The still, crisp, autumn morning of the 22nd of May brought the _Renown_ into the silver inland sea of Charlotte Sound, with sunny hills sloping to the water's edge on either side--a great grey bird she looked, reflected in a jade-framed mirror. Rounding a steep guarding islet, the big ship anchored in view of the inner harbour, the pleasant little red-roofed whaling station of Picton climbing up the slope at the further end, the houses gay with familiar flowers, and homely with pecking fowls, amenities which one does not associate with the wild work of the whaler. The industry as a matter of fact has declined from the status of its early days, though last year the blubber of forty-eight "humpbacks" was brought into port. The entire population--typical British folk of any country town in England--had assembled and gave the Prince a rousing welcome with the usual address. From Picton the route was by train through a rich pastoral plain, past Tuamarina, scene of a long-past tragedy in New Zealand history, where a misunderstanding resulted in whites being massacred by their Maori neighbours, one of those lamentable episodes which the now united Dominion is advisedly engaged in forgetting. At Blenheim, a prosperous township, eighteen miles from Picton, which was the next stopping-place, the train was exchanged for motors, and a visit was paid to the local racecourse, where the inhabitants of the town of Blenheim and most of the surrounding country had come together. Amongst them was a fine gathering of returned sailors, soldiers and cadets, also some fifty Maoris with painted faces, dressed in feather-covered mats, who gave one of their grave, shouting, stamping, grimacing national _hakas_ in honour of the Royal guest. From Blenheim the party started on a seventy-mile motor-drive to Nelson, an expedition enlivened by similar scenes, though the solemn gaieties of the Maoris did not occur again. The road, which was of macadam in excellent repair, ran first through the green, open valley of the Pelorus river, the fields dotted with sheep, with many a row of tall poplar trees, yellowing in the still autumn air. Wooded hills closed in, on either side, as the cars progressed, until we found ourselves speeding along a winding, unfenced shelf on the side of a precipice, primeval forest covering the sides of the gorge, to which the procession clung, like a string of flies to a window-pane, as it swung round corners, often with a wall of rock on one side and a sheer drop of hundreds of feet upon the other, a few inches of macadamized shelf all that interposed between the outer wheels and eternity.