Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: It may be proper here to observe, that two kinds of trees are known in New Zealand, which, from the circumstance of their growing to an immense height without a branch, are considered fit for masts of large ships: the one is called by the natives Kaikaterre, the other Cowry or Cowdy. The Kaikaterre is found in low swampy ground, frequently on the banks of rivers, and is on that account easy to procure; it produces a leaf like the yew and a red berry. The Cowry, to which the inhabitants of the island give a decided preference, grows on dry ground, and often on the tops of the highest hills; its leaf, though considerably larger, is not unlike that of our box tree; it produces a cone, and yields abundance of rosin. Some of the Cowry trees which we measured rose one hundred feet, from the ground without a single branch, and afterwards headed almost as umbrageously as the lime; the stems of others not so tall, gave circumference of forty feet. The Cowry was the timber which the chapter{Section 4Dromedary was directed, if possible, to bring home, and as it is requisite that every spar fit to make a topmast for the larger ships of the navy, should be from seventy-four to eighty-four feet long, from twenty-one to twenty-three inches in diameter, and perfectly straight, the success of the attempt in a great measure depended upon the proximity of the trees to the water's edge, and also in no small degree upon the friendly disposition of the natives. The fitting up of the Dromedary being accomplished, and her number of hands completed, a guard of soldiers, consisting of detachments of the 69th and 84th regiments, amounting to about sixty men, embarked on board of her on the 9th Aug. 1819. On the 19th of the same month she dropped down to the Nore, where she took in 200 convicts fro...