WANGANUI EIYEE 
459 
walk about in a large grove of lofty Tree-ferns, though it must 
be admitted that they are scarcely beautiful when seen from below 
on account of the untidy, ragged tangle of dead and dying fronds. 
In more open parts * Uropetala carovei, White, and other dragon¬ 
flies hawked about. Sweeping the Manuka produced a few Calonota 
festiva, but Commander Walker tells me that he once saw the branches 
of the Tea-trees actually bowed down by the weight of immense 
numbers of these shiny-green beetles. 
That night a second specimen of the fine Boarmiid, *Hemerojohila 
dejectaria, came on to the house-boat. 
At Ohura Mrs. Longstaff found several of the Slug Agriolimax 
laevis , Mull.; they were of a very dark brown colour, almost black. 
Eoused soon after dawn, we were given breakfast and started on 
our second day’s voyage. The gorge was filled with white mist, the 
sun not having as yet penetrated its chill depths. It was a glorious 
sight to witness the victorious combat between the warming rays 
and the dank vapour. The greater part of our 60 miles’ journey was 
through what in the Americas would be called a canon, for the 
valley is contracted with steep craggy sides. Indeed for some hours 
we seemed to be imprisoned in a narrow dark gorge, the deep, clear 
swift stream gliding noiselessly between vertical walls of dark 
coloured rock clothed with filmy-ferns (Hymenophyllum), or moss, or 
such other vegetation as could find a roothold. Above the beetling 
crags hung the feathery Tree-ferns; above these in turn we saw now 
and again the mountain tops closing in the whole with a still more 
lofty rampart. Our prison walls might be anything from 20 feet to 
over 100 feet in height; often for a mile or more there was scarce 
standing room at the water’s edge on either side, so that a sunken 
rock, or still more deadly snag might well have entailed a swim for 
dear life of half a mile or more. The beauty, the strangeness, and 
the solitude of the whole scene were quite awe-inspiring. Anon the 
walls would recede and the gorge open, this meant a rapid, after 
passing which another gorge would be entered. The only living 
creature was an occasional Cormorant that seemed indignant at our 
intrusion, but the roughest of ladders fixed in two or three places 
gave access to the bush above, and proved that sometimes at any rate 
the varied wants of man led him to go up or down those dark and 
slimy walls. 
Doubtless the voyage has lost much of its romance since Maori 
canoes gave way to Thorneycroft steam-launches, but it must not be 
hastily assumed that increased safety always goes with increased 
comfort. The rapids are far too numerous and tortuous for any pilot 
