Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley - Volume 2 - John MacGillivray (best novels of all time .txt) 📗

two species of tree-ferns of the genus Cyathea grow luxuriantly in the moist clayey soil. Everywhere one sees common English weeds scattered about, especially the sow-thistle and common dock, and a British landshell (Helix cellaria) has even found its way to New Zealand and is to be met with in some of the gardens.

Much rain had lately fallen, and many of the paths were partially converted into watercourses. I walked across to a neighbouring bay, and employed myself in searching for shells in the mud at low-water. Some bivalves, common there-various Cythereae and Mesodesma chemnitzii-constitute an important article of food to the natives, who knew them by the name of pipi. A marshy place, at the mouth of a small stream, was tenanted by a curious wrinkled univalve, with a notch on the outer lip, Amphibola avellana of conchologists.

May 18th.

I joined a party made up to visit the falls of the Keri-Keri river, and we started, after an early breakfast, in one of the ship's boats. The morning was dull and rainy, and we had occasional showers during the forenoon. In an hour after leaving the ship we entered the estuary of the river, a large arm of the sea, which we followed for several miles. The scenery reminded me of that of some of the sea lochs on the west coast of Scotland, and although fern was here substituted for heath, the Scotch mist was perfectly represented at the antipodes. The country is scantily wooded, and the muddy shores are occasionally fringed with a small mangrove (Avicennia tomentosa). Here and there were a few settlers' houses, with the accompanying signs of cultivation. One of the small islands, and also a hilltop on the northern shore, had an artificial appearance, their summits being leveled and the sides scarped-they were the remains of former fortified villages or pahs. At length the estuary narrowed, and assumed the appearance of a winding river, with low hilly banks covered with fern and bushes. One and a half miles from this brought us to a rocky ledge across the stream, preventing further progress in the boat, and marking the junction of the fresh and salt water.

Here Mr. Kemp, a schoolmaster of the Church Mission Society, has been located for upwards of thirty years. A well built store, a neat cottage and garden, and residences for a few Maoris, complete the establishment. From this place a dray-road leads to the extensive Missionary establishment at Waimate, distant about ten miles. Crossing the river, we started for the falls, in charge of a sharp little urchin who acted as guide. After leaving the narrow valley which the river has cut for itself through a superstratum of yellowish clay, the country becomes nearly level-a dreary plain, covered with fern and the manuka bush. The extensive tract of country now in sight is said to have once been a great kauri forest-a few of these noble trees (Dammara australis) were pointed out to me from a distance. When about halfway we left the road, and within the distance of a mile our guide contrived to lead us into five or six bogs, where we were up to our knees in water, besides entangling us in several thickets nearly as bad to penetrate as an Australian scrub. At length we arrived in sight of the waterfall, then in full force from the quantity of rain which had lately fallen.

The Keri-Keri, after a long course through a country composed chiefly of upland moors and gently undulating hills, here suddenly precipitates itself over a rocky wall into a large circular pool eighty feet below, then continues its course for a while between steep and densely wooded banks. Behind the fall the rock is hollowed out into a wide and deeply arched cave, formed by the falling out of masses of columnar rock. A winding path leads to the foot of the fall, whence the view is very grand. Some of the party crept over the slippery rocks, and reached the cave behind the fall, where they were much gratified with the novelty of the scene. The luxuriant and varied vegetation in the ravine affords a fine field for the botanist. The variety of cryptogamic plants is very great-every rock, and the trunk of each tree, being covered with ferns, lichens, and mosses. Among the trees I noticed the pale scarlet flowers of the puriri or New Zealand Teak (Vitex littoralis) the hardest* and most durable of all the woods of the country. A short search among the damp stones and moss brought to light some small but interesting landshells, consisting of a pupiform Cyclostoma, a Carocolla, and five species of Helix. This leads me to mention, that although the number of New Zealand landshells hitherto described scarcely exceeds a dozen, this does not imply any scarcity of such objects in the country, as an industrious collector from Sydney, who spent nine months on the northern and middle islands, obtained nearly a hundred species of terrestrial and fluviatile mollusca. The scarcity of birds during our walk surprised me, for the only one which I saw on shore was a solitary kingfisher (Halcyon vagans): during our ascent of the Keri-Keri, however, many ducks (Anas superciliosa) flew past the boat, and gulls, terns, and two kinds of cormorants were numerous.

(*Footnote. This wood was much used in the construction of the pahs which, in 1845, under the Maori chiefs Heke and Kawiti, long resisted the attacks of disciplined forces, aided by artillery. In reference to the puriri wood used in the palisading of one of these, it was officially stated, that "many of our six-pound shot were picked out of the posts, not having actually entered far enough to hide themselves.")

