Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1872 edition. Excerpt: ... farther progress. I followed the lines which the surveyors had undertaken to cut along the right bank of the river, and which soon approach the hills that bound the valley to the westward. Our road lay over flat, alluvial land, covered to a breadth of about four miles from the sea-shore with a recent but thick growth of underwood. Amongst the trees was one which. on being pierced, yielded about half a wine-glassful of a well-flavoured milk. I am unable to say whether this tree, of which I saw only two specimens in Port Nicholson, and those of a small size, belong to the same family as the cow-tree of Guiana, of which Humboldt has given so graphic a description. Higher up the valley the alluvial land is covered with trees, of which the rimu and kahikatea pines are especially remarkable for their size. The former is one of the most beautiful trees imaginable, particularly when young, as at that time its branches bend gracefully downwards, like those of the weeping-willow. This is the pine from the branches of which Captain Cook made spruce-beer. Another tree common in this part of the valley, is the pukatea; it is easily known by its trunk, which rapidly diminishes in diameter from the ground upwards. The leaves are thick, serrated, and of a glossy green, and it belongs to the laurel tribe. Its wood is white, and resembles that of the beech-tree. The rata also is common; it is the king of the New Zealand trees, and has the hardest and most durable wood. In the evenings we always looked for this tree, in order to get some of its peeling and friable bark, the lower layers of which are found in a dry state, and were used by us for tinder. About seven miles from the beach, the hills which enclose the Hutt River approach near each other, the...
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