Taken altogether, New Zealand presents a great variety of landscape,
although, even where the scenery is most subdued, it partakes of a bold
and irregular character, derived not more from the aspect of 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 precipitous eminences, with their
sides covered by forests, and their summits barren of all vegetation, or
terminating perhaps in a naked rock, that often rise close beside the
most sheltered spots of fertility and verdure.
If this brokenness and inequality of surface oppose difficulties in the
way of agricultural improvement, the variety and striking contrasts
thereby produced must be often at least highly picturesque; and all,
accordingly, who have visited New Zealand, agree in extolling the
mingled beauty and grandeur which are profusely spread over the more
favoured parts of the country, and are not altogether wanting even where
the general look of the coast is most desolate and uninviting.
The southern island, with the exception of a narrow strip along its
northern shore, appears to be, in its interior, a mere chaos of
mountains, and the region of perpetual winter; but even here, the
declivities that slope down towards the sea are clothed, in many places
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 bleakness of the western
coast of this southern island indeed does not arise so much from its
latitude as from the tempestuous north-west winds which seem so much to
prevail in this part of the world, and to the whole force of which it
is, from its position, exposed.
The interior and eastern side of the northern island owe their fertility
and their suitableness for the habitation of man principally to the
intervention of a considerable extent of land, much of which is
elevated, between them and the quarter from which these desolating 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 speaking,
offers to the eye a spread of luxuriant verdure, the freshness of which
is preserved by continual depositions of moisture from the clouds that
are attracted by the mountains, so that its hue, even in the heat of
midsummer, is peculiarly vivid and lustrous.
Much of the land, both in the valleys and on the brows of the hills, is
covered by groves of majestic pine, which are nearly impervious, from
the thick underwood that has rushed up everywhere in the spaces between
the trees; and where there is no wood, the prevailing plant is a fern,
which rises generally to the height of six or seven feet.
Along the skirts of the woodlands flow numerous rivers, which intersect
the country in all directions, and several of which are navigable for
miles up by ships of considerable burthen. Various lines of
communication are in this 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, which give additional effect to the
other features of sublimity and romantic beauty by which the country is
so distinguished. Many of the rocks on the coast are perforated, a
circumstance which proceeds from their formation.
The quality of the soil of this country may be best estimated from the
profuse vegetation with which the greater part of it is clothed, and the
extraordinary vigour which characterizes the growth of most of its
productions. The botany of New Zealand has 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 subsequent visitors, there can be no doubt that the
country is rich both in new and valuable herbs, plants, and trees as
well as admirably adapted for the cultivation of many of the most useful
among the vegetable possessions of other parts of the world.
Rutherford, we have seen, mentions the existence of cultivated land in
the neighbourhood of the village to which he was last conveyed. The New
Zealanders had made considerable advances in agriculture even before
Cook visited the country; and that navigator mentions particularly, in
the narrative of his first voyage, the numerous patches of ground which
he observed all along the east coast in a state of cultivation. Speaking
of the very neighbourhood of the place at which the crew of the "Agnes"
were made 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 yet (it was about the end of October)
appeared above ground; and the gourds were set in small hollows, or
dishes, much as in England. These plantations were of different extent,
from one or two acres to ten. Taken together, there appeared to be from
one hundred and fifty to two hundred acres in cultivation in the whole
bay, though we never saw a hundred people. Each district was fenced in,
generally with reeds, which were placed so close together that there was
scarcely room for a mouse to creep between."
Since the commencement of the intercourse of the New Zealanders with
Europe, the sphere of their husbandry has been considerably enlarged by
the introduction of several most precious articles which were formerly
unknown to them. Cook, in the course of his several visits to the
country, both deposited in the soil, and left with some of the most
intelligent among the natives, quantities of such useful seeds 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 some degree appreciated. With the
exception, in fact, of the turnips and potatoes, the vegetable
productions which Cook took so much pains to introduce seem to have all
perished. The potatoes, however, have been carefully preserved, and are
said to have even improved in quality, being now greatly superior to
those of the Cape of Good Hope, from which the seed they have sprung
from was originally brought.
In more recent times, maize has been introduced into New Zealand; and
the missionaries have sown many acres in the neighbourhood of the Bay of
Islands, both on their own property and on that of the native chiefs,
with English wheat, which has produced an abundant return.
Duaterra was the first person who actually reared a crop of this grain
in his native country. On leaving Port Jackson the second time, to
return home, he took with him a quantity of it, and much astonished his
acquaintances by informing them that this was the very substance of
which the Europeans made biscuits, such as they had seen and eaten on
board their ships.
