﻿1 34 Transactions. — MisceUa7ieous. 



this level country in a south-westerly direction, empties itself into the 

 Turakina over a fall, which, the natives describe as heing from 100 to 150 

 feet high. Above the fall the current of the stream is said to be sluggish, 

 and navigable for canoes for many miles. The Moawhango, a main, if not 

 the main source of the Rangitikei River, rises among the spurs of the 

 Kaimanawa, about ten or twelve miles east of Ruapehu, and winds along in 

 an easterly direction under the southern spurs of the range. It is navigable 

 for canoes, but flows for a considerable distance through a chasm of great 

 depth, and so narrow that the shrubs growing out of its sides often meet 

 overhead. Another important feeder of the Rangitikei, the Hautapu, rises a 

 little to the eastward of Tuhirangi, and also flows generally towards the east 

 and south-east. The Turangarere Falls are situated on this stx'eam, which, 

 like the Moawhango, flows mostly through an open grassy country. The ground 

 between the two streams and the lower spurs of the Kaimanawa are also open 

 and grassy, but so fearfully broken, and so intersected by boggy bottoms, as to 

 make it difficult to find one's way across them. A party from Wanganui and 

 Rangitikei tried in vain to cross the former this summer, but had to give up 

 the attempt and return, after penetrating about sixteen miles beyond Captain 

 Birch's station. This is the locality known to the natives as the Patea 

 country, and seems only to be available as cattle or sheep runs, though there 

 are level flats in the valleys of the streams, which may make small farms. 

 The level bush and grass country between the Turakina and Rangitikei is the 

 source of the Pourewa stream, which flows southwards along a wooded valley 

 of mixed gravel beds and swamps, till it enters the Rangitikei settlement. 

 The land between it and the Rangitikei is mostly wooded, and extremely high 

 and broken. A sort of main ridge, called, at different parts, Rangatira, Otairi, 

 and Te Wahakauwae, extends along it from north to south, and it is on this 

 that the native track from Rangitikei to Taupo runs. It rises to a great 

 elevation ; in fact, though Dr. Hochstetter speaks of Tauakira (he calls it 

 Taupiri) as the highest point between Ruapehu and Cook Straits, it is very 

 doubtful if the top of Te Wahakauwae is not actually higher. At all events 

 it rises to between 1,800 and 1,900 feet above the sea. 



I think the above description will show that this hitherto unknown region 

 is likely to prove one of the most valuable portions of the province ; that, in 

 fact, it only needs to be opened up to add enormously to our resources. Even 

 the opening by the Colonial Government of a pack-horse track into the 

 Mangawhero Yalley to a distance of about thirty miles from Wanganui, has 

 caused the whole of the land along it, which there was time to get surveyed 

 before the last session of the Native Lands Court, to be sold to settlers, and all 

 the remainder, or nearly so, will be adjudicated at the next sitting of the 

 Court, preparatory to its sale to pei'sons who are even now in treaty for it. 



