46 DESCRIPTIVE NARRATIVE OF JOURNEY. 
and Nizza, celebrated for its beauty, and to which alone it can be 
compared. Here we camped near the beach, which, being s leved 
with driftwood, gave us an opportunity of having a large and 
comfortable fire 
It was delightful on going out of the tents in tne morning to 
see before us the deep blue sea with its restless aa ave.>, whilst 
above us the sun shone in a clear open sky. How pleasant this 
was can only be understood by those who, like myself, had tor 
some time lived in the darkness of the forest. Here, too, we had 
a change of food, having found on the shore abundance of fish 
left by the receding tide, which were fresh and very palatable. 
We all enjoyed this change exceedingly. I here devoted a day 
to a close examination of the rocks around us, and collected many 
interesting and important fossils. 
Having crossed, on the following day (June 3), the Wai- 
matukiri, we arrived at some perpendicular cliffs, formed by rocks 
belonging to the carboniferous formation, over which many little 
streamlets fell in pretty cascades. We crossed the Ivaitorepi, 
and, after a few miles’ walk, arrived at the Wai-aniwhenua, a 
beautiful mountain stream. This I ascended for a mile, accom¬ 
panied by Tarapuhi, the native chief, and having convinced 
myself, by an examination of the rocks, &c., that the coal 
formation extended to this river, we rejoined our men, and in 
the evening arrived at the old Maori pah (Kararoa), where we 
camped. 
It being high water in the morning, we had to wait for the 
reflux of the tide before we could pass round the next cape, and 
I profited by this otherwise unpleasant delay to return about a 
mile on our yesterday’s track, in order to examine more minutely 
the rocks passed at dusk. 
Having wished good-bye to Tarapuhi, who returned to the 
Grey from this, Ave continued our journey along steep cliffs and 
over boulders, betAveen which, here and there, Ave found small 
sandy beaches. Beyond the Maukurinui, a bold headland com¬ 
posed of compact sandstone, the mountains receded from the 
coast, leaving at their base a small strip of level land about eb*ht 
or nine miles in length, at the southern extremity of which’we 
camped. 
Continuing our route the next day along this sandy beach we 
obtained a very nice view over the low cretaceous hills which 
bound it toAvards the east and south, above which appeared the 
rugged peaks of the central chain in the Paparoha range, whose 
forms contrasted smgnlarly with the round-topped granitic moun¬ 
tains in front of them. The above-mentioned strip of level land 
is for the greatest part very swampy, and intersected by numerous 
little streams flowing from the mountain chain, amongst which 
nbre^rcrb nTf 0 T 6 moat important. At some 
places along the beach the shore resembled a lame river bed the 
