(1, p. 16.)

This place received its name from a number of large totara-trees which grew in the neighbourhood of the line of road, which place is about two and a half miles above the Hutt bridge, and was so called by the natives, which may be rendered, the Totara road. At the time referred to in the scope of the Poem the place was a dense forest, without the appearance of a clearing; and the road, if such it could be called, was merely passage cut through about a chain wide, but the logs lying on each side made the passage comparatively small, although some places by the roadside, where the logs had been burnt, and so cleared away, the natives had such patches fenced in and converted into potato gardens, leaving but small space for passage, which was rendered almost a puddle by the treading of cows and horses going in quest of food, gathering what they could from the low bushes and tufts of grass which grew along the way.