100 ADVENTURE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. IV. 
remedy for some diseases : they travel from all parts to 
benefit by its healing qualities ; ff^atanui, the head chief 
of the Ngatiraiikawa tribe, is stated to have obtained 
here a wonderful cure. 
f On the next morning, the rest of our party arrived, 
saluting from the time they crossed the ridge ; and the 
whole day was taken up with the usual tangi, or crying, 
and feasts of potatoes, pigs baked whole in the native 
oven, and pots filled with small fish out of the lake. 
This fish is called hinanga, and resembles Blackwall 
white-bait in size and flavour. Its colour is a pinkish 
white, spotted with black. The rain continued all day, 
but was no interruption to the festival. About 200 
people of all ages and sexes assembled from the villages 
at this end of the lake to greet the strangers. 
29th. The rain continued ; and we were all glad of 
another day's rest for our sore feet. 
On the 30th, passing over the low wooded neck 
which unites Kakaramea to Pihanga, we emerged, 
after about four miles' easy walk through wood, into 
fern ground, from which we enjoyed a magnificent 
view of Lake Taupo and the surrounding country. 
This lake lies much lower than Boto Aera, but 
still at a great elevation above the sea. At the opposite 
end of the lake, a mountain, called Tauhara, is a con- 
spicuous object, rising as it does from a level table- 
country to the height of 3000 or 4000 feet. It bore 
from our position N. 20° E., and might be 35 miles 
distant. I should estimate the length of the lake at 
30 miles, and its mean breadth at 20. The shores, 
from N.W. to N.E., seemed to be lined with cliffs of 
considerable height, from the edge of which a clear table 
plain stretches to the horizon on all sides, except where 
the tops of two isolated mountains may be dimly dis- 
tinguished in the extrenie distance to the N. These 
