118 ADVENTUHE IN NEW ZEALAND. Chap. IV. 
two days reaching the eastern end of Roto Aera, round 
the northern and eastern spurs of Pihanga. This 
mountain is an extinct volcano, of which the crater 
opens to the north ; and I heard that this was the lady 
about whom Tonga Riro and Mount Egmont quar- 
relled. She is now called one of Tonga Riro's wives. 
The road leads partly through wood and partly through 
extensive clearings on the side of this mountain, from 
which there is a beautiful view of the valley of the 
upper Pf^aikato. This valley continues to be about 
four miles in width as far as you can see to the 
southward. We passed several pretty villages on the 
road. On emerging from the wood on the south-east 
side of Pihanga, we were gratified with a magnificent 
view of the Tonga Riro group, the clear valley be- 
tween it and the wooded sides of Kai Manavm, and 
that through which a river, called the Potu, drains the 
waters of Roto Aera, between Pihanga and Puki 
Onaki, into the JVaikato. Descending through a 
plain of grass and fern, prettily dotted with clumps 
of wood, we stopped for the night at a settlement 
named after the river, close to where it disgorges itself 
from the lake. The level ground between Pihanga 
and the shores of the lake is covered with the most 
luxuriant grass. A broad belt of timber encircles the 
middle of the mountain, whose bare and ragged 
summit shows plain proofs of former eruptions. 
On the 3rd, an event occurred which delayed us 
here another day. A quarrel arose between a chief 
who had accompanied us from TaM/?o, named Tauranga, 
and an inhabitant of fi village removed from ours about 
100 yards. They met on the greensward between the 
two pas, and Tauranga charged the other with having 
stolen some totara slabs belonging to his uncle from the 
wood, and claimed restitution or payment ; the other 
