The Prince learnt, also, in his long drives through the forest, of the nature of the timber; of the virtues of the tawny-foliaged _Rimu_, or red pine, used for the interiors of houses; of the light, easily worked _Kahikatea_, or white pine, for which such large demand has sprung up in New Zealand and Australia for making packing-cases for butter, that fears are felt lest forests, hitherto considered inexhaustible, should become worked out; also of the _Matai_, or silver pine, which seems to last for ever, even when exposed on such hard service as that of railway sleepers, without any creosoting or other artificial protection. About noon, the cars emerged upon an open valley, and the Prince was given a public reception at Murchison, a village of wooden houses, which were found in holiday array, the decorations including masses of holly in the fullest Christmas glory of ripe scarlet berries, a curious contemporary of the orchards, still loaded with unpicked apples, that we had seen in the Nelson valley only a few hours before. In the Murchison district alluvial gold-washing still goes on, but it is only a small survival of what once was a flourishing industry, the yellow metal that filled the west coast with diggers, fifty years ago, having almost entirely given out. Beyond Murchison, the gorges again contracted. The river became a white torrent, rushing through a dark, winding channel, hedged with big, grey rocks, above which rose sage-green, forested mountains. About six in the evening we emerged on the Inangahua--"mother of whitebait"--tributary. Here the valley widened out, and we saw a wonderful west-coast sunset. The mountains took on vivid aquamarine blue and imperial purple, shading into palest pink, as they faced towards the light or away from it. Against this background, yellow-frosted poplars and scarlet-leaved wild cherries stood out in sharpest contrast, the whole, with a pearly sky, producing an effect of exquisite fantasy. A soft brown owl, fluttering into our staring faces, recalled the fact that night had come, and that shelter was still far off. The Prince traversed the Inangahua marshes in the dark, reaching the west-coast township of Reefton late at night. The streets, nevertheless, were thronged with people. Illuminations and fireworks were in full swing, and His Royal Highness had a reception in no way inferior to his daylight greetings elsewhere. At Reefton he was in Westland of the warm heart, the Wales of New Zealand, a land of collieries, lumbering, gold-mining, and fishing, home of the late Richard Seddon, whose eloquence did so much, in the long years of his Prime Ministership, to bind New Zealand in that close alliance with Great Britain which bore such gallant fruit when the great call came.