On proceeding inland in this district, the ground loses its ruggedness. It is not flat, exactly, but it is only gently undulating, and not so violently broken as in most other parts of the north. The soil is volcanic, the ground mostly open, and much of it splendidly fertile, like that of the Bay of Naples. There are extinct craters and old lava streams here and there; but there has been no evidence of activity in them within the memory of man or of Maori tradition. The district of active volcanoes, solfataras, hot-springs, geysers, and so on, lies beyond the limits of the Land of the Kauri altogether. Waimate was settled by the early missionaries. It includes lands held by the representatives of three parent Societies. It is a large village, composed of residences that may well be termed villas. Nearly all the inhabitants belong to missionary families, and they form a sort of little aristocracy here to themselves. There is a kind of old-world air about the place: it seems to be standing still while the rest of New Zealand is progressing fast and furiously around it. The people are the soul of kindly hospitality, but they are a little exclusive from the very fact of having lived here all their lives, and of having seen but little of the outside world. For the same reason, and because new settlers do not come up, owing to the land not being readily obtainable, they are somewhat averse from movement, and inclined to jog along in a settled groove. I know of no place in the colony that presents such a striking resemblance to a quiet, stick-in-the-mud, rural locality of the old country. The Europeans are the gentry, and the Maoris round might pose as the rest of the population. There is a handsome church at Waimate, but there is no hotel, though there are very good ones at Waitangi and Ohaeawae. There are yards and pens to accommodate a horse, cattle, sheep, and pig-market, which is held here at regular intervals. Waimate is a great farming centre, some of the lands about it having been under the plough for fifty years; still, it is a trifle backward in its modes, the farmers not striving to make a pile, but being content to keep themselves in competence. This may also be esteemed a central point of modern Maori civilization. There are a number of young families growing up at Waimate, amid the softening influences of its homely refinement. Among them are an unusual number of young ladies. Whatever may be the faults of the place, with regard to its lack of energy and backwardness in farming industry, it redeems them all by the abundant crop of first-class British rosebuds it is raising for the delectation of hungry bachelors.