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rupted water-route to the Waipa and Waikato, of which the 
natives avail themselves for commercial expeditions to Auckland. 
A portion of the villagers were just dragging along a large canoe, 
which they had hewn out in the woods, to the river, in order to 
ship 30 fat swine to Auckland after the setting in of the rainy 
season. In the afternoon I succeeded in getting off. 
We had now to cross the dividing ranges between the Waipa and 
the Mokau districts. The road lay across the heights between the 
Mangapu and the Mangarama, partly through bush, partly over 
open fern-land. Two or three miles from Mangaliawitikau wo passed 
through the settlement Mania. The huts were deserted , fields and 
meadows utterly neglected; for the Maori-custom demands, that a 
place, where an eminent chief has died, shall remain uninhabited 
until the years of mourning are passed. The deceased nobleman, 
whom Mania was mourning for, was Iiuatare, Reiliana’s lather. 
Stately peach-trees and the luxuriant growth of ferns thriving here in 
bushes to 14 feet high, indicated an extremely fertile soil. From 
Mania we ascended a steep slope, through a magnificent forest, 
full of the loveliest fern-trees, to the summit of the Puke Aruhe. 
There stood in olden times a celebrated Maori-fort. The only rem- 
nants left of it are deep moats and ditches, which, being most 
deceivingly overgrown with ferns, are very apt to prove fatal to 
the unsuspecting traveller; there are likewise numerous round stones 
such as the natives are wont to use in their mode of cooking. 
The height of the summit is 877 feet above the level of the sea. 
Thick banks of tracliytic tuff forming flic rounded tops of the moun- 
tains are overlying the tertiary limestone formation. From the 
open height we enjoyed once more a lovely retrospect as far as 
the Kakopuku over the parts travelled through during the past 
few days; and on crossing the range we entered an entirely new 
country. 
Next we traversed a limestone country about one mile wide, 
and attracting special attention not only by the innumerable funnel- 
shaped holes (Tomo), amongst which the path winds along, but 
also by its peculiar vegetation. It was the first grass-plain I met 
