252 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. VIII 
green slopes which bound the valley. These slopes are 
almost all covered with timber ; but the level ground, 
both above and below, has a truly park-like aj)pearance, 
being covered with a jungle of fern, grass, reeds, flax, 
and shrubs, intersj)ersed with groves and fringes of tim- 
ber of various kinds and sizes. 
About a hundred yards above Te Ikupukn, a strong 
and well-made fishing-weir stretched across the river, 
only two or three small passages being left for canoes. 
This, they told me, was for catching the piarau, a fine 
sort of lamprey which is taken in abundance in this 
and the neighbouring rivers during freshets. The weir 
is called hutu by the natives. They place eel-pots, 
called hinaki, which are very artistically made, at the 
lower extremity of funnels formed by series of upright 
poles driven into the bed of the river, the interstices 
being filled up with fern. 
I was much surprised to find, on the very pinnacle 
of the Acropolis, a quantity of large oyster-shells im- 
bedded in the soil. The natives whom I interrogated 
persisted that they had been there from time imme- 
morial. 
After breakfast, for which I took care to pay liberally, 
I left the inhospitable Christian village, and proceeded 
along the north bank of the river, through fern and 
grass, to the sea-side. About a mile from the beach 
my train stopped to consume the remains of the eatables 
which had been set before them. They told me that 
the inhabitants were so repulsive and suspicious in their 
manners, that they had preferred coming on here in 
order to satisfy their hunger. This was at a deserted 
fishing village, as the racks and fish-bones sufficiently 
described. In the river at this place about a hundred 
stumps of large totara trees rose vertically above the 
level of the water, almost impeding the whole naviga- 
I 
