ordinary bush-paths. Having been delayed on our way , we were 
obliged to camp in the bush , and , therefore , did not reach Aotea 
Bay until the morning of March 24. 
The Aotea Harbour is an estuary, expan din gi into a shallow bay 
within its narrow entrance from the sea, two to three miles wide 
and extending about six miles into the land, which at the time 
of ebb becomes quite dry, save some narrow water-courses. We 
happened to arrive at neap-tide , and consequently had the pleasure 
of wading, surrounded by innumerable swamp- and water-fowls, 
through the mud-fields strewn with mussels and shells. Thus we 
arrived at the Maori-village Rauraukauera situated on the Nortliside, 
and received at the Wesleyan Mission station Beechamdale a hearty 
welcome from Mr. Skinner. The buildings, especially the church, 
presented a quite dilapidated appearance; but the more beautiful and 
smiling was the aspect of the apple and fig-trees and of all the lands 
round about the village. The school numbered only 16 children. 
About 270 native and four European families are said to 
live by the shores of Aotea Bay. Dieffenbach, in 1841, esti- 
mated the number of natives as still amounting to 1200. The two 
most influential chiefs of the country arc Te Kanawa, with his 
Christian name Kihiringi (Kissling), on the Nortliside of the har- 
bour, and Te Maratua or Pinarika (Abimelech) on the Southside. 
The acquaintance of the former was not uninteresting to me. He 
was almost blind and must have already numbered over eighty 
years. Plis descent he derived from the crew of the Tainui canoe, 
which, as the legend goes, was stranded on Kawhia Harbour; he 
talked to me a great deal about wars and the numerous tribes, 
which in days of yore had populated the country. Upon my 
asking, what had become of all those people, he replied with the 
greatest calmness and composure possible: “we have eaten them 
all up,” and when I requested him to write his name for me upon 
a sheet of paper, lie wrote with the left hand and in gigantic 
characters, but reversed, so that the paper had to be held to the 
light in order to decipher the characters upon the other side. 
How the old man had acquired that kind of writing, I do not know. 
