Page:Rambles in New Zealand.djvu/106

 of the available lands. At the back of the harbour the mountains rise very abruptly to about 4000 feet, and there is no passage from thence to the level lands at the head of the gulf. The land is all quite as steep as that in the neighbourhood of Port Nicholson between Britannia and Thorndon, and the shores so bold and rugged that it is impossible to walk for any distance along them. The only harbour which is worth mentioning at present is Waitemati, the intended new settlement; it is a good harbour, but very little known; when I was there it had never been entered by vessels of any burthen—the land is more level than on the southern side, but the soil is bad and very swampy, and wood for fuel even is very scarce; it is from thirty to forty miles from the rich level lands which are held out as the inducement to draw settlers to the Thames, and land-carriage at present is impracticable.

The mountainous land on the Thames is generally covered with timber, but from the rugged character of the ground where it grows its value is greatly diminished, as the cost of its transport to the water would be very great. The timber is chiefly the Cowrie pine, which always grows in poor stiff clay soil, very inferior for agricultural purposes to any of the land around Port Nicholson.

The river Waiho, or Thames, joins the sea on the south shore near the head of the gulf; the land is swampy for many miles from the mouth of the river, which cannot be entered by vessels of more than ten tons burthen.

The Thames runs through a level country, free from timber, for about eighty miles from north to south, and with an average breadth of fifteen miles; the mountains bound it on the east like a wall; they are the same I have spoken of as forming the back ground of Coromandel harbour; at their termination they are quite perpendicular for about one third from their summits, and the remainder so steep as to resemble an artificial embankment.