The scenery changed as we proceeded south; not for the better from the picturesque point of view, though perhaps a farmer’s eye might have found it more promising. The abrupt black crags and rocks of scoria gave place to the smooth smugness of papa, blank and biscuit-coloured; the proud, Bush-covered crests and deep gullies were supplanted by undulating grass-lands, treeless but for a spiky cabbage-tree here and there, a starry ngaio or so, and a good deal of tauhinu scrub, aromatic but unprofitable. A coach road, too, began to be visible, with now a trickling mob of sheep, now a vehicle or horseman proceeding along it. At Tolago Bay, Captain Fletcher showed me the place where Cook lay all one winter and overhauled his ship; as well as a strange, eerie spot in the hills near by—a sort of deep grassy crater, at the bottom of which, through a great tunnel, the sea comes washing back and forth into the very heart of the hills.
And the scenery aboard the Tikirau changed too, as we neared our southernmost port of call. The “farm-yard” boat had disappeared long before; its cabbages were now green but in memory, the cock, the cat, and the camellia had long been landed; day by day the casks diminished and the cases dwindled; day by day the leap into the whaleboat grew longer and the climb aboard more steep. There even came an hour when the final raft of timber went over the side; and at last, one fine morning, lo and behold! new-washed and immaculate, the actual planking of the deck appeared, and the vessel looked as strange as a familiar room does when all the furniture is out of it. The next day we ran into Gisborne.
