96
KAUDI GUM.
[Chap. IV.
1841
Zealand, and was formed by the missionaries a few years ago, for more ready communication between their two principal establishments: and at this time the greater part of it was in very good condition, so that a carriage might have been driven along it.
On ascending about two hundred feet rather abruptly from the river, we came upon a long tract of level country, covered with low stunted brushwood, amongst which many beautiful flowers were beginning to appear. The soil is extremely poor and unproductive; a large portion of the surface being occupied by reedy marshes, not more than one or two feet deep, lying upon dense clay. I was told that the whole of this extensive plain was at one time covered with an immense forest of Kaudi trees (Dammara australis), and the gum which exudes from them may be found in any part by digging for it. There are, however, no other remains of the trees to be found, from which circumstance it has been supposed that the forest was burnt down; a method frequently adopted for clearing the land when wanted for cultivation, and which would, in some measure, account for the gum being found in such very large pieces; in no other way can we explain how the gum should be there, and yet the absence of any trunks or roots of the trees, together with the extreme poverty of the soil, are facts barely reconcilable with the former existence of a large forest. It would be worth while to dig to a good depth at
