Page:Rambles on the Golden Coast of New Zealand.djvu/82

58 others, one of the boats should be sent back. So far, and, indeed, until the end, they did not get the “colour;” the formation was, in the mining sense, altogether too hungry-looking.

The lake seems at any time good 12 or 15 miles long; but the pulling distance, regardless of the impediment of wind, was something well above 20. The lake waters, as we saw them, were clear, and a peculiar appearance is presented on the rocky face under the surface by bright green alge or moss. This may be worth remembering, as any one having a sympathy for minerals, instead of plants, might delude himself with the hope that it might prove to be copper; and its examination is not accomplished without some risk of going down “fathoms deep.” The trees along these precipitous shores are chiefly the birch and the rata, and there is a shrub which we had not previously seen, as pleasing by its appearance, though not as in fragrance, as the sweet-smelling hawthorn. As a feature of the shore, they are just a shade less observable, but not less attractive, than the scarlet tips of the branches of the rata. It would have been more pleasant to have pulled down by the eastern shore of the lake, where there is more of a beach, and where some prospecting might have been done; but, as the wind was, it was most exposed.

We were glad to land and breathe in the first little bay which presented itself in the beautiful beach which surrounds the lower end of the lake; to squat upon a patch of green sward—not grass, but the Maori tea-plant; and to solace ourselves with scraps from the “shrunk shanks” of the larder. It is at this point that the undulating beach begins, which, on this side, extends for a couple of miles towards the river, fronting the flat land which, in increasing width, reaches to the sea. The breadth of the beach indicates that the lake is occasionally 6 or 8 ft. higher than when we saw it, but, in most parts there is a terrace of nearly equal height above high-water mark; and beyond that, there is a free sandy soil, upon which fine, straight, and heavy timber grows, with no great amount of underwood. In patches, the soil is gravelly close to the surface, but that is usually where there is, at seasons, an overflow of the mountain streams. On the debatable ground between the forest and the lake, the tutu plant grew as elegant trees, usually overhung, in the back-ground, by the lighter-leaved and drooping branches of the “Kowhai.” The character of the forest, and the general richness, without rankness, of the vegetation, is easily accounted for, looking at the shelter which this part of the level country, even more than that on the north side, receives from the southerly breezes by the ranges behind, and the mass of mountains towards Milford Sound.

Up to this time, the boat despatched to the steamer had not returned, and, fearing an accident, it was resolved that some should pull to the river mouth; others camp on the opposite shore, at the mouth of the Hokuri Creek, or rather river—a locality opposite us, and, from our point of view, not unlike Lower Portobello Bay. But, as we were preparing for this, the boat was seen upon the beach by the Superintendent, who had walked along the shore in advance of us, and from the crew the particulars of the