The bay upon which Tapuwaeharuru is situated, and around which our journey began, is one of the most remarkable parts of the lake, for it is here that the Waikato River rolls out of the broad expanse of water to pursue its long, winding course to the sea. At the point where the river leaves its great natural reservoir--that is to say at the top of the lake--the depth of water is not more than from four to six feet, but a few feet beyond where the eddying waters burst forth in the form of miniature cascades, the river gradually deepens as it flows onward in a rapid course through a winding narrow valley, with wide, sloping sides, which gradually become higher and steeper until they form a precipitous terraced gorge as the stream cuts its way through the pumice table-land in a devious course to the Huka Falls, over which it plunges, to dash onward again through a still deeper valley, the bed of which at the base of the falls is a little over 100 feet below the water level of Lake Taupo.[41] The point where the river takes its rise is the only outlet of any kind around the vast margin of the lake, and it is this spot which forms, as a matter of fact, the true source of the Waikato. The great river, which enters the lake to the south, and which is supposed, by a romantic fiction of the natives, to flow through the lake without mingling with its waters, and which is erroneously styled the "Upper Waikato," is, without doubt, when considered geographically, a distinct stream of water, which is no more connected with the Waikato proper than are the numerous other streams which all add their quota to the lake waters. From the narrow outlet where the Waikato leaves the lake, it takes an almost north-easterly course for about thirty miles, when it flows north-westerly to Ngaruawahia, where, after its junction with the Waipa, it runs in an almost northerly direction until it bends again abruptly to the west, to disembogue at the West Coast. During its long winding course, it receives the waters of countless tributaries which form the great central watershed of a large portion of the island. The river in its rapid flow is still slowly but surely cutting its way through the great pumice formation, and as an evidence of this work it is no infrequent occurrence to see disintegrated masses of rock in the form of pumice drift floating upon its waters, to be carried out to sea, or deposited to form fresh strata along its winding banks. The colour of the water of the Waikato here, as elsewhere wherever the stream traverses the pumice country, is, like that of the lake, of a transparent opaline blue tint, and so clear is it that the coraline-like formation of the rocky bed--an appearance caused by the silicious encrustations upon the rocks--is distinctly visible to a great depth below the surface of the stream. Indeed in the transparent beauty of its head waters I believe this river has no equal, and while the peculiar terrace formation of