Yesterday morning Mr Whittaker came to escort us on board the Hinemoa, which brought us here in great comfort, to receive the most cordial of welcomes from kind Sir George Grey. I suppose you remember that he was Governor here many years ago, and proved himself the stanch friend, both of the Maoris and of the white settlers; then he was made Governor of the Cape of Good Hope (where he arrived just after Roualeyn returned from his lion-hunting). After this he was a second time appointed Governor of New Zealand. And so dearly does he love both the country and the people, that, when his term of office had expired, he bought this charming island, built a regular English house, and devoted himself to making it a little Paradise—an effort in which nature readily seconds him, so kindly does this good foster-mother (New Zealand) adopt every living thing, animal or vegetable, that is brought to her care. So palms and pines of many sorts here grow side by side, with all kinds of indigenous hard wood; hops and vines festoon orange-trees, while mulberries and loquats, apples, quinces, pears, and strawberries, all flourish. Peaches, apricots, and figs grow into luxuriant thickets wherever they are once planted, and bear fruit abundantly. Flowers are equally luxuriant,—and one tithe of the care bestowed on a garden in Fiji is here rewarded by a glow of blossom: sweet-peas, jessamine, mignonette, and many other wellnigh forgotten delights, make the whole air fragrant. The house stands at the head of a lovely little bay, and only a green lawn and a belt of tall flowering aloes intervene between it and the shore. This bay, like all the shores of the isle, is fringed with large trees, called by the Maoris Pohutakawa—_i.e._, the brine-sprinkled—because it loves to outstretch its wide boughs over the salt sea; but the English settlers call it the Christmas-tree,[50] because it invariably blossoms at Christmas-time, and boughs of its scarlet flowers take the place of holly in church-decoration. When in its prime, each tree is one mass of glowing scarlet; and the effect of its flame-coloured branches overhanging the bright blue water, and dripping showers of fiery stamens in the sea or on the grass, is positively dazzling. Already the first burst of colour is passing off, but enough remains to give marvellous beauty to the shores.