It is indeed amazing. Taranaki does much with butter, sending to such a competitive country as Canada nearly 12,000 cwts. in 1918, and even more with cheese, producing a particularly delectable Stilton. There are fifty-seven butter factories and one hundred and eleven devoted to cheese. To carve these conditions out of virgin forest in two generations is a feat that well deserved its recognition. The route thereafter lay through a land of spacious, green sheep-downs, overlooking a blue, sun-lit sea, as idyllic as a pasture of the Eclogues. On the way, at Stratford, Hawera and Patea, the Prince received and replied to addresses and inspected gatherings of returned soldiers, sailors, nurses, and cadets, besides incredible numbers of fat, red-cheeked children, assembled with their teachers to do him honour. Speaking at Hawera, the scene of fighting in days gone by, between _Pakeha_--white strangers--and Maori natives, "Nothing," said His Royal Highness, "has impressed me more in New Zealand than the evidence I have found everywhere that Pakeha and Maori are now one people in devotion to the Dominion, the Empire and the King." [Illustration: WELLINGTON: A CANOE IN THE PETONE PAGEANT] [Illustration: "THE MAORI PEOPLE WILL BE TRUE TILL DEATH"] Proceeding afterwards to Wanganui, a more imposing welcome awaited him, ten thousand enthusiastic people being found assembled in a big grass-covered stadium. Here, some of the territorials he inspected insisted upon drawing his motor-car round the grounds. In the course of a reply to an address read by the Mayor, the Prince put into words what was so plain in his actions. "I value," he said, "more than anything the opportunity this journey gives me of making the acquaintance of the people of New Zealand, many of whose gallant sons I knew on active service in the great war." A visit followed to the Wanganui college, a fine institution where three hundred of the sons of the settlers of the Dominion are receiving up-to-date education upon British public-school lines. Later in the evening the Prince attended a concert, also a democratic supper-party of the heartiest description, held in enormous marquees, at which three thousand people were present. The Prince and his staff were served at a table on a raised platform in the middle of the biggest of the marquees, so that as many people as possible might see him, a distinction which apparently caused His Royal Highness no loss of appetite.