Maori and Settler: A Story of The New Zealand War

by G. A. Henty

Wilfrid was delighted with his ride through the forest. In his other trips ashore their way had led through an open country with low scrub bush, and this was his first experience of a New Zealand forest. Ferns were growing everywhere. The tree-ferns, coated with scales, rose from thirty to forty feet in the air. Hymenophylla and polypodia, in extraordinary variety, covered the trunks of the forest trees with luxuriant growth. Smaller ferns grew between the branches and twigs, and a thick growth of ferns of many species extended everywhere over the ground.

The trees were for the most part pines of different varieties, but differing so widely in appearance from those Wilfrid had seen in England, that had not Mr. Mitford assured him that they were really pines he would never have guessed they belonged to that family. Mr. Mitford gave him the native names of many of them. The totara matai were among the largest and most beautiful. The rimu was distinguished by its hanging leaves and branches, the tanekaha by its parsley-shaped leaves. Among them towered up the poplar-shaped rewarewa and the hinau, whose fruit Mr. Mitford said was the favourite food of the parrots.

Among the great forest trees were several belonging to the families of the myrtles and laurels, especially the rata, whose trunk often measured forty feet in circumference, and on whose crown were branches of scarlet blossoms. But it was to the ferns, the orchids, and the innumerable creepers, which covered the ground with a natural netting, coiled round every stem, and entwined themselves among the topmost branches, that the forest owed its peculiar features. Outside the narrow cleared track along which they were riding it would have been impossible for a man to make his way unless with the assistance of knife and hatchet, especially as some of the climbers were completely covered with thorns.

And yet, although so very beautiful, the appearance of the forest was sombre and melancholy. A great proportion of the plants of New Zealand bear no flowers, and except high up among some of the tree-tops no gay blossoms or colour of any kind meet the eye to relieve the monotony of the verdure. A deep silence reigned. Wilfrid did not see a butterfly during his ride, or hear the song or even the chirp of a single bird. It was a wilderness of tangled green, unrelieved by life or colour. Mr. Mitford could give him the names of only a few of the principal trees; and seeing the infinite variety of the foliage around him, Wilfrid no longer wondered Mr. Atherton should have made so long a journey in order to study the botany of the island, which is unique, for although many of the trees and shrubs can be found elsewhere, great numbers are entirely peculiar to the island.

"Are there any snakes?" Wilfrid asked.

"No; you can wander about without fear. There is only one poisonous creature in New Zealand, and that is found north of the port of Tauranga, forty or fifty miles from here. They say it exists only there and round Potaki, near Cook's Strait. It is a small black spider, with a red stripe on its back. The natives all say that its bite is poisonous. It will not, they say, cause death to a healthy person, though it will make him very ill; but there are instances of sickly persons being killed by it. Anyhow, the natives dread it very much. However, as the beast is confined to two small localities, you need not trouble about it. The thorns are the only enemies you have to dread as you make your way through the forest."

"That is a comfort, anyhow," Wilfrid said; "it would be a great nuisance to have to be always on the watch against snakes."

The road they were traversing had been cleared of trees from one settler's holding to another, and they stopped for a few minutes at three or four of the farmhouses. Some of these showed signs of comfort and prosperity, while one or two were mere log cabins.

"I suppose the people here have lately arrived?" Wilfrid remarked as they rode by one of these without stopping.

"They have been here upwards of two years," Mr. Mitford replied; "but the place is not likely to improve were they to be here another ten. They are a thriftless lazy lot, content to raise just sufficient for their actual wants and to pay for whisky. These are the sort of people who bring discredit on the colony by writing home declaring that there is no getting on here, and that a settler's life is worse than a dog's.