and sublimity even the most glowing creations of fairyland. Here were park-like plains of vivid green stretching from the borders of an inland sea to the shores of a romantic-looking lake, where the waters were of the deepest blue; around were steaming craters and thermal springs, colossal cone-shaped mountains towering to the regions of eternal snow, and lesser heights rising from amidst primeval forests of the grandest description, glowing and palpitating as it were, in all their beauty beneath the sunlight; and yet, singular to relate, this marvellous country, this wonder-land, as we gazed upon it, was to all intents and purposes a _terra incognita_. Here was in reality a model Switzerland under a semi-tropical sky--a region designed, as it were, by the artistic hand of nature for a national recreation-ground, where countless generations of men might assemble to marvel at some of the grandest works of the creation. With the Te Pakaru Plain proclaimed as a public domain, New Zealand would possess the finest and most unique park in the world. For healthfulness of climate, variety of scenery, and volcanic and thermal wonders, there would be no place to equal it in the northern or southern hemisphere, no spot where within so small a radius could be seen natural phenomena so varied and so remarkable. It would embrace within its boundaries the hot springs of Tongariro and those of Tokanu, and would stretch from the waters of Lake Taupo to the shores of Rotoaira. The surrounding table-land, with its millions of acres of open plains covered with rich volcanic soil, should eventually become the granary of the North Island; while the Kaimanawa Mountains and the Tuhua should give forth their mineral treasures on either side. CHAPTER XXVI. WESTERN TAUPO. Supposed forest country--The western table-land--Soil and _flora_--Terania--Okarewa--Te Kaina Valley--Maoris on the track--Pouotepiki pa--A tangi--The natives--A friendly invitation--An old warrior--The women--Our quarters.