After a short rest we started off* for the purpose of inspecting 
the mouth of the river. Despite a breadth of half a mile at its 
mouth, the Waikato does not succeed in making the same grand and 
imposing impression here as farther up , where it flows between 
green, wood-clad mountains, and around islands with a most 
luxuriant vegetation. The mouth is dammed up by a sand-bar, 
over which the sea is continually breaking heavily. Only during 
a perfect calm is it advisable and practicable for little boats 
to venture out and back again. Inside the bar the depth of the 
water is as much as five and six fathoms. The tide comes and 
goes with a velocity of 4 miles , and makes itself felt to within 
10 or 12 miles up the river. It is remarkable, that at the mouth 
of the Waikato there is not an estuary similar to that of the 
Manukau, Kaipara, and Hokianga in the North; or as at Wain- 
garoa, Aotea and Kawhia in the South. With regard to this 
point I have repeatedly heard the opinion expressed, that the Wai- 
kato River had formerly emptied into the Manukau Gulf, and that 
its present mouth is comparatively of recent date. Yet, I cannot 
corroborate this opinion; I believe myself right in assuming, 
that the Waikato River also had in former periods a similar estuary, 
and that the extensive swamps, beginning two miles above the 
mouth, and now partly covered with bush, through which the Awaroa 
Creek is meandering, are parts of that former estuary, which the 
river has gradually almost filled up with masses of sand, mud, and 
pumice stone, which it always carries along. The bed of the river 
also, between the North and South-side of the mouth, has in the 
lapse of time changed its course in consequence of alluvial deposits 
and quicksand. At present , the river channel is situated on the 
North-side, which, being almost entirely destitute of vegetation, 
presents the dreary aspect of sand-hills rising successively higher 
and higher, one behind the other, the gray colour of which is 
interrupted only by accumulations of shells. On the western corner 
of North Head the surge is continually washing out sea-shells, 
on the opposite side fresh -water shells from the Waikato. The 
quicksand extends to a great distance both up the river and inland. 
Ho chs tetter, New Zealand. ig 
