for about ten miles, when it appears to bend to the south by some grassy hills, and then seems to sweep round to N. E. The valley, for eight or ten miles, is a mile or a mile and a-half wide, flat, and well grassed. I should imagine a pass might be found thence to the Tuakuka, which would open a communication with the Amuri country.

Beyond, the mountains appear to close in as the river penetrates the Kaikoras, which is confirmed by Messrs. Mitchell’s and Dashwood’s journals, and by observation from the seaward side.

Messrs. A. Clifford and Knight now left us on their return to Flaxburn, and Mr. M’Cabe and myself rode on up the Clarence (Waiau-toa).

We pursued the usual road to Jollie’s Pass; the valley with narrow grass flats on either side, differing in no material particular from that of the Acheron, excepting that, whilst the Acheron and its tributaries are quite destitute of timber, there are always numerous patches of black birch and often manuka on the Clarence.

We left part of our provisions opposite Jollie’s Pass, and rode on for about five miles, course bearing W. N.W.

The next day, leaving to the west the comparatively low hills and flats that lie between the Clarence and a branch of the Wairau-ua, and to the east Leaderdale and the “Maori wares,” with the old route from the Guide and Acheron about seven miles (N. or N. by W.), brought us to a point where the mountains reduce the valley to a breadth of less than half a mile, and the river bends slightly from the eastward. Above these narrows, which may extend for a mile, the valley again opens, and is about a mile in width, still flat and grassy, although in the character of its vegetation, showing indications of a high level. We proceeded another four miles (course N. by E.), passing a tributary stream from the N.E., and encamped by the river for the night.

The following day I resolved to devote to exploring on foot, as I was now but a few miles from the head of the Clarence, and hoped to establish a communication with the source of the Wairau.

In this also I was completely successful: about a mile above our camp a branch of the Clarence joined it rising from a pass bearing N.N.E., and distant about two miles. We took the more easterly one, a low saddle two or three hundred feet high, and of easy ascent, and found that it formed the only separation between a source of the Clarence and that of the East Wairau.

Standing on this saddle, the Wairau rose at our feet, and flowed through a small valley or mountain hollow. A large round isolated mound, almost filling the head of the glen, marked its source.

After following the stream for rather more than a mile N.N.E., it receives a branch from the west, and turning to the east, runs in about two and a-half miles more into Tarndale. This last two or three miles is rather uneven travelling, as the spurs from the mountains run close down to the river. It is not, however, difficult.

As I have before mentioned, the Wairau enters Tarndale just opposite to the pass from it to the Acheron, and, turning from the valley, penetrates the mass of mountains to the northward.

After looking down into Tarndale, we returned late at night to our camp.

I devoted yet another day to the Clarence valley. Its N.E. branch rises, as I have described, by the S.E. branch of the Wairau.

A N.W. branch shows the appearance of a possible pass to the westward among high and snowy mountains. A considerable branch flows out of a lake which lies at the foot of the main barrier of mountains. These branches meet, as it were, at the head of the Clarence valley, which opens to receive them.

The lake, Mr. Knight and I had discovered two years ago, from a mountain down the Clarence, and had named it “Lake Tennyson,” and a mountain above it, the “Princess;” it lies about a mile and a half out of the route, and is not readily perceptible from the plane.

It now first burst upon my view from the point of the tall west of their confluence of the branches. Though small, being only about half a mile wide, by a mile and a-half in length, Lake Tennyson, in beauty, far surpasses anything I have ever seen in New Zealand.

None of the lakes in the Northern Island can, in my opinion, compare to it. It lies in an amphitheatre of lofty peaks, bold in outline, dark in colour, except where brightened by sunlight and relieved by patches of snow scattered in clefts of the rock.

On its banks clumps of birch trees, here and there, hang over the water, or stand grouped over a smooth down, towards a wood, on the left; whilst in front the Clarence, leaving the lake by a pebbly bay, flows away down the level grass plain.

Nothing now remained to induce me to