Returning to the road by a path which avoided the swamps our guide had taken us through, in little more than half an hour we reached Mr. Kemp's house, and after partaking of that gentleman's hospitality returned to the ship. On our way we landed at sunset for an hour upon a small island, which will probably long be remembered by some of the party as having furnished us with a supper of very excellent rock-oysters.

Having effected the necessary repairs, and disposed of the decked boat, we left New Zealand on May 22nd on our homeward passage. On July 5th having passed to the eastward of Cape Horn we bore up for the Falkland Islands, having taken forty-three days to traverse a direct distance of a little more than 5000 miles. During this period the wind was usually strong from the south-west, but on various occasions we experienced calms and easterly winds, the latter varying between North-East and South-South-East and at times blowing very hard with snow squalls. The lowest temperature experienced by us off Cape Horn was on the day when we doubled the Cape in latitude 57 degrees South when the minimum temperature of the day was 21 and the maximum 26 degrees. This reminded some of us that we had now passed through not less than 75 degrees of temperature in the ship, the thermometer in the shade having indicated 96 degrees during a hot wind in Sydney harbour.

A passage such as ours, during which at one time we were further from land than if placed in any other portion on the globe, must almost of necessity be a monotonous one. We saw no land, not even an iceberg, and very few vessels. For five or six successive evenings when in the parallels of 40 and 41 degrees South between the meridians of 133 and 113 degrees West we enjoyed the fine sight of thousands of large Pyrosomae in the water, each producing a greater body of light than I ever saw given out by any other of the pelagic-luciferous mollusca or medusae. The towing net was put over on several occasions but produced little or nothing to repay Mr. Huxley for his trouble: so that even a naturalist would here find his occupation gone were it not for the numbers of oceanic birds daily met with, the observation of whose habits and succession of occurrence served to fill up many a leisure hour. It being the winter of the southern hemisphere, the members of the petrel family, at other times so abundant in the South Pacific, were by no means so numerous as I had expected to find them, and in the higher southern latitudes which we attained before rounding Cape Horn, albatrosses had altogether disappeared, although they had been abundant as far to the southward as 41 degrees South. The most widely dispersed were Daption capensis-the pintado or Cape-pigeon of voyagers-Procellaria hasitata, P. coerulea, P. lessonii, and P. gigantea, of which the first and second were the most numerous and readily took a bait towing astern. It is probable that all these species make the circuit of the globe, as they are equally distributed over the South Indian Ocean. Some interesting additions were made to the collection of Procellariadae (commenced near the equator with Thalassidroma leachii) and before leaving the Falklands I had captured and prepared specimens of twenty-two species of this highly interesting family, many members of which until the publication of Mr. Gould's memoir* were either unknown or involved in obscurity and confusion. Among these is one which merits special notice here, a small blue petrel, closely resembling P. coerulea, from which it may readily be distinguished by wanting the white tips to the central tailfeathers. It turns out to be the P. desolata, known only by a drawing in the British Museum made more than half a century ago, from which this species was characterised. When in latitude 50 degrees 46 minutes South and longitude 97 degrees 47 minutes West I saw P. antarctica for the first time; one or two individuals were in daily attendance while rounding Cape Horn and followed the ship until we sighted the Falkland Islands. I had long been looking out for P. glacialoides, which in due time made its appearance-a beautiful light grey petrel, larger than a pigeon; it continued with us between the latitudes of 40 and 58 degrees South and occasionally pecked at a baited hook towing astern.

(*Footnote. Magazine and Annals of Natural History for 1844 page 360.)

One may naturally wonder what these petrels can procure for food in the ocean to the southward of 35 degrees south latitude, where they are perhaps more numerous than elsewhere, and where the voyager never sees any surface-swimming fishes which they might pick up? It is, of course, well known that they eagerly pounce upon any scraps of animal matter in the wake of a vessel, hence it is reasonable to suppose that they follow ships for the purpose of picking up the offal, but they may also be seen similarly following in the wake of whales and droves of the larger porpoises. Almost invariably I have found in the stomach of the many kinds of albatrosses, petrels, and shearwaters, which I have examined, the undigested horny mandibles of cuttlefish, which would thus appear to constitute their principal food; and, as all the petrel family are to a certain extent nocturnal, it seems probable that the small cuttlefish on which they feed approach the surface only at night.

July 8th.

Yesterday at noon we passed close to Beauchene Island, a dreary, bushless place, half covered with snow. Vast numbers of pintados were about, also some albatrosses, the first that had made their appearance for several weeks back. In hopes of reaching an anchorage before dark we stood in for Bull Road, East Falkland Island, but after running fourteen miles, and sighting Sealion Islands, this was found impracticable. The ship was kept away to the eastward, and, after wearing several times during the night to avoid closing the land, a course was shaped to take us to the settlement. Passing inside