Chap. IV. SUNRISE — ROLLING RANGES. ' 123 
wards the sky brightened in the east, the extensive 
landscape towards the east and south gradually 
received light, and at length the sun rose into a 
cloudless heaven, and warmed up each feature into 
life and beauty. ' 
We now descended the side of Ruapehu into a plain, 
level with the valley of the JVangmliu^ which here 
takes a sudden bend to the eastward, and disappears 
among some broken wooded country. Turning round 
the corner of one of the ridges which slope from the 
snowy mountain, we proceeded for ten miles along a 
narrow glade of plain, which juts far into the forest 
that covers the country between Ruapehu and the 
TVangarmi. Crossing two tributaries of the TVan- 
gaihu, we plunged into the forest. The rest of the 
journey needs no accurate description. The path 
leads over the most fatiguing hilly forest country that 
I had yet seen of so large an extent in New Zealand. 
After about five miles of flat forest-land, there is 
nothing but a succession of steep ridges to the 
Tf^anganui. Some of these ascents were at least 
three miles long ; and between each ridge a tributary 
of the TVangailiu is crossed. The largest of these is. 
the Mankawero, or " red branch." 
From the summit of one of the highest ridges, I 
got a view back upon Tonga Riro. It towered high 
above a succession of ten or twelve rolling ranges, 
which had the regular appearance of a long ground- 
swell. 
On the evening of the 8th, we emerged into the 
potato-grounds on the table-lands above Ikurangi, 
the pa which I have mentioned in my ascent of the 
TVanganui ; having traversed about 45 miles of forest. 
Our food was out, and we were glad to encamp, and 
sup from the potatoes which had been abandoned by 
