CONTENTS OF VOL II.
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| [I]. | Our Special Products | 1 |
| [II]. | Our Classic Ground | 29 |
| [III]. | Maori Manners. I. | 71 |
| [IV]. | Maori Manners. II. | 100 |
| [V]. | Maori Manners. III. | 135 |
| [VI]. | Our Naturalist's Note-Book | 184 |
| [VII]. | The Demon Dog—A Yarn | 232 |
| [VIII]. | Our Luck | 272 |
| [Appendix] | 303 |
BRIGHTER BRITAIN!
[CHAPTER I.]
OUR SPECIAL PRODUCTS.
Northern New Zealand has two special products, which are peculiar to the country, and found nowhere else. They are kauri timber and kauri-gum. When speaking of Northern New Zealand in these sketches, I do not thereby intend the whole of the North Island, as has been previously explained; I mean that northern part of it which may be more properly designated "The Land of the Kauri."
The kauri grows throughout all that part of the old province of Auckland which lies to the north of S. lat. 37° 30' or 38°. It does not grow naturally anywhere south of the thirty-eighth parallel of latitude, nor, I believe, can it be induced to flourish under cultivation south of its natural boundary line.
The kauri is indigenous to this comparatively small section of New Zealand. It is one of the Coniferæ, or pines, and is named by botanists Dammara Australis. The only tree of similar species that affords a timber nearly resembling the kauri, though not of such good quality, is one that is found in Fiji; the Dammara Vitiensis. It may be as well to mention that kauri and Maori rhyme together, and are pronounced "kowry" and "mowry."[1]
The kauri was first brought into notice by Captain Cook, who, it will be remembered, passed many months in New Zealand altogether, and the greater part of the time in the north. He discovered that kauri was superior to Norway pine, or indeed, to any other wood then known, for spars and topmasts of vessels. Other explorers endorsed his opinion of it, and in 1820 the British Government sent a ship, the Dromedary, to New Zealand, for the purpose of obtaining kauri timber. It was then classed high at Lloyd's.
Subsequently a demand for kauri timber arose in Sydney and elsewhere. Some trade in it was established with the Maoris; and little communities of English sawyers settled here and there along the coast of New Zealand. This was one among other causes that led to the colonization of the country in 1840. Thus the kauri holds a place in history, having had its share in making this our Brighter Britain.