Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 42.djvu/480
After this we entered a spacious gulf on the west side of Shouraki Bay, where we were obliged to make some bords to approach the land in a S.W. direction.
This fine basin has ten or twelve miles of extent either way. To the S.E. it is bounded by a chain of islands of moderate height [Rakino, Motutapu, Rangitoto, &c.], and well wooded; to the west by a uniform perpendicular coast, sad-looking and sterile; to the N.N.W. a large channel appears to enter into the land [Te Weiti River]. But I preferred to direct my researches towards another opening in the south, which would, according to my calculations, allow me to approach the opposite coast of New Zealand, and which appeared to reduce to very little the width of Te Ika-Na-Mawi [Te Ika-a-Maui] at this point. I even thought that there might exist here a channel which separated the land into two islands.
We had not remarked any trace of inhabitants, only two or three smokes a long way in the interior. One cannot doubt that this extreme depopulation arises from the ravages of war.
The breeze having very much decreased, and changed to the W.S.W. in the evening, we let go the anchor in 12 fathoms, soft mud, at four miles off the coast. In a few instants the crew had brought up on their lines an immense quantity of fish, which was exquisite eating. During the afternoon a small hammer-headed shark had followed the corvette.
25th February.—The hammocks were stowed at 5 a.m., and a few minutes afterwards the " Astrolabe " was under sail. The wind having become steady in the S.S.W. obliged us still to beat against it, and I saw that it would take us a good part of the day to attain the pass to the south. In order to profit by this, I jumped into the whaleboat with MM. Lottin, Gaimard, and Lesson, to go and explore the interior channels. At a distance of about half a league we had the pleasure of seeing the " Astrolabe " sailing the tranquil waters of a basin surrounded by land on all sides, her hull lightly balanced on the surface of the waves, her sails softly filled by a light breeze, a lively contrast to the absolute silence of nature. Lost in the immensity of the ocean, like a point, the mass of a ship takes on all its importance as soon as it approaches any object with which it can be compared. The effect which this spectacle produces is perhaps more striking still to the navigator who, enclosed within that floating home, finds in its ordinarily restricted dimensions the reason of the constraint he feels.
At the end of two hours we entered the pass which had excited our curiosity. On the left is an island (Rangui-Toto) [Rangitoto], low at its extremities, surmounted by a peak in the centre, and of which the flourishing vegetation contrasts in a singular manner with the nakedness of the opposite coast. We soon found ourselves in a beautiful interior basin, in which we got 6 to 8 fathoms regularly, and which soon divided into two channels: the one turned to the east, of which we could not discern the extremity [Waiheke Channel]; the other, which ran to the west, seemed to us to be land-locked at two or three leagues distant.
We entered the latter, and debarked on the right-hand shore. Whilst M. Lottin made a geographical station on the summit of a peak which since last evening we had observed from a long distance [probably Mount Victoria, or Takapuna], I cast an eye on the surrounding country. Covered in abundance with herbaceous plants, there are some bushes, but no trees. Already the heat seemed to have destroyed a great part of the vegetation; and the soil, although fertile, seemed to me to be without fresh water, for I could only find a pool, which was brackish. Birds were very scarce; we