378 Transactions. — Botany. 



number and names of all the tribes, sub-tribes, and people — 

 men, women, and children — inhabiting the unknown interior, 

 and for this purpose, if required, to visit every village. 



On Monday, the 18th December, 1843, having obtained a 

 native guide to Waikare Lake, I left the village — Uruhou, on 

 the Eiver Wairoa — with my party of young natives (single 

 men), whom I had secured at Te Awapuni (Ahuriri), to 

 accompany me overland to the Bay of Islands. 



Our course lay up the valley in a N.N.W. direction. The 

 huge table-topped hill Whakapunake bore N.N.E. from us, 

 distant about twenty miles. After travelling six or seven 

 miles, during which we crossed the Eiver Wairoa in a canoe, 

 we arrived at the junction of the Eiver Wairau, and bore 

 away on its left bank for about a mile, when we crossed it in 

 a canoe at a little village called Hinemoka, the inhabitants 

 being ten in number. Here we dined, proceeding on west by 

 the right bank of the river for two miles, then north-west to 

 a small village called Iringataha, possessing one good large 

 house ; thence two miles to Kainganui, a high hill, from the 

 top of which Panekire (the precipitous and bold high cliff 

 overhanging Waikare Lake) bore W.N.W., Uruhou south- 

 east, and Whakapunake north-east. Two miles further on 

 we passed through a small village called Herepunga, to which 

 place the chief of Iringataha accompanied me. Proceeding 

 hence we travelled on smartly until 8 p.m., when we 

 brought up for the night in an old deserted plantation, where 

 we gained, by digging, a few potatoes for supper. 



The next morning we did not rise early, the rain and the 

 mosquitoes having kept us awake during the night. However, 

 we started at 7, and at 9 reached Te Matai, a small clean 

 village on the immediate bank of the stream Waikaretaheke, 

 which w r e crossed in a canoe, and which, from the great 

 rapidity of its current, was not a little dangerous. At this 

 village I found about twenty-five persons, some of them from 

 the lake. At 11 a.m. we left Te Matai, and halted at 4 p.m. 

 to dine on the grassy banks of the Mangamauka, a small 

 rivulet. From this place we travelled on till sunset, when 

 we brought up for the night in a potato-plantation about 

 three miles from Waikare, where we found, a few natives. 

 Our course this day was by the side of the Eiver Wai- 

 karetaheke, which is little else than a continuation of 

 rapids, from the great inclination seaward of the whole 

 locality, and well deserves its name. Noticed several 

 pretty waterfalls, some of great height, the water, however, 

 scanty, often silently flowing down the bare face of an almost 

 perpendicular cliff like a silver thread into the dark-green 

 depths of the forest at its base. We did little more than a 

 half-day's journey this day, owing to the disinclination of my 



