al 
and myself. My own mount was a little, 
dark, undersized, and rather shaggy animal, 
whose endurance and sure-footedness were 
vouched for. We left for the purpose of 
visiting an old Maori pa on the summit of 
Karanake, a scrub-clach hill 1004 feet high. 
It proved to be a stiff climb for our horses, 
but they are used to that sort of thing, and 
with Mr Keene leading we made steady pro- 
eress through bracken and titri and 
other scrub. The summit reached, we 
examined the site of the pa. Little remained 
beyond the deep encircling foss, now over- 
syown With secondary native scrub and 
pongas. Evidently it had been a fortress 
of great strength. But of even greater 
interest to us than this memorial ot byegone 
years was the magnificent view of Spirits 
Bay, probably four or five miles distant as 
the crow flies, but from our elevated posi- 
tion seeming to be very much less. Away 
to the right stretched Tom Bowling Beach, 
15 miles out to sea from the latter being 
the locality where the Wolf laid the mines 
from which the s.s. Wimmera met her fate. 
Spirits Bay is one of the spots where the 
vodwits make their home during their 
annual visit to New Zealand and whence 
they take their departure for far distant 
Siberia, from which they make their extra- 
ordinary journey to New Zealand shores. 
At the time of our visit the flight of the 
eodwits had already taken place. 
We spent a little while on the summit of 
this interesting hill, Mr Keene pointing out 
io us features in the surrounding country, 
and the view embracing the coast line on 
either side of the island. We had a little 
difficulty in pushing through a quantity of 
scrub and trees in the endeavour to get on 
to a fresh track for our descent, but finally 
decided to return by the track we had _ taken 
before, and in due time reached the home- 
stead. 
Troubles of an Ol] Launch at 
Parengarenga. 
On the following day the party rode east- 
ward on the landing on the Waitiki Stream, 
and ran down the stream by launch to Par- 
enga Harbour. A heavy westerly breeze was 
increasing in force, and a nasty jobble on 
