which we wore to traverse to-day, I fancy Germany must have 
looked in the times of Tacitus “silvis horrida aut paludibus fceda .” 
It was a wilderness of swamp and woods in the full sense of the 
word. A road or path was entirely out of the question ; on the 
contrary, we had to work our way through, as well as we could, 
through deep swamps and gloomy , marshy woods. 
Close to our camping-ground, we passed the Mokauiti and 
entered a dark, stately forest. We made a hard shift to dig our 
way through, over the smooth texture of roots in the sombre twi- 
light of the virgin forest, when suddenly close by us a shot was 
fired , and from behind a gigantic Kahikatea-trunk a human figure 
stepped forth a double barrelled gun in the hand, and with a start- 
ling mien and savage gesture; in short, a brigand, such as only the 
most horrid brigand-story of a heated imagination could picture; and 
moreover, — yonder lay the whole band encamped around a brightly 
blazing fire, all armed with guns. But wo remembered, that we 
were in New Zealand; the hand of brigands was after all but 
a peaceable Maori-party shooting pigeons. We saluted each other 
with a friendly ,,tena koutou,” exchanged tobacco for some of 
the finest wood-pigeons , — a capital dish for our dinner , — and 
passed on. After the lapse of an hour we had to cross the creek 
again, and, leaving the bush, came to the deserted huts of Popo- 
rata. Thence we plodded onward for another hour along the left 
bank of the Mokauiti in a southerly direction , through an abomi- 
nable swamp; then, for a third hour through a still worse swampy 
bush. If one would wish to punish criminals in New Zealand in a 
very severe manner, it would only he necessary to chase them up 
and down in such a bush, where they woidd sink at every step 
into marshy holes , tearing their legs with the knotty roots to the 
very bone. This punishment might he termed “running the roots.” 
We passed the Mangawhata Creek , and about 1 1 o’clock reached the 
fern-hills, whence a view opened over the wood-clad heights we had 
to cross. Another hour of travelling brought us through the bush to 
the heights of a steep sandstone -ridge Tuparae, on the opposite 
slope of which we reached a clearing and a small settlement, 
