Well do I remember, once, Dandy Jack rejoining a party of us, who were up at Kawa-kawa on business. There was such a look of beatified content upon his face, that we all exclaimed at it. He told us he had been stopping at a house where there were ten lovely girls, between the ages of fourteen and twenty-six. He had come to bring us an invitation to go and visit there, too. Within half an hour every horse was saddled, and every individual of us, having completed his most killing toilette, was on the road to this bush-nursery of Beauty! Six or eight miles from Waimate we come to Ohaeawae, a place of very great interest. The most conspicuous object is the beautiful church, whose tall spire mounts from a rising ground in the centre of the settlement. That church occupies the very site of the old pa, and, what is more, it was built entirely at the expense, and partly by the actual labour, of the very Maoris who fought the British here in Heke's war. With the exception of the principal store and hotel, and possibly of one or two other houses near, Ohaeawae is a Maori town. A few miles further along the road is yet another straggling settlement, whose name I forget, and all is mainly Maori. These natives here are even further ahead than we are in the Kaipara. They have good frame-houses in all styles of carpentering; they have pastures fattening their flocks and herds and droves; they have their ploughs and agricultural machinery; and fields of wheat, potatoes, maize, and what not. They use the telegraph and the post-office for business or pleasure; they have their own schools, police, and handicrafts of various kinds. In short, as a body, they seem quite as much civilized as if they were white instead of brown. I suppose that, round Ohaeawae and Okaehau and Waimate, the Maori may be seen in the highest state of advancement to which he has anywhere attained. But more of him anon. Between these settlements and the Hokianga waters, the roads become more inchoate again, and one passes through wild land, which gets more and more covered with bush as one proceeds. Hokianga, though it has its history of the early days, in common with the Bay, is far behind it in progress. In fact, Hokianga is a long way less forward than the Kaipara, and there are very few settlers in it. Its principal features are steep and lofty ranges, and a rich luxuriance of forest. The scenery is magnificent.