CoLBNSO. — On the Tongariro District. 495 



Moawhango (now a swollen rapid), where we roasted our 

 roast — a few potatoes which we had carefully reserved — my 

 natives having then said they could travel better on roasted 

 potatoes than on rice. We travelled on pretty steadily all 

 this long day until 8 p.m. without halting, when w^e threw 

 ourselves down among the fern quite exhausted and spiritless, 

 not knowing how much farther we had to go before we should 

 reach this long-looked-for Patea. Our guide, who had been 

 lagging behind, although he had no load to carry, had sunk 

 down some time before, declaring he could go no further, 

 being faint through hunger ; so, taking from him the course 

 we had to steer (as far as he knew), we left him, believing that 

 a good nap would refresh him. After a while we arose from our 

 fern couch hunger-impelled, and, having broken off the tops of 

 the branches of the large many-headed cabbage-trees (Gordy- 

 lijie australis), which grew close by, and which the light of the 

 rising moon revealed, we made a fire, and roasted the stalks of 

 the young leaves, which, though both tough and bitter, served 

 to allay our paiags. The Cordyline trees of these parts are the 

 largest I have ever seen. They are not only high and many- 

 branched, but bulky also in the trunk.''' The whole route this 

 day was very hilly and broken, with occasional heavy en- 

 tangled virgin forests without the least vestige of any track, 

 we having been obliged to keep much on the higher ground so 

 as to avoid the streams in the valleys, which were overflowing, 

 rapid, and dangerous. During this long day's march I sub- 

 sisted on a raio potato, which I kept nibbling, and a few 

 GauUheria berries ; in addition thereto following out the 

 Maori plan of ' hauling in the slack,' in nautical language, or, 

 in other words, of tightening up my travelling-belt, which I 

 have always found in times of severe hunger to be of great 

 service, although it makes it dangerous for stooping low. 

 That night we all slept as we were in the fern around the fire. 

 " 23rd. — Very early this morning our ' guide,' following our 

 track, came up to us before we were well awake, and, finding 

 from him we were at last really near the Patea villages, I, 

 after he had rested awhile and eaten some roasted cabbage- 

 tree leaf-stalks, sent him on to the nearest village to inform 

 the natives of our arrival and of our hungry state. A long 

 night's sound sleep had done him a deal of good, he appearing 

 a different man altogether, although he had had nothing to 

 eat, and had passed the night in the open without a fire ; 

 tobacco, also, at that period not being in use. At 6 a.m. we 

 also managed to hobble after him, stiff enough, following his 



* I afterwards measured one in which a native of Patea liad made a 

 house or room, and fitted it with a door, to keep his tools, baskets, &c., 

 in. I went into it, and stood upright in it. The tree was living, and 

 healthj'. I took down its exact girth — 20ft. 2in. 



