The Whanganui stream--Oruapuraho Valley--Waihaha River--Kahakaharoa--The sweetbriar--The kiwi--The moa--A gigantic lizard--Waikomiko and Waihora Rivers--Te Tihoi Plains--Scenery--Mount Titiraupenga--Mangakowiriwiri River--Mangakino River--Swimming horses--Our camp--The Maoris as travellers--A Maori joke--Good horsemen--Their knowledge of the country--Their endurance--The Waipapa--Te Toto Ranges--The Waipari--Te Tauranga--The Upper Puniu--A fine specimen of tattooing--A night at Hengia. We left Pouotepiki early on the following morning, and, as the _tangi_ was at an end, about a dozen mounted natives, who were going in the same direction as ourselves, invited us to join them. Leaving the _pa_ in a long cavalcade, we descended into a valley, and crossed the Whanganui stream flowing into Lake Taupo. Further to the north, we crossed the Waikino stream, and after passing over steep, fern-clad hills we reached the Oruapuraho Valley, formed by a wild ravine sunk like an enormous pit in the table-land. This curious place, which was about two miles long, was exactly 200 feet in depth, and was walled in on every side with perpendicular masses of trachytic and white pumice rock, which were broken here and there into the form of enormous bluffs, which jutted out in the most fantastic shapes. Winding, precipitous ravines opened out now and again in the direction of the lake and towards the mountainous country on the west, but beyond these wild gorges nothing could be seen beyond the towering walls of the deep valley, the sides of which appeared to attain, all along the course, to a general height of 200 feet, the altitude of the table-land being, both at the entrance and exit of the valley, exactly 2000 feet above the level of the sea. A small stream wound through the centre of this rock-bound ravine, about the sides of which the tussock grass and fern grew in great luxuriance, together with the _koromiko_, of which our horses ate greedily. The table-land fell to 1700 feet as we gained the Waihaha River, the name of which literally means "still waters." There was a very deep descent to it, and looking from the top of this down upon the stream, there was not a ripple upon its surface. It was, however, some hundred feet wide at the fording-place, and as the water was deep, we had to swim our horses. On the opposite side of this river, towards the east, a castellated bluff rose up to a height of nearly 200 feet, in appearance not unlike a fortified stronghold, while beyond this point the river fell in the form of a small waterfall, as it wound on its way to Lake Taupo. [Illustration: MOA AND APTERYX.]