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From Cape Colville there runs, in a southerly direction, a range of hills, of the mean altitude of four thousand feet, forming, in the first ninety miles of its course, the eastern boundary of the Frith of the Thames, and in the second part, bounding one side of the great plain of the Thames, from Kaupo to the neighbourhood of the remark able district of Roturua. There is something stern and imposing in the aspect of this mountainous peninsula, which consists of plutonic or trap rocks, covered from their crests downwards with a mantle of gloomy and stately forests. Close to the shore we saw numerous native villages, whose inhabitants cultivated the small level spaces interposed between the base of this precipitous range and the water’s edge. We passed the embouchures of several streams, which have their origin in the inaccessible re cesses of these mountains. There, vegetation, fostered by a climate and soil peculiarly favourable to its develop ment, attains a magnitude and luxuriance rarely to be witnessed. Shut up in this inaccessible region, there are millions of pounds’ worth of the finest timber, with, per haps, mineral resources, the value of which cannot even be guessed at, but which, in all probability, can never be converted to any human use. But if the aspect of the mountains is gloomy and deso late, that of the native settlements at their bases, sur rounded by their plantations, and adorned by rich and varied foliage, are of a different character; and the stranger who lands at one of these sequestered villages will receive from its savage inhabitants, perhaps, a kindlier and more hospitable reception than he would meet with from those who entertain stronger pretensions to the virtues of civilization.
