With these facts before their minds to encourage them, Marsden and his brave companions went unhesitatingly into what must have seemed the very jaws of death, resolved to sow the gospel seed in this virgin wild. In December, 1814, the Revs. Marsden, Kendall, King, and Nicholas landed here at Te Puna. Public worship was held here for the first time on Christmas Day. At that period there was a large population on the shores and islands of the bay, which has since disappeared or moved elsewhere, for the most part. There would seem to have been a considerable kainga either at or near Te Puna. Here, therefore, land was bought, houses and a church of some kind put up, and the mission duly inaugurated. One of the missionaries was actually accompanied by his wife, and she gave birth to a son shortly after they landed. He was the first white man born in New Zealand, and he still resides near the bay, with other families descended from the same parents. Some of us have often partaken of their hospitality. There is no mission at Te Puna now, and only the two households for population, but the original mission continued there a good many years. Soon after its origination, another station was opened on the Keri-keri river, about twenty miles from Te Puna. Here there is a stone block-house, which was erected for defence, if necessary. It is now used as a store. There is besides a most comfortable homestead, the residence of a family descended from one of the early missionaries. It is a very pleasant spot, with all the air of an English country grange, save and except that block-house, and other mementoes of the past that our hospitable hosts have been pleased to show us. Some miles along the shore of the bay, from the point where the Keri-keri estuary opens from it, we come to Paihia, at the mouth of the Waitangi. This is directly opposite to Kororareka, from which it is five or six miles distant. Just down the shore is a villa residence, and one or two other houses, indicating the farm of a wealthy settler. A splendidly situated home that, with its glorious view over the picturesque bay, its surrounding gardens and orchards, and its background of woods and mountains. Here was where the first printing-press in New Zealand was set up. Near by, but opening upon the Waitangi rather than on the bay, is a deep, dark glen. At the bottom of it, and filling the lower ground, are the wharès and cultivations of a good-sized Maori kainga. There are some frame-houses, too, which show how civilized our brown fellow-subjects are becoming. And from here we can row up the winding Waitangi river to another point of interest.