offered to show him my collections, which he promised to come and
look at. He then asked me to teach him to take views-to make
maps-to get him a small gun from England, and a milch-goat from
Bengal; all of which requests I evaded as skilfully as I was
able, and we parted very good friends. He seemed a sensible old
man, and lamented the small population of the island, which he
assured me was rich in many valuable minerals, including gold;
but there were not people enough to look after them and work
them. I described to him the great rush of population on the
discovery of the Australian gold mines, and the huge nuggets
found there, with which he was much interested, and exclaimed,
"Oh? if we had but people like that, my country would be quite as
rich "

The morning after I had got into my new house, I sent my boys out
to shoot, and went myself to explore the road to the coal mines.
In less than half a mile it entered the virgin forest, at a place
where some magnificent trees formed a kind of natural avenue. The
first part was flat and swampy, but it soon rose a little, and
ran alongside the fine stream which passed behind my house, and
which here rushed and gurgled over a rocky or pebbly bed,
sometimes leaving wide sandbanks on its margins, and at other
places flowing between high banks crowned with a varied and
magnificent forest vegetation. After about two miles, the valley
narrowed, and the road was carried along the steep hill-side
which rose abruptly from the water's edge. In some places the
rock had been cut away, but its surface was already covered with
elegant ferns and creepers. Gigantic tree-ferns were abundant,
and the whole forest had an air of luxuriance and rich variety
which it never attains in the dry volcanic soil to which I had