through the high fern groves extremely tedious and laborious.
As soon as the pendulum experiments, which had wholly engaged my time until the end of October, were completed, I availed myself of the kind invitation of the Reverend Mr. Taylor to visit the agricultural establishment and school at Waimati, belonging to the Church of England mission, at that time under his care, and which I was very desirous to see, on account of the well-known and highly-interesting accounts which have been given by earlier visitors to New Zealand of that valuable establishment for the improvement of the agricultural, as well as religious, condition of the natives.
Accompanied by Commanders Crozier and Sulivan and Lieutenant Bird, I left the Erebus in charge of Lieutenant Sibbald, at noon, on the 1st of November; the morning was beautifully fine, and perfectly calm, until 6 a.m., when an unfavourable change took place as we entered the river "Keri Keri," (pronounced Kiddi Kiddi,) a fresh opposing wind sprung up with occasional heavy showers of rain and violent squalls, as if to remind us of the appropriate name of the river, "Keri," meaning boisterous. After pulling for three hours against the breeze, but favoured by the tide, we gained the missionary settlement, near the lower falls of the Keri Keri, where it divides into two branches, without our boat grounding upon any of the sandbanks with which it abounds.
