And then we are treated to a dissertation on the wonderful advantages and prospects of Helensville, some day to be a city and seaport, a manufacturing centre and emporium of the vast trade of the great fertile tracts of the Kaipara districts. We are assured that there is no place in all New Zealand where it could be more advantageous to our future to settle in than here. And so to supper, and finally to bed, to sleep, and to dream of the wonders that shall be; to dream of cathedrals and factories and theatres rising here, and supplanting the forest and scrub around us; to dream of splendid streets along the banks of the Kaipara, but streets which ever end in rocky wooded gullies, down which we plunge incessantly, behind a rushing nightmare that is driven either by a demon or by Dandy Jack. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 3: A railway across this portage was opened for traffic in 1876. It has since been continued from Riverhead to Auckland, and is now--1882--being pushed forward to the north, from Helensville on to Whangarei.] CHAPTER IV. IN THE KAIPARA. The next morning after our arrival at Helensville, we go down to the wharf, close behind the hotel, and embark on board the steamer _Lily_. This vessel is the only regular means of communication, at present, with the young settlements lying round the Kaipara. She is a much larger craft than the _Gemini_, but she is of the same ancient and ruinous character. One would have thought that, on these new waters, such craft as there were must necessarily be new also.[4] Such does not appear to be the case, however, for the steam service on the Waitemata and the Kaipara is conducted by very second-hand old rattle-traps. Where they were worn out I know not. Bad as they are, they are considered a local improvement, for, until quite recently, settlers had to depend on small sailing-boats, that plied very irregularly. The Kaipara is a name applied rather indiscriminately to a river, a harbour, and to a tract of country. The Kaipara river is that on which Helensville stands. It waters an extensive valley, and, flowing north-westerly, falls into the Kaipara Harbour, some miles below Helensville. It is tidal to a short distance above the settlement. The harbour is a vast inlet of the sea, almost land-locked, since its entrance, the Heads, is only about three or four miles wide. Opening from the harbour are sundry great estuaries, resembling the sea-lochs of Western Scotland. They are the Kaipara, the Hoteo, the Oruawharo, the Otamatea, the Wairau, the Arapaoa, and the Wairoa. Several of these have branches. Thus the Pahi, to which we are going, branches out of the Arapaoa. They are fed by creeks--that is to say, by freshwater rivers, as one would call them at home. The tidal estuaries are here called rivers; and the freshwater streams, of whatever size, creeks.