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creeks grow masses of ferns of all sorts, spreading like large shrubs, and contrasting by their light bright green with the black stems of the birch-trees around them. There are a few pines in this bush, but not many. I can give you no idea of the variety among the shrubs: the koromika, like an Alpine rose, a compact ball of foliage; the lance-wood, a tall, slender stem, straight as a line, with a few long leaves at the top, turned downwards like the barb of a spear, and looking exactly like a lance stuck into the ground; the varieties of matapo, a beautiful shrub, each leaf a study, with its delicate tracery of black veins on a yellow-green ground; the mappo, the gohi, and many others, any of which would be the glory of an English shrubbery: but they seem to require the deep shelter of their native Bush, for they never flourish when transplanted. I noticed the slender the large trees have of the ground, and it is not at all surprising, after such a gale as we had three weeks ago, to see many of the finest blown down in the clearings where the wind could reach them. They do not seem to have any tap-root at all, merely a very insufficient network of fibres, seldom of any size, which spreads a short way along the surface of the ground As long as a Bush is undisturbed by civilization, it appears to be impervious to wind or weather; but as soon as it is opened and cleared a little, it begins to diminish rapidly. There are traces all over the hills of vast forests having once existed; chiefly of totara, a sort of red pine, and those about us are scattered with huge logs of this valuable wood, all bearing traces of the action of fire; but shepherds, and explorers on expeditions, looking for country, have gradually consumed them for fuel, till not many pieces remain except on the highest and most inaccessible ranges. It was a delightful, and by no means unacceptable surprise which awaited us on the other side, when, on emerging from a very thick part of the Bush, we came on a lovely spot, a true "meeting of the waters." Three broad, bright creeks came rushing and tumbling down from the densely wooded hills about to join and flow on in quite a good-sized river, amid boulders and a great deal of hurry and fuss,--a contrast to the profound quiet of our ramble hitherto, the silence of which was only broken by the twitter and whistle of the birds. Never a song can you hear, only a sweet chirrup, or two or three melodious notes. On
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