present
supply of the article is mostly derived, and where these forests have
been submerged for perhaps twice ten thousand years. The deposits of the
kauri gum in the Auckland district seem to be inexhaustible.

On returning to the city we found quite sufficient in and about Auckland
to interest and occupy us for a week and more. We made almost daily
excursions, sometimes on foot and sometimes on horseback; and when
mounted, our day's journey often covered a distance of many miles
inland, each time in a new direction.

In our trips afield, after passing through the immediate suburbs of the
city, we found outlying cottages where the garden-plats are adorned with
English plants in full bloom, succeeded by thrifty farms, well-fenced
fields, and highly cultivated meadows. These last were dotted here and
there with choice breeds of cattle and picturesque groups of sheep. Some
very fine horses were observed in this region; and there are some
breeding-farms here solely devoted to the raising of fine animals for
the market,--many of which, as the proprietors told us, are sent twelve
hundred miles by ship to Sydney, and even still farther, to Melbourne
and Adelaide. Notwithstanding this district is the oldest in its
settlement by the whites of any in New Zealand, the scenery struck us as
being singularly primitive, bold, and beautiful, while the bright,
breezy, light, and shadow-casting atmosphere brought out every native
grace of form and color. Along the roads one is delighted by the
abundance of the marsh-mallow, sweet clover, wild mint, and trefoil, and
only sighs for time to gather of them and leisure to enjoy their sweets.
Many trees and flowers were noted which were quite new to us, and which
the intelligence of our half-breed guide rendered doubly interesting.
The natives had distinctive and expressive names for every fowl, tree,
and flower before the white man came. There is a lovely little native
daisy called tupapa, and a blue lily known by the aborigines as
rengarenga; also a green and yellow passion-flower named by the Indians,
kowhaia. A glutinous, golden buttercup is known as anata, which is
nearly as abundant as its namesake in America. A small white fragrant
flower which attracted our attention is called the potolara. All these
species are wild. One morning the guide brought us a dew-spangled bunch
of them all together, wound about with a delicate sweet-smelling native
grass known as karetu,--the _Torresia red