exceedingly rich. We crossed another river about the same size as the one we passed last night, and a great many smaller streams, most of them having channels, not exactly like ravines, but quite as deep, and steep in proportion to their breadth, and only differing in having their sides covered with forest, and evidently not subject to inundations. New Zealand is undoubtedly wonderfully well watered, yet to-day we passed at least ten miles without seeing any stream, although the ground was anything but flat. Probably the water soon soaks through the substratum, which appears to be of a soft volcanic stone. The whole basis of the soil, the earthy part, is pumice; but you may dig six inches deep through beautiful black mould before you come to any vestige of that substance. The trees were chiefly the Towa[1], a tree strongly resembling the beech in leaf and general appearance, and bearing a fruit about the size and colour of a damson, but with a very large seed. Some of the fruit are sweet and pleasant; while others on the same tree are very poor, and taste strongly of turpentine. The wood is about the hardness and has just the appearance of beech; it is rarely more than two feet in diameter. The Rimu[2] (the most beautiful tree in the world when young) has branches very slender and pendulous, and the leaves very small, not much broader than hairs, and set all round the twigs, so that the tree looks as if it were composed of "Chenille" fringes. The berry is much like that of the yew, to which
