As we were riding on our way along the plain near to the edge of the forest we noticed that on the small elevations on our left, which fringed the bush, several _whares_ were dotted about in the most picturesque situations. When we were passing one of these rustic homesteads some natives hailed us, to know where we were going. At this we rode up the steep elevation upon which their _whare_ was placed, to have a _korero_, and to gain what information we could with regard to our future course. An old woman with a goitre upon her neck hailed us with the usual cry of welcome, while her tattooed lord, who was engaged making a trap to catch pigeons, invited us to put up our horses and rest. We were willing enough to do this, especially as there was a smell of cooking about, and our cool ride across the plains had given us our usual wolfish appetite. We were soon invited to partake of a repast of pork and potatoes, together with some cakes, made evidently of flour and water, but so hard that it was impossible to bite them, and so heavy that Turner, with every show of reason, remarked that if we happened to get unhorsed when crossing a river, we should never rise to the surface with one of those cakes in our insides. We did not take our meal in the smoky _whare_, but sat with the Maoris outside in the sun. The day was one of the finest we had experienced, and all nature appeared as if wrapped in a mantle of eternal spring. The small _kainga_ where we now were was known to the natives as Kuwharua, and stood at an elevation of 2420 feet above the level of the sea. The view from this place when looking towards the south was the finest we had beheld during our journey, if I except the marvellous panoramas beheld from the top of the Ruapehu and Tongariro. For the variety of the scenery to be obtained within the radius of ten miles from where we were, no view in the world could equal it. Beneath us was the Te Pakaru Plain, with an area of some twenty square miles, covered with a green growth of native grass, and intersected by winding mountain streams. In the south-east were the blue waters of Lake Rotoaira, backed by the cone-shaped summits of the Kakaramea Ranges, clothed with dense forests of tall trees; while beyond, stretching like a grand barrier across the country to the south, were the serrated peaks of the Kaimanawa Mountains, at whose base rolled the broad open downs of the Rangipo Table-land. Rising right in the centre of this grand picture were the wonderful mountains of Tongariro, heaped and piled about in the most fantastic and curious way, and from the midst of which shot up the white, glittering cone of the volcano crowned with its perpetual cloud of steam, while, to complete the attractive scene, the stupendous form of Ruapehu towered to the skies, peak rising above peak beneath its deep mantle of winter snow. Here was a view which, taken in as it was at one glance, exceeded in grandeur