Our fellow-emigrant tells us that he has been engaged as a farm labourer by a settler at Ararimu, near Riverhead, and that his wife is to do washing and cooking and dairy-work. They are to have thirty shillings a week, and they, with their child, will have board and lodging provided for them as well, and that in a style a good deal better than agriculturals are accustomed to in England. They seem well enough contented with things, though a trifle daunted by the strangeness of their surroundings. Dobbs has misgivings as to the work that will be required of him. He knows, however, that the labourer's day is reckoned at only eight hours here, and is much consoled thereby. Very likely we may find him a thriving farmer on his own account, and on his own land, if we should chance to meet again in a few years' time. There is little or no attraction in the scenery along the eighteen or twenty miles of river between Auckland and Riverhead. Great stretches of mud-bank are visible in many places at low tide, varied by occasional clumps of mangrove, and by oyster-covered rocks. The land on either side is mostly of very poor quality, though a good deal of it has been taken up. Here and there, we pass in sight of some homestead; a white verandah-ed wooden house, surrounded by its gardens, orchards, paddocks, and fields. The steamer stops, and lies off three or four such places while her dingey communicates with the shore, embarking or disembarking passengers, mails, or goods. Generally, though, when the river-banks are low enough to permit of a view beyond them, we see nothing but very barren and shaggy-looking tracts, not unlike Scottish moorlands in general aspect. Occasionally there are poor scrubby grasslands, where the soil has not done justice to the seed put upon it; and where cattle, horses, and sheep appear to be picking up a living among the fern and ti-tree. As we get nearer to Riverhead the stream narrows. This is the point to which the tide reaches. Beyond it the Waitemata is supplied by two creeks, the Riverhead Creek and the Rangitopuni. Here the banks are steep and high, somewhat picturesque, with varied ferns and shrubbery. On the north side the ranges rise into a background of hills. This is the end of our river journey, as is evidenced by the Riverhead wharf, built out from the bank. Here we land, and are received by two men, who represent the population of the district, and who apparently are idle spectators. By their advice we shoulder our traps, and climb up some steps to the top of the bank. Right before us here is an unpretending house, built in the usual rambling style of architecture peculiar to frame-houses in this country. A board stuck up over the verandah announces that this is the hotel; and, as the arrival of the steamer is the signal for dinner, every one makes for the open French windows of the dining-room.