Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/157

Rh

sail-makers, coopers, waterers, and wood-cutters. These occupations served to lower the great idea which our people had conceived of this country; for the prodigious intricacy of various climbers, briars, shrubs, and ferns which were interwoven throughout the forests, rendered the task of clearing the ground extremely fatiguing and difficult, and almost precluded the access to the interior parts of the country. It is indeed reasonable to suppose, that in the southern parts of New-Zeeland, the forests have never been touched by human industry, but have remained in the rude unimproved state of nature since their first existence. Our excursions into them gave us sufficient grounds for this supposition; for not only the climbing plants and shrubs obstructed our passage, but likewise numbers of rotten trees lay in our way, felled by winds and old age. A new generation of young trees, of parasitic plants, ferns, and mosses sprouted out of the rich mould to which this old timber was reduced by length of time, and a deceitful bark sometimes still covered the interior rotten substance, whereon if we attempted to step, we sunk in to the waist. The animal creation afforded another proof that this country had not yet undergone any changes from the hands of mankind, and indeed at first raised the idea, that Dusky Bay was wholly uninhabited. Numbers of small birds which dwelt in the woods were so little acquainted with men, that they familiarly hopped upon the