This most gracious lady informs us that the proprietor of her bar is about to erect an hotel on the new field, and that she is going up to tend bar there. But it appears that the glorious profession of which she is a member is not what it was. Certain regulations that mine-owners have lately made, anent the taking of "specimens" from the mines by the paid miners, have almost destroyed a poor girl's chances. She relates a legend about "the first barmaid" who appeared at Grahamstown, her predecessor at this very bar. That lady was the cynosure and magnet for countless courtiers, of course, and she would seem to have been a very practical and square-headed young woman. Her many admirers found that to gain a word, a look, a smile, a ravishment of whatever kind, it was needful to offer a frequent "specimen" for the lady's acceptance. "She was dashing, you know, but not a beauty by any means," says our informant, with a toss of her be-chignoned head. After a few months, she sent a boxful of "specimens," the cherished donations of her hundred slaves, to be crushed at one of the batteries. They realized, so rumour hath it, some ten or twelve thousand pounds. And the fair one, satisfied with having blandished this pile out of the Thames, and probably finding her opportunities at an end, winged her triumphant flight back to England. The gorgeous and bedizened beauty who treats us to this tale, hopes to do likewise at Ohinemuri. Her attractions are greater than those of the lucky princess she has been telling us about; or, no doubt, she secretly considers that they are. She hopes to see us at her new bar, and trusts we will remember to bring her a "specimen" now and then. This with a flash of black eyes, that makes the giant Little'un shiver with emotion in his number fourteen boots, and leaves us both helpless victims of the siren. The afternoon of the next day finds us on board the river steamer, making our way to the spot where, as we fondly hope, fortune lies waiting for us. The steamer is cram full, of course, but the voyage is not to be a long one. Although the Thames river is navigable for nearly fifty miles, up to the base of Aroha Mountain, we have not got to go very far up it. Something under a score of miles separates the new gold-field from Grahamstown. Perhaps a dozen miles from the mouth of the river we enter its tributary, the Ohinemuri creek. The whole district around is known as the Ohinemuri Plains, being a portion of the lower valley of the Thames. Our experience of the Grahamstown neighbourhood had led us to expect anything but a picturesque country. We are agreeably disappointed. The river winds through what are called plains here, but the term is only relatively applied. The "plains" are broken with spurs and undulations from the higher ranges that bound them, and the country is anything but one uniform level.