PHYSICAL ULOUKAPHY. 
73 
having gentle slopes, and called the Devil’s Grip, a name given to 
i y a former explorer, not from the ruggedness of its natural 
features, but from the luxuriant growth of lawyers, wild irishmen 
spear-grass, and other prickly vegetation with which the banks 
were encumbered. 
f , ® u J^ er J f rom this point, is a fine large river, and only 
or a e a er a continuance of fine weather at a point where a 
large shingle bed forms a diagonal ford. After flowing in an 
easterly direction for six miles, it receives the Owen from the 
north, which runs into it through a large valley trending north- 
north-east from the high mountain chain which forms the water¬ 
shed between the West Coast and Blind Bay. After its junction 
with that stream it turns suddenly to the south, and receives the 
Murchison, a fine stream rising in the mountain of that name 
and flowing nearly due west. Five miles lower down it receives 
the Tutaki, or Mangles, the sources of which lie in the Spencer 
mountains. One of the branches of the Mangles, named the 
Tiraumea, comes from Mount Franklin, having between it and 
the D’Urville, as a dividing range, the ridge before mentioned, 
whilst nearer Lake Boto-roa it receives its waters from the cone 
and dome-shaped hills named Mounts Baring, Hutton, and Play¬ 
fair, which lie on the southern side of the lake. Another and 
more easterly branch appears to flow through a deep gorge be¬ 
tween Mounts Franklin and Humboldt, in a nearly northerly 
direction. If my eye (assisted by a glass) did not deceive me as 
I looked from the highest summit of Mount Murchison, a lake, 
with almost perpendicular walls on three sides, forms the cradle 
of this last-mentioned mountain stream. These two streams unite 
in the Tiraumea plains, where they are joined by another smaller 
stream, flowing from the north, and conveying from one side a 
part of the w r aters of Mount Murchison, and from the other those 
from the southern slopes of Mount Maclean, and from the 
northern slopes of Mounts Baring and Playfair. The river, after 
the junction of these three streams, turns suddenly towards the 
west, and after a winding course of nearly seven miles, unites 
with the Buller a little above the Mataki-taki plains. 
The next and principal tributary of the Buller is the Mataki- 
taki ; its two more northerly branches flow from Mount Hum¬ 
boldt, whilst its furthest source lies near Mount Una, the water 
of the latter flowing in a southerly direction through the longi¬ 
tudinal fissure before mentioned, in which it is joined by the two 
northerly branches, and then runs through a large valley, which 
extends to the banks of the Buller, and is known as the Mataki- 
taki plains. The fall of the main stream from its source to its 
junction with the Mataki-taki, as will be seen by the tables of 
altitudes, is enormous, and it will readily be understood that to 
• cross it, even at the few places where the water is shallow, is 
attended with no little exertion. The next tributary of the 
