CHAPTER V.
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.
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:
The hakari, or feast, a great function in former times.
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.
Whangaroa.