When I suddenly emerged from the deep gloom of the forest, the azure waters of Tikitapu, or the "Blue Lake," came suddenly before my view with the most enchanting effect. Nearly circular in form, and fringed below the level of the road with a dense growth of vegetation, the tall mountains rose up above it on one side to a height of 800 feet, and cast their dark shadows upon its tranquil bosom, which lay shining in the sunlight, without a breath of wind to stir the smooth and deeply blue expanse of water. It is only about half a mile long, but for calm, picturesque beauty, it is one of the most attractive sights of this wondrous region. The road skirts it on its eastern side to its farther end, where a narrow saddle, falling from a range of bold hills, divides it from Rotokakahi, or the "Green Lake." It was sunset when I reached Rotokakahi, and the effect of the rich golden light falling upon the green-tinted waters of the lake afforded one of the grandest sights imaginable. It was one of those sunsets when the heavens assume an ethereal blue, and when the fierce orb of day is mellowed by amber mists and vapouring clouds with streaks of crimson and carmine. It was, in fact, just such a sunset as Turner or Horace Vernet would have loved to paint in brilliant and vivid tints. The lake shone out before me in a long sheet of deep-green colour, wild fern-clad mountains rose up along its course, miniature bays swept in graceful curves round their base, and high peaks and jutting headlands, fringed with spreading trees, cast their fantastic shadows upon the limpid surface of the water, around which the bright pumice rock contrasted pleasantly with the deep foliage of the vegetation as it wound along the serpentine shores of the lake. At the farther end, and right in the centre of the beautiful expanse of water, the small flat-topped island of Motutawa rose from a dense growth of _pohutukawa_ trees, and as the fleeting rays of the sun flashed over it, and the darkness came marching along, the gold and the blue and the crimson and carmine of the sky seemed to mingle with the deep-green water and variegated hues of the lake, and to produce a picture which would have enchanted the eye of the beholder even on the plains of heaven. This sunset on Rotokakahi was certainly one of the grandest effects of light and shade I have ever beheld.