Although we could only lead our horses through the forest, it was necessary to ride them whenever we came to the crossing-places of the Manganui-a-te-Ao, since at these points the water was in most places over their backs, and often nearly over their heads, when they got into the big holes that everywhere dotted the rugged channel of the river. At the sixth crossing-place we had mounted to an altitude of 1460 feet, and here we were nearly coming to grief. The course across the river was, like all other places, strewn in every direction with enormous masses of rock, and the water came sweeping swiftly round a great bend, where the cliffs rose up like a stupendous wall on each side. The river here was about 100 feet wide, and in order to get across, it was necessary for our horses to climb over a series of huge boulders, and then on to the top of a big rock with a flat top, from which they had to plunge off into a deep water-hole, with a rapid only a few feet distant on the lower side. Turner, on his plucky pony, took the first leap, and my own horse following, the snowy waters, fresh from the glaciers of Ruapehu, nearly swept us out of our saddles, and, for a moment, it seemed as if the ominous joke made by old Hinepareoterangi before our departure, were about to become true. At the seventh crossing-place the bed of the river was at an altitude of 1541 feet, and here, as usual, we had fresh difficulties to encounter. The masses of rock were of great size, and, while most of the larger impediments of this nature were of trachytic formation, I noticed several water-worn boulders, composed of a fossiliferous rock, containing particles of shells, but all of which were too broken to be easily recognizable. These boulders appeared to have been washed down by the river for some distance. All along the course of the Manganui-a-te-Ao the scenery was of the wildest description; the steep cliffs and mountains towering above us in the grandest confusion. In many places the colossal trees reached their broad branches over the precipices that bordered the stream, in a vivid canopy of green, while the foaming cascades beneath echoed with a roaring sound through the deep valleys as the blue, dancing waters swept onward in their precipitous course along the winding, rock-bound ravine that formed the channel of this remarkable river.