The Ambergris Coast.

Away around on the surf-battered west coast are Doughboy Bay and Mason Bay, locally celebrated as places where valuable finds of ambergris have frequently been made.

“Among the leaves he boldly struts and loads his bill.”
(Govt. Publicity photo.)
The weka (or woodhen), Stewart Island

A settler in that wild place of storms and solitude regularly patrols all the beaches in search of this curious treasure from dyspepsia-afflicted whales.

Codfish Island—Maori name Whenua-hou, or “New Land”—is a now lonely spot with a somewhat hectic past. A century ago sealing gangs from Sydney were frequently left at various places around Stewart Island to get skins while the vessels went on to the further south islands. It was no country for a man who loved a peaceful life. Savage Maoris sometimes hunted them down, and having slaughtered them did not waste the meat. If they chanced to escape ambuscade by the cannibals, they were as often as not practically marooned by their employers who failed to send a vessel to take them off. Later there was a small colony of pakehas with Maori wives; Bishop Selwyn found a half-caste settlement there in the “Forties.” Now only the visiting mutton-birders liven its desolation.