During the greater part of the morning the rain had been pouring down in torrents, and what with the swollen condition of the creeks, the slippery nature of the soil, and the starved condition of our horses, our prospects of ever reaching Ruakaka seemed to be hopeless. At last, about two o'clock in the afternoon, we hailed with delight a break in the forest, and we came suddenly into a hilly region, where the tall fern grew higher than our horses' heads. After travelling a considerable distance through this country, we mounted to the top of a high hill, when we beheld, 200 feet beneath us, a fine, open valley, sunk like a pit, as it were, in the heart of a mountainous region, where enormous forests stretched away as far as the eye could reach on every side. Right down the centre of the valley, as far as we could see, we could trace the winding course of the Manganui-a-te-Ao, marked by precipitous cliffs of grey rock, which rose perpendicularly from the waters of the river to a height of 300 feet, while above these, again, on the further side of the stream, were terraces of rounded hills, backed by conical mountains, which mounted, one above the other, to a height of 3000 or 4000 feet, covered from base to summits with a thick mantle of luxuriant vegetation. On the side where we had emerged from the forest the valley was bounded by round-topped, fern-clad hills and flat, terrace-like formations that descended, in the form of gigantic steps, into the plain below, where the _whares_ and cultivations of the natives, stretching for miles along the course of the stream, appeared dotted about in the most picturesque way. Taken altogether, the whole place had a singularly wild appearance as we gazed upon it, and now that we could see everything from our point of vantage without being seen, we wondered what kind of a welcome we should meet with from the natives. We led our horses down the steep, slippery track into the valley, and as we were now seen by some of the Maoris, there were loud shouts that _pakehas_ had arrived, and the natives came out of the _whares_ and awaited our approach in front of the _wharepuni_. We could see at a glance that the words of Te Wheu were correct, and that the natives, so far as we could discern by outward signs, were veritable Hauhaus, alike in dress and bearing, while both men and women had a singularly wild and even savage appearance when compared with all other tribes I had seen in different parts of the country. It was likewise clear that they did not welcome us at first with any demonstrations of cordiality, and upon Turner inquiring for the chief, they replied that he was away at a wild-pig hunt, and that we must wait till he came. The natives then squatted around us, and scanned us narrowly, while we looked on with an air of apparent indifference.