Chap, IV. MR, BLACKETT. '. ill 
One was a Mr. White, who had resided eight years 
among the natives ; part of the time in the TVaikato 
country, and the rest at Matata. His native wife had 
been pointed out to me at Tokanu, where she was 
staying with her relations. Mr. White had become so 
thoroughly master of the New Zealand language, that 
he had even acquired the peculiar dialect of the in- 
habitants of the Bay of Plenty, a branch of the great 
Ngatiawa tribe. At Tf^an^anui, a native who only 
heard him speaking Maori in an adjoining room, 
asked directly who that native from Matata was, not 
having seen that it was a White man. 
The other traveller was the same Mr. John Blackett 
who had been with us at Kaipara two years before ; 
and who had returned from England with his yacht, 
the Albatross cutter of 80 tons. He had started 
the yacht from the Bay of Plenty to Port Nicholson, 
and was on his way to join her there. They described 
the road as being about 90 miles in length, and as 
passing over a perfectly level but barren country the 
whole way. In passing through a district called Tara- 
wera, they crossed, in a canoe, a scalding lake, and 
afterwards ascended a hot river. Fifteen miles of their 
journey had been over a plain of sulphur and hot 
springs, no fresh water being procurable for the whole 
of that distance. A chain of lakes, including Ro- 
torua and several others, almost connects Taupo with 
the sea at the Bay of Plenty. In that district, the 
extinct volcano of Mount Edgecumbe, and an ac- 
tively volcanic island of sulphur, called White Island, 
form the north-eastern end of the volcanic region of 
which Mount Egmont seems to be the south-west ex- 
tremity. 
Although I had sent messengers for medicine and 
advice to ff^anganui soon after discovering the ill- 
