The Almost Entire
Absence Of Associated Grasses, Which Forms So Remarkable A
Feature In The Vegetation Of This Island, May Perhaps Be
Accounted For By The Land Having Been Aboriginally Covered
With Forest-Trees.
The soil is volcanic; in several parts we passed over
shaggy lavas, and craters could clearly be distinguished on
several of the neighbouring hills.
Although the scenery is
nowhere beautiful, and only occasionally pretty, I enjoyed
my walk. I should have enjoyed it more, if my companion,
the chief, had not possessed extraordinary conversational
powers. I knew only three words: "good," "bad," and
"yes:" and with these I answered all his remarks, without
of course having understood one word he said. This, however,
was quite sufficient: I was a good listener, an agreeable
person, and he never ceased talking to me.
At length we reached Waimate. After having passed over
so many miles of an uninhabited useless country, the sudden
appearance of an English farm-house, and its well-dressed
fields, placed there as if by an enchanter's wand, was
exceedingly pleasant. Mr. Williams not being at home, I received
in Mr. Davies's house a cordial welcome. After drinking tea
with his family party, we took a stroll about the farm. At
Waimate there are three large houses, where the missionary
gentlemen, Messrs. Williams, Davies, and Clarke, reside;
and near them are the huts of the native labourers. On an
adjoining slope, fine crops of barley and wheat were standing
in full ear; and in another part, fields of potatoes and clover.
But I cannot attempt to describe all I saw; there were large
gardens, with every fruit and vegetable which England produces;
and many belonging to a warmer clime. I may instance
asparagus, kidney beans, cucumbers, rhubarb, apples,
pears, figs, peaches, apricots, grapes, olives, gooseberries,
currants, hops, gorse for fences, and English oaks; also many
kinds of flowers. Around the farm-yard there were stables,
a thrashing-barn with its winnowing machine, a blacksmith's
forge, and on the ground ploughshares and other tools: in
the middle was that happy mixture of pigs and poultry, lying
comfortably together, as in every English farm-yard. At the
distance of a few hundred yards, where the water of a little
rill had been dammed up into a pool, there was a large and
substantial water-mill.
All this is very surprising, when it is considered that five
years ago nothing but the fern flourished here. Moreover,
native workmanship, taught by the missionaries, has effected
this change; - the lesson of the missionary is the enchanter's
wand. The house had been built, the windows framed, the
fields ploughed, and even the trees grafted, by a New Zealander.
At the mill, a New Zealander was seen powdered
white with flower, like his brother miller in England. When
I looked at this whole scene, I thought it admirable. It was
not merely that England was brought vividly before my
mind; yet, as the evening drew to a close, the domestic
sounds, the fields of corn, the distant undulating country
with its trees might well have been mistaken for our fatherland:
nor was it the triumphant feeling at seeing what Englishmen
could effect; but rather the high hopes thus inspired
for the future progress of this fine island.
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