John Rutherford, the White Chief: A Story of Adventure in New Zealand

f undisturbed Nature, which still obtrudes itself everywhere among the traces of commencing cultivation, than from the confusion of hill and valley which marks the face of the soil, and the precipitou

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st be often at least highly picturesque; and all, accordingly, who have visited New Zealand, agree in extolling the mingled beauty and grandeur which are profu

laces to the water's edge, with gigantic and evergreen forests; and more protected nooks occasionally present themselves, overspread with the abundance of a teeming vegetation, and not to be surpassed in loveliness by what the land has anywhere else to show. The b

ting gales blow. The more westerly portion of it seems only to be inhabited in places which are in a certain degree similarly defended by the surrounding high grounds. In these, as well as in the more populous districts to the east, the face of the country, generally

are nearly impervious, from the thick underwood that has rushed up everywhere in the spaces between the trees; and

is way established between the opposite coasts of the northern island; while some of the minor streams, that rush down to the sea through the more precipitous ravines, are interrupted in their course by magnificent cataracts,

as yet been very imperfectly investigated, a very small portion of the native plants having been either classified or enumerated. From the partial researches, however, that have been made by the scientific gentlemen attached to Cook's expeditions, and

prisoners, he says:-"Banks saw some of their plantations, where the ground was as well broken down and tilled as even in the gardens of the most curious people among us. In these spots were sweet potatoes, coccos or eddas, which are well known and much esteemed both in the East and West Indies, and some gourds. The sweet potatoes were placed in small hills, some ranged in rows, and others in quincunx, all laid by a line with the greatest regularity. The coccos were planted upon flat land, but none of them

eeds as those of wheat, peas, cabbage, onions, carrots, turnips, and potatoes; but although he had sufficient proofs of the suitableness of the soil and climate to the growth of most of these articles, which he found that even the winter of New Zealand was too mild to injure, it appeared to him very unlikely that the inhabitants would be at the trouble to take care even of those whose value they in so

e sown many acres in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands, both on their own property a

second time, to return home, he took with him a quantity of it, and much astonished his acquaintances by informing them th

men, and directed them all how to sow it, reserving some for himself and his uncle Shungie, w

any of them grew impatient for the produce; and as they expected to find the grain at the roots of the stems, similar to their pota

s; and all he urged could not convince them that wheat would make bread. His own and Shungie's crops in time came to perfection, and were reaped and threshed; and though the n

, who danced and shouted for joy when they saw the meal. He told me that he made a cake and baked it in a frying-pan, and gave it to the people to eat, which fully satisfied them of the trut

for their sustenance, the different operations of agriculture, as regulated by the seasons, have always excited especial interest. Theoretical writers are fond of talking of the natural progress of the

probably, had been so for many ages before. Although the fern-root is in most places the spontaneous produce of the soil, and enters largely into the consumption of the people, it would yet seem that they have not been wont to consider themselves independent of those other crops which they raise by regular cultivation. To these, accordingly, the

concerned, his inattention to which might expose him to all the miseries of famine. The same care and neatness in the management of their fields has been remarked as characteristics of the North American Indians; and both they and the New Zealanders celebrat

cept that of gathering in the crop. First, the priest pronounces a blessing upon the unbroken ground; and then, whe

in the centre of which three very tall posts, driven into the ground in the form of a triangle, supported an immense pile of baskets of coomeras. The tribe of Teeperree[AM] of Wangarooa[AN] was invited to participate in the rejoicings, which consisted of a number of dances performed round the pole, succeeded by a very splendid feast; and when Teeperree's men were going away, they

ms of the highest admiration. Anderson, the surgeon whom Cook took with him on board the "Resolution" in his third voyage, describes them as "flourishing with a vigou

resque walks of Nature, a sight more sublime and majestic, or which can more

rageous foliage that the rays of the sun, in endeavouring to pierce through them, can hardly make more than a dim twilight in the lonely recesses below, so that herbage cannot grow there, an

New Zeala

nybody on board; and almost every new district which he visited afterwards presented to him a profusion of new varieties. But the t

ather too heavy for that purpose, could, like that of the European pitch-pine, be lightened by tapping; they would then, he says, be such masts as no country in Europe co

ourhood of London; and in France it is said to have been cultivated in the open air with great success, by Freycinet and Faujas St. Fond. Under the culture of the former of these gentlemen it grew, in 1813, to the height of seven feet six lines, the stalk being three inches and

r that purpose they keep very long. It would seem, however, that the natives have made instruments for dressing this flax not very dissimilar from the tools of our own wool-combers. The outside they throw away, and the rest they spread out for several days in t

om each other, to which having tied the threads that formed the woof, she took up six threads with the two composing the warp, knotting them carefully together." "It was astonishing," he says, "with what dexterity and quickness she handled

bricate from it what is properly called cloth have not hitherto been attended with a favourable result. Some years ago, a quantity of hemp that had been manufac

years ago imported a quantity of the phormium, in the expectation that it would answer admirably for making cloth even of the finest fabric. But in this he was altogether disappointed. Although it is infinitely stronger in its raw state than any other flax or hemp, yet when boil

of it, which, when proved by the breaking machine, bore, I think, nearly double the strain of a similar-sized rope made of Russian hemp. The great strength and tenacity of the New Zealand flax appears to me to be owing to the fibres, though natu

acture both of small and large ropes, after some experiments in the dockyard at Portsmouth. The ropes turned out strong, pliable, and very silky. The notice adds that the pla

hunberg found the Japanese acquainted with its value as a pot-herb. It was introduced into Kew Gardens in 1772; but the first account of it as a vegetable worthy of cultivation, was published by Count D'Auraches in the "Annales d'Agriculture" for 1809. Its chief advantage lies in the leaves being fit for use during the summer, even in the dr

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st, a great functi

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hat he died soon after the affair of the "Boyd," in 1809, some time before Rutherford

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