d miles away on the far
horizon, the broad, bold, snow-covered mountain Ruapehu, ten thousand
feet high. The last portion of the journey from Oxford to Ohinemutu took
us through one of the grandest forests in all New Zealand, extending
eighteen or twenty miles without a human habitation or any sign of life,
save the flutter of an occasional bird.

In this forest, mingled with tall columnar trees of various species,
were seen frequent examples of the fern-tree thirty feet in height and
of surpassing beauty, spreading out their plumed summits like an
Egyptian palm, while the stem had the graceful inclination of the
cocoanut-tree. Well has the fern-tree been called the forest Houri. The
picturesque effect of the birches was also remarkable, flanked by the
massive outlines and drooping tassels of the rimu, the soft luxuriance
of the undergrowth adding charms to the whole. For miles of the way on
either side of the road the forest was impenetrable even to the eye save
for the shortest distance, presenting a tangled mass of foliage, vines,
and branches such as can be matched only by the virgin forests of Brazil
or the jungles of India. Ground-ferns were observed in infinite
variety, sometimes of a silvery texture, sometimes of orange-yellow, but
oftenest of the various shades of green. Here too we made acquaintance
with the sweet-scented manuka, the fragrant veronica, and the
glossy-leaved karaka,--this last the pride of the Maoris. A dark-colored
shrub, with leaves like the orange-tree, their under side being of a
quicksilver hue, was pointed out to us by the driver, which though
poisonous, as he declared, to horses, sheep, and cattle, is nevertheless
eaten by them with avidity whenever they chance to come upon it. Its
first effect is to intoxicate them, and it will ultimately prove fatal
unless an antidote is given. Many specimens of the lofty rimu-tree were
seen, about whose tall white stems a parasitic vine was slowly and
treacherously weaving itself, clasping and binding the upright body with
such a marvellous power of compression as literally to strangle it,
until ultimately the vine becomes a stout tree in place of the original.
The most noted and destructive of these vegetable boa-constrictors is
the gigantic rope-like rata, whose Gordian knot nothing can untie. The
tree once clasped in its toils is fated, yielding up its sap and life
without a struggle to cast off its deadly enemy. Many trees were
observed whose stem