Everywhere in this district volcanic agencies have changed the face of nature. In one part we find long stretches of grey pumice plains, with no vegetation but dusty brown fern. In another part, great deposits of sulphur have been laid down over 26 the earth. It is a country with a beauty of its own, but more attractive to the tourist than to the colonist and settler. It still remains a barrier separating the centres of white settlement and only recently crossed by the trunk line of railway. It was in this wild country, to which the rail and coach now bring curious visitors from all parts of the world, that not many years ago the Maoris made their last stand against British power. East and west of the lake is the King country of which we hear much in history; except for the tourist it is still in the main left to the Maoris. In Australia, as we have seen, the real obstacles to settlement were the climate and the character of the country; the aborigines were pushed back into the wilder districts or simply crushed out of existence by the civilisation of the white man. Not so the Maori: he has been a very important element in the life of New Zealand, whether as friend or enemy of the white invader, from the time of the earliest settlers--the whalers of Cook Strait, and the traders, boat-builders, and missionaries of the Bay of Islands which lies on the east coast of the long northern peninsula. The British have been settled in New Zealand barely three-quarters of a century, as the proclamation of annexation dates only from 1840; while the Maori has been in possession for five or six centuries at least and shows no disposition to be crowded out. He was, when first we met him, on a far higher level than the aborigines of Australia.