the presence of the letter "l," whilst Maori scholars tell us there is no such letter in the Maori language. Now, if the steamer is light enough in draught and the tide well up, we turn at Harrington Point, skirting the land past the Maori Kaik until we stretch into Portobello Bay, coming out again from this not very safe cove. Rounding the point, which, although the most prominent of the whole, has never had a name, and pass the Quarantine Island, we then sail along the coastline past Dunoon, round Broad Bay and Grassy Point, reaching the starting point in capital time.
Taking a retrospect of the pleasing scenes which in our voyage we have witnessed, different minds will call up different resemblances to scenes elsewhere, and contrasts and comparisons will be made, none of them to the disparagement of those we have contemplated. Scotchmen compare our harbour to the famed Kyles of Bute, Australians to some views in Sydney harbour, but the concurrent testimony is that a fairer view of nature's handiwork is rarely to be seen.
The change that has taken place, however, since the white man invaded the scene, must be considered. When the "Philip Laing," the ship, or rather barque, which bore the first settlers from the Clyde to this their distant and future home, cast anchor in Koputai Bay, there was only a whare or two at the Kaik, occupied by natives, some of them of high renown, as devoted friends to the Pakeha, who are elsewhere mentioned, and up at Koputai a few "Hielanmen" had settled down to traffic with the whaling visitors and with the natives. From shore to summit, on both sides, a dense carpet of foliage of varied and pleasing hue covered the whole face of the land, one or two spots alone being unclothed. The woods echoed with the notes of the native birds, and the water was dotted with the ungainly-looking shag, eager in its watch for its finny prey, and swift as a lightning flash to dive in pursuit. No smoke wreath issued from any spot indicative of human occupancy, silence reigned almost supreme, and the placid clear water, reflected as in a mirror its wooded surroundings. Viewed either at morn, noon, or eve, the scene was inexpressibly grand. It were a situation in which to realize the beautiful words of Young:—
