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to settle there, and it gradually became a place of so much resort, that a desire to emigrate to it became prevalent, which led ultimately to the formation of the New Zealand Company in 1839, and shortly thereafter to its public recognition by the Queen of England as another colony to be added to her vast dominions, on which it is said the sun never sets, as when setting on one part he is rising on another.

CHAPTER II.

Description of New Zealand-Bay of Islands-HokiangaAuckland-Grand Dinner to the late Governor-PortNicholson and Wellington-Wanganui and Petre-Taranaki and New-Plymouth-Nelson in Tasman's Gulf-New Edinburgh-Flax-Oil-Timber-Coal.

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New Zealand consists of three islands, the North, the Middle, and Stewart's Island; the North being separated from the Middle by Cook's Straits, and the Middle being separated from Stewart's Island by Foveaux's Straits. It is 13,340 miles from Great Britain, 1200 from New South Wales, and Van Diemen's Land, and about 5000 from Peru and Chili, on the west coast of South America. It is nearly 900 miles in length, and about 100 in its average breadth. one part of the North Island it is upwards of 200 miles broad, but towards the extreme north it becomes very narrow, and at one spot in particular, about 200 miles from the North Cape, there is an isthmus extending in width not more than three miles across, and the natives occasionally draw their canoes over a short portage at one part of that isthmus extending about 9000 yards, from sea to sea, that is, from near Hobson's Bay on the east coast, not far from Auckland, to Manukau harbour on the west;

and at night, when the winds are lulled, the ocean is sometimes heard dashing against both shores. These three islands are now called New Leinster, New Munster, and New Ulster, but it would have been infinitely better to have named them New Mustard, New Pepper, and New Salt, as these are names that people would at least recollect. The area of the North Island is computed to contain 40,000 English square miles, and that of the South or Middle Island, of which Stewart's Island may be considered an appendage, 55,000, making in all 95,000 square miles, or about 62,000,000 square acres, so that it is somewhat larger than Great Britain.

The climate is remarkably healthy, the temperature throughout the year being singularly equable, the greatest heat never exceeding 80 degrees, nor the greatest cold 40; and the difference of the mean temperature throughout the winter and summer is only 20 degrees. The seasons are just the reverse of ours, their summer months being December, January, and February, when the thermometer generally ranges from 65 to 75, and their winter, June, July, and August, when the thermometer ranges from 45 to 55. Ice or snow are seldom seen in the valleys, and when they do appear they as quickly disappear; so that they are enabled to obtain two crops of potatoes yearly, (or a crop of wheat and potatoes,) one of which they raise from the ground in January, and the other in June, and they only take fourteen weeks to come to maturity. In some parts of Scotland they occasionally find it difficult to get even one crop of grain within the year, and a story is told of a farmer, whose crop one year never happened to ripen at all on his high land, so that he thought he would let it stand over

the winter, and as it fortunately became yellow in June, the following year, he cut it down, and made a grand puff in the newspapers about his early harvest, carefully, of course, concealing the singular circumstance of its being a two year's crop.

The high winds that prevail in that country are certainly a great drawback, and Cook's Straits in particular are very much exposed to them during nearly one half of the year. This inconvenience however, is more than compensated in the opinion of most of the settlers, by the extraordinary salubrity which it produces; which is so far disadvantageous to the medical profession, that my talented friend Mr. D'Orsey, one of the surgeons in the Bengal Merchant, was obliged to leave it, as, with all his ingenuity, and all his zeal, and all his penetration, he could scarcely discover either man, woman, or child, with any disease about them in that tempestuous country. It is fortunate, therefore, that these high winds have some advantage, as they are undoubtedly very disagreeable; and Captain Cook, who was at anchor forty-two days in Dusky Bay, on the southeru extremity, mentions that he had only seven fine or calm days during the whole of that time. In reference to the climate, Colonel Wakefield, the Company's active agent at Port Nicholson, says, in one of his despatches to the secretary in London, "All that has been said or written of the extraordinary healthiness of this place, has been borne out by experience; I believe that every temperate and well conducted person in the colony is free from disease of every description."

I shall now proceed to give a brief description of the different localities in New Zealand to which emigration has already taken place, and shall commence

with the Bay of Islands, from its having been the spot which was first colonized.

The BAY OF ISLANDS, situated about eighty miles from the north-east extremity of the Northern Island, is a noble harbour, studded throughout with high rocky islets, and affording shelter and anchorage at all seasons to any number of vessels. Kororarika, the principal settlement there, now called Russell, after Lord John Russell, is a fine village, with 1000 European and native inhabitants, romantically placed upon an open beach, sheltered by hills on all sides. The houses are many of them elegant; and land fronting the water, and suitable for the erection of stores, rose to £1000 per acre, when the late Captain Hobson fixed upon it for the capital of the country. There are, also, several extensive stores, which, being interspersed with native huts and inclosures, give a singular character to the scene. Mr. Busby also laid out a splendid town at the bay, which he called Victoria, and sold some of it at the rate of £300 an acre, but by far the best view of that town is to be found among the plans suspended in his own library, there being comparatively little trace of it on the surface of the earth. Vietoria, however, has one advantage over Kororarika, namely, that it is backed by an extensive district of gently undulating land, free from trees, which could thus be easily brought under cultivation. The settlement of Paihia, three miles from Kororarika, belonging to the Church of England missionaries, which I formerly described, completes what may be called the Bay of Islands.

For twenty years preceding 1840, this bay was much frequented by vessels of every description, but particularly by South Sea whalers, which received

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