"He gave a portion of wheat," says Marsden, "to six chiefs, and also to
some of his own common men, and directed them all how to sow it,
reserving some for himself and his uncle Shungie, who is a very great
chief, his dominion extending from the east to the west side of New
Zealand.
"All the persons to whom Duaterra had given the seed-wheat put it into
the ground, and it grew well; but before it was well ripe, many of them
grew impatient for the produce; and as they expected to find the grain
at the roots of the stems, similar to their potatoes, they examined the
roots, and finding there was no wheat under the ground, they pulled it
all up, and burned it, except Shungie.
"The chiefs ridiculed Duaterra much about the wheat, and told him,
because he had been a great traveller, he thought he could easily impose
upon their credulity by fine stories; 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
natives were much astonished to find that the grain was produced at the
top, and not at the bottom of the stem, yet they could not be persuaded
that bread could be made of it."
Marsden afterwards sent Duaterra a steel mill to grind his wheat, which
he received with no little joy. "He soon set to work," continues
Marsden, "and ground some wheat before his countrymen, 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 truth he had told them before, that wheat
would make bread." The chiefs now begged some more seed, which they
sowed; and such of it as was attended to grew up as strong a crop as
could be desired.
In all countries the securing of a sufficient supply of food is the
primary concern of society; and, accordingly, even among the rudest
tribes who are in any degree dependent upon the fruits of the earth 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 species to
the agricultural state, from and through the pastoral, as if the one
were a condition at which it was nothing less than impossible for a
people to arrive, except by first undergoing the other.
In countries circumstanced like New Zealand, at least, the course of
things must have been somewhat different; inasmuch as here we find the
agricultural state begun, where the pastoral could never have been
known, there being no flocks to tend. Cook, as we have seen, found the
inhabitants of this country extensive cultivators of land, and they,
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, they pay the
greatest attention, insomuch, that most of those who have visited the
country have been struck by the extraordinary contrast between the neat
and clean appearance of their fields, in which the plants rise in even
rows, and not a weed is to be seen, and the universal air of rudeness,
slovenliness, and discomfort which their huts present.
But we must remember that in the latter case we see merely a few of the
personal accommodations of the savage, his neglect of which occasions
him but very slight and temporary inconvenience; whereas in the former
it is the very sustenance of his life which is 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 celebrate the seasons of planting and gathering
in their harvests with festivities and religious observances, practices
which have, indeed, prevailed in almost every nation, and may be
regarded as among the most beautiful and becoming of the rites of
natural religion.
The commencement of the coomera harvest in New Zealand is the signal for
the suspension of all other occupations except that of gathering in the
crop. First, the priest pronounces a blessing upon the unbroken ground;
and then, when all its produce has been gathered in, he "taboos" or
makes sacred, the public storehouse in which it is deposited.
Cruise states that this solemn dedication has sometimes saved these
depositories from spoliation, even on occasion of a hostile attack by
another tribe. "One of the gentlemen of the ship," this writer adds,
"was present at the 'shackerie,'[AL] or harvest-home, if it may be so
called, of Shungie's people. It was celebrated in a wood, where a square
space had been cleared of trees, 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
received a present of as many coomeras as they could carry with them."
In New Zealand all the cultivated fields are strictly "tabooed," as well
as the people employed in cultivating them, who live upon the spot while
they proceed with their labours, and are not permitted to pass the
boundary until they are terminated; nor are any others allowed to
trespass upon the sacred enclosure.
We have already mentioned more than once the lofty forests of New
Zealand. Of these, considered as a mere ornament to the country, all
who have seen them speak in terms 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 vigour almost
superior to anything that imagination can conceive, and affording an
august prospect to those who are delighted with the grand and beautiful
works of Nature."
"It is impossible," says Nicholas, "to imagine, in the wildest and most
picturesque walks of Nature, a sight more sublime and majestic, or which
can more forcibly challenge the admiration of the traveller, than a New
Zealand forest."
And indeed, when we are told that the trees rise generally to the height
of from eighty to a hundred feet, straight as a mast and without a
branch, and are then crowned with tops of such umbrageous 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, and the rank soil produces nothing but a
thick spread of climbing and intertwisted underwood, we may conceive how
imposing must be the gloomy grandeur of these gigantic and impenetrable
groves.
[Illustration: Scene in a New Zealand forest.]
