450 
however, having seen a single settlement. This I can only account 
for by the fact, that the whole country there is treeless, and that 
the natives in order to have firewood at hand prefer to locate their 
villages at the edges of the bush along the foot of the ranges border- 
ing the plains and river-valleys. 
May 17. — Aniwlianiwha is situated at the northeastern foot 
of the Maungatautari. The Waikato flows in a deep erosion-valley, 
on the West-side of which I counted seven terraces rising one above 
the other with the utmost regularity; near Mangatautari the river 
gradually works its way out of the volcanic table-land, which lies 
between the Taupo-district and the middle Waikato-Basin , and a 
few miles farther -on it enters 
the plains. The formation of 
the river-bed near Aniwlianiwha 
is a very singular one. Above 
the gorge , across which the 
bridge is made, the river makes 
a futile attempt to escape to one 
side. One branch of it turns 
off, and has excavated the deep 
basin Tekopua ; but the wat- 
ers can find no outlet and rush 
with mad uproar, tumbling over 
large blocks of rock, back to 
the mainstream, in order to force 
in junction with the latter the 
passage through the rocks. Upon 
the rock-island girt by the two branches of the river, a Maori Pah 
is said to have stood in former times; but one may justly ask, how 
did those people make their way across the torrent to that island ? 
The chasm or gorge, which the waters have to pass, is 400 feet long, 
30 to 40 feet wide and, no doubt, very deep. The waters seethe and 
foam in the deep and narrow channel and dash from it into an ex- 
tensive basin called Makiha, from which they continue their onward 
course smoothly and placidly. The rocks of the river-bed consist 
Sketch of the Waikato near Aniwlianiwha. 
Terraces of the valley. 
