Winding along down the Waima or Taheke rivers, no eye so dull but must admire the glorious woodland beauties around. Soft green willows sweep the waters, and hide the banks below their foliage like some natural jalousie. Above is a bewildering thicket of beauty. Ferns, fern-trees, fern-creepers, every variety of frond, mingled with hanging masses of white star-flower, pohutukawa trees one blaze of crimson, trees and shrubs of a hundred varieties. And above tower lofty ranges, covered to the topmost summit with dense impenetrable woods, sparkling and gleaming with a thousand tints in the brilliant sunshine and clear atmosphere. As the boat travels down the stream, teal and wild-duck splash and glide and scuttle and fly before it. The wild birds of the bush, that some will have it are becoming extinct, are here to be seen in greater numbers than anywhere else I know of. Those rare green and scarlet parrots tumble and shriek on the summits of the trees, while the large purple sultana-ducks peep forth occasionally. Here and there some vista opens, disclosing a little Maori kainga, or the house and clearing of a settler, who thinks more, perhaps, of living amidst such natural beauty than of making a prosaic pile in any less attractive spot. I love the Kaipara, and I am in honour bound to deem Te Puke Tapu on the Arapaoa the acme and perfection of woodland glory—but, in the Hokianga, splendid and magnificent, one forgets other places. Take that gorge of the main estuary, for example, just above Wirineki, where the Iwi Rua raises its wild peaks, and sends its tremendous shoulders with their ridgy backs and dark ravines, all clothed in overwhelming wealth of forest, rushing down to the blue water. What can one say but that it is simply sublime! As Wales is to Scotland, so is this to the Yosemite. There is but little industry in Hokianga. There are some sawmills, but they are comparatively small, and do not add very largely to our timber trade. There are some farms, but they, too, are small and doing little. There are schools, but their work is limited. The principal settlement is Hurd's Point, to which place a steamer comes from the Manukau once a fortnight. It is claimed here that this is actually the oldest settlement in New Zealand, prior even to Kororareka. A man named Hurd came here early in the century, and established a store for trade with the Maoris; sailing vessels from Sydney occasionally communicating with him. The Point is about sixteen miles from the Heads. There are somewhere about a dozen good houses, two hotels and stores. A gentleman who lives here has even more manifold occupations than our Mayor of Te Pahi. But the population of this, and of the district generally, is mainly Maori, or Maori half-breed. One can trace in Hokianga some reminiscences of the French invasion, of Baron Thierry, and of the Pikopo, as the Maoris term the Roman Catholic mission.