In the woods in the neighbourhood of Poverty Bay, Cook says he found
trees of above twenty different sorts, altogether unknown to anybody
on board; and almost every new district which he visited afterwards
presented to him a profusion of new varieties. But the trees that have
as yet chiefly attracted the attention of Europeans are certain of those
more lofty ones of which we have just spoken.
These trees had attracted Cook's attention in his first voyage, as
likely to prove admirably adapted for masts, if the timber, which in its
original state he considered rather 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 could
produce. Crozet, however, asserts, in his account of Marion's voyage
that they found what he calls the cedar of New Zealand to weigh no
heavier than the best Riga fir.
Nicholas brought some of the seeds of the New Zealand phormium with him
to England in 1815; but unfortunately they lost their vegetative
properties during the voyage. It appears, however, that, some years
before, it had been brought to blossom, though imperfectly, in the
neighbourhood 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 four lines in circumference at the base, and two inches and a
half, half-way up. Upon one stalk he had a hundred and nine flowers, of
a greenish yellow colour; and he had made some very strong ropes from
the leaves, from which he had obtained the flax by a very simple
process.
According to Rutherford, the natives, after having cut it down, and
brought it home green in bundles, in which state it is called "koradee,"
scrape it with a large mussel-shell, and take the heart out of it,
splitting it with the nails of their thumbs, which for 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 the sun to dry, which makes it as white
as snow. In this prepared state it is, he says, called "mooka." They
spin it, he adds, in a double thread, with the hand on the thigh, and
then work it into mats, also by the hand: three women may work on one
mat at a time.
Nicholas, on one occasion, saw Duaterra's head wife employed in weaving.
The mat on which she was engaged was one of an open texture, and "she
performed her work," says the author, "with wooden pegs stuck in the
ground at equal distances from 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
the threads, and how well executed was her performance." He was assured
that another mat which he saw, and which was woven with elaborate
ingenuity and elegance, could not have been manufactured in less time
than between two and three years.
Valuable, however, as is the phormium for the purposes to which alone it
is applied in New Zealand, it would appear that the attempts which have
been made to fabricate 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 manufactured from the plant at Sydney,
was sent to be woven at Knaresborough; but "the trial," it is stated,
"did not succeed to the full satisfaction of the parties."
We have been favoured with a communication upon this subject by a
gentleman who has given much attention to it, which seems to explain, in
a very satisfactory manner, the true reason of the failure that has been
here experienced. "A friend of mine," says our correspondent, "a few
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 boiled
with potash it becomes so exceedingly weak as not to bear the operation
of weaving but with the utmost difficulty. A gentleman once showed me a
pair of trousers made of this material. They appeared quite rough and
nearly worn out, though they had been used but for a few weeks.
"Although making cloth of it, however, is out of the question, it is
admirably fitted for rope and twine of all descriptions. It will,
therefore, prove highly valuable to our shipping and fishing interests.
Another friend of mine made some rope 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
naturally short, being firmly united by an elastic vegetable glue or
gum, which the boiling process dissolves." Rutherford says the flax
becomes black on being soaked, which may possibly be occasioned by its
consequent loss of the gum here described.
We find it stated in the "Annual Register" for 1819, that about the
beginning of that year a favourable report had been made of the
suitableness of the phormium for the manufacture 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
plant may be cut down in New Zealand three times a year; and that it may
be imported to this country at the rate of about eight pounds per ton,
or one-seventh of the cost of hemp.
Among the useful plants for which we are indebted to New Zealand, we
must not forget their summer spinach (_Tetragonia expansa_--Murray),
which was discovered on Cook's first voyage by Sir Joseph Banks, and was
"boiled and eaten as greens" by the crew. It was afterwards seen by
Forster at Tongataboo, though it was not used by the natives; but
Thunberg 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 driest weather,
up to the setting in of the frosts, when the common spinach is useless;
but it is not reckoned of so fine a flavour as that plant. The Rev. J.
Bransby says that the produce of three seeds, which must be reared by
heat before planting out, supplied his own table and those of two of his
friends from June till the frost killed it.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote AL: The hakari, or feast, a great function in former times.]
[Footnote AM: This name is spelt wrongly. It might be Te Pahi, a famous
chief, but it is reported that he died soon after the affair of the
"Boyd," in 1809, some time before Rutherford's arrival in New Zealand.
The tribe, however, may still have been known as Te Pahi's.]
[Footnote AN: Whangaroa.]