The Rev. Benjamin Yates Ashwell, although the first to establish a mission settlement at Te Awamutu, did not live there. He made several visits, travelling through the Waikato and Waipa, and left native teachers in charge at each village where he was early favourably received. In the Forties he established his headquarters at Kaitotehe, near Te Wherowhero’s pa, on the opposite side of the Waikato River to Taupiri. This spot, on the most beautiful bend of the Waikato, became a favourite halting place for canoe crews passing up and down the river, and pioneer travellers have described to the writer the pleasure of landing at Kaitotehe on a hot midsummer day, after a long, cramping voyage in a Maori canoe, and feasting in the cherry groves at the mission station. Mrs B. A. Chrispe, of Mauku, describing Mr Ashwell’s station, says that the church was a large and lofty thatched building, with the walls beautifully lined in the artistic Maori fashion with arapaki lattice work of coloured lathes and reeds arranged in many patterns. The site of the long-deserted mission station, which is seen from the railway train as it passes along the Taupiri bend, is covered with a growth of acacia. The Maoris pronounced the missionary’s name “Ahiwera.” THE KING COUNTRY RAILWAY. A highly-important event in the story of this district, and, indeed, of the Dominion, was the turning of the first sods of the Te Awamutu-Marton railway, the King Country section of the Main Trunk line, in 1885. The sods were turned on the south side of the Puniu bridge by the high chiefs Wahanui, Taonui, and Rewi. The Premier of New Zealand, Sir Robert Stout (then Mr Stout), was present, but he contented himself with second place in diplomatic compliment to the lords of the soil. There is a curious inner history to the ceremony on the banks of the Puniu; it was related to the present writer some years ago by Sir Robert Stout. “The sod was nearly not turned that day,” said Sir Robert; and he told the story of the dispute between the Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto tribes. Early that morning there was a conference at Te Awamutu between the Premier and his colleague, Mr John Ballance, and the Maori chiefs. Mr G. T. Wilkinson was the interpreter. Wahanui, Taonui, and Rewi were there, and all three had agreed that the sod should be turned and the railway should go on through the Rohepotae. But Waikato sent two chiefs to protest against the work in the name of the Maori King, whose headquarters were then at Whatiwhatihoe, on the Waipa. There were long speeches; the only one who was silent was the huge-framed Wahanui; but he was fuming with indignation; his chest was heaving in his efforts to suppress his anger. At last one of the Waikato chiefs, regardless of the fact that his tribespeople were only in the Rohepotae by sufferance of Ngati-Maniapoto, had the hardihood to declare that the sod would not be turned because it was Waikato’s land.