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labourers presented me with some interesting beetles , 1 which he had 
caught among the felled trees. Upon the last height before reach- 
ing Mangatawhiri , there is a charming prospect into the Waikato 
country; but the road itself from this spot was a mere clearing 
through the bush; the felled trees still lying promiscuously across 
the road; and we could not help laughing heartily at the amusing 
notion of a wood-cutter, who had written upon a gigantic trunk, 
which blocked up the whole passage , in large charcoal characters : 
“XXII miles from London.” 2 
Mangatawhiri we found almost entirely deserted. The greater 
part of the male population was absent on a trip up the Waikato, 
and our first negotiations for hiring a canoe convinced mo , that 
the hitherto hospitable and obliging savages had become perfectly 
civilized individuals, calculating and bartering. A continuation of our 
journey was for to-day quite out of the question, and it was not until 
late in the evening, that Captain Hay succeeded in closing a bargain 
with the natives on these terms, that for a compensation of £6 
they promised to furnish us by next morning a largo canoe, which 
was to convey us up the river as far as Taupiri. 
The village numbers about twenty huts with about 100 in- 
habitants, who arc enjoying considerable wealth. They very 
recently had a neat Hour-mill built by an Englishman, on a 
small stream running by the village , which cost them not less 
than £400. The volcanic soil of the neighbourhood is extremely 
fertile , and there is no scarcity of horses , cattle and pigs in these 
parts. Less edifying was the abominable filthiness we had to notice 
in the Maori-huts. A number of them were vacant; we wished 
to select one of these for our night -lodgings ; but they all were 
teeming with all sorts of vermin. We determined at last to oc- 
cupy one of them, after it had been well scrubbed and scoured. 
1 Among them especially the large Prionoplus reticularis, next Brenthus ( Nc - 
mocephaius ) barbaricornis with a long proboscis; beautiful goat- chafers such as 
Coptoma variegalwn, Coptoma lineal um, and the trunk-chafers Rhyndodes Ursus and 
Rhyndodes Saundersii. 
2 The road was completely finished and macadamised by soldiers as far as 
Mangatawhiri, in 1862, in consequence of the Maori-war. 
