r noon, when we
were fourteen miles within its entrance; and then, finding the face of
the country to continue nearly the same, without any alteration in the
course of the stream, which we had no hope of tracing to its source, we
landed on the west side, to take a view of the lofty trees which every
where adorned its banks. They were of a kind that we had seen before,
though only at a distance, both in Poverty Bay and Hawke's Bay. Before
we had walked an hundred yards into the wood, we met with one of them
which was nineteen feet eight inches in the girt, at the height of six
feet above the ground: Having a quadrant with me, I measured its height
from the root to the first branch, and found it to be eighty-nine feet:
It was as straight as an arrow, and tapered but very little in
proportion to its height; so that I judged there were three hundred and
fifty-six feet of solid timber in it, exclusive of the branches. As we
advanced, we saw many others that were still larger; we cut down a young
one, and the wood proved heavy and solid, not fit for masts, but such as
would make the finest plank in the world. Our carpenter, who was with
us, said that the timber resembled that of the pitch-pine, which is
lightened by tapping; and possibly some such method might be found to
lighten these, and they would then be such masts as no country in Europe
can produce. As the wood was swampy, we could not range far; but we
found many stout trees of other kinds, all of them utterly unknown to
us, specimens of which we brought away.

The river at this height is as broad as the Thames at Greenwich, and
the tide of flood as strong; it is not indeed quite so deep, but has
water enough for vessels of more than a middle size, and a bottom of
mud, so soft that nothing could take damage by running ashore.

About three o'clock, we reimbarked, in order to return with the first of
the ebb, and named the river the _Thames_, it having some resemblance to
our own river of that name. In our return, the inhabitants of the
village where we had been ashore, seeing us take another channel, came
off to us in their canoes, and trafficked with us in the most friendly
manner, till they had disposed of the few trifles they had. The tide of
ebb just carried us out of the narrow part of the river, into the
channel that run up from the sea, before it was dark; and we pulled hard
to reach the ship, but meeting the flood, and a strong breeze at N.N.W.
with showers of