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anticipated no difficulty in getting the yacht in if we could only hit the proper time of the tide. Next morning, as we could see nothing of her in the offing, we pulled up the river against the ebb for a few miles, and were greatly pleased with the alluvial land and the fine quality of the forest growth with which it is covered. Being afraid that the schooner might arrive in time for the evening tide, I did not go far up the river, and on returning to the sandspit at 1 p.m. we saw her at a distance of 8 miles to the S.W., but further from the land than where we had left her on the previous day. After lighting a large fire as a signal, it being then low tide, I was able to improve my plan of the entrance to the river and fill in the rocks and channel more accurately than previously. The current was flowing out with great velocity, the clear channel at the turn of the tide being contracted to a width of 110 feet.

While we were tending the signal fire on the sandspit after dark, the Maoris we had seen on the beach on the previous day joined us. There is only one family of them, consisting of a very old man, his wife and two daughters. They have lived here for five years, having previously resided in Jackson’s Bay. Through Henry, I learnt from them that a vessel, which from their description we supposed to be a cutter, had called here some months ago and landed two men, who proceeded up the river in a small boat, but returned in a short time in a starving condition, having lost their tent, gun, and provisions by a sudden freshet of the river which swept them away during the night. The Maoris supported these men for a long time until their vessel called back for them. On her second visit she entered the river and sailed up it for a long distance, and, as far as we could make out, they were here at the time of the great storm which we experienced in Thompson’s Sound, which commenced on the 25th July.

Next morning (the 27th August) there was a fine southerly breeze, and we were on the look-out for the schooner, but she was not in sight. However, at 8 a.m. we heard her gun fire round the point to the north, and immediately put out across the bar, it being then almost the turn of high water. When they picked us up after a pull of a couple of miles from the land, I learnt that the skipper, misled by the chart, had been sweeping the northmost Bay all the morning in search of the entrance of the Awarua River, where he expected to communicate with me. He describes the bay as being very deep, with a bold boulder beach, without any appearance of a river, and complained of the great risk he had run in being led to sweep so close in shore in search of the river through the error of the chart, so, if a nor’wester had sprung up, he never could have beat out against it. As the weather looked very threatening in that direction, the skipper was afraid that unless he got into the river with this tide he would have to run back to Milford Sound, and therefore we determined to try it at once, even though the best time was already past before she was able to beat up to the entrance. However, I did not anticipate that the ebb current would acquire such velocity in such a short time, as we afterwards found that it did, or the attempt would never have been made. When within a cable’s length of the entrance the anchor was dropped in five fathoms water, while the first kedge and line was run out. This brought her right abreast the point of the sandspit, and in the worst part of the channel, having a group of sharp rocks within a few yards of her stern. The second kedge did not take her out of danger, for the current had now acquired the velocity of five or six knots an hour, so that we could hardly stem it with the boat to lay kedges. The sea had also increased, and made it wild and dangerous work, as immense rollers were breaking twenty feet to our left, the break just ceasing at the edge of the deep water in the channel. Twice the boat was nearly swamped in attempting to fetch back the line from the next kedge. At this time a part of the windlass gave way, owing to the violent jerking on the chain—for the anchor had to be dropped each time the kedges were shifted—so that the position of the craft became very critical, and if any of the kedging lines had snapped, nothing could have saved her. However, thanks to the judgment and care exercised by Captain Thomson before our starting, all our gear was of first-rate quality, and the next kedge brought her behind the shelter of the sandspit, where she was tolerably safe. It was more than two hours’ hard work to get her in so far—a distance of barely 500 yards—during which all hands were taxed to the utmost, and I cannot praise too highly the skill and coolness displayed by the skipper and crew on this trying occasion. When the tide slackened a little the yacht was tracked up for a short distance farther, and moored in a very snug place behind a rocky islet, on the right side of the river.

Early on the morning of the 28th I proceeded up the river, accompanied by the skipper, to see how far up it would be advisable to take the yacht. We had the advantage of the flood tide, which carried us rapidly up, and after a distance of four miles we were surprised and delighted to find that it flows out of a lake, one to two miles in width, and extending in a southerly direction for ten or twelve miles. We had a fair wind up this lake, so that by noon we reached its upper extremity, where a considerable stream enters it from the S.S.E., and up which we were able to take the boat for nearly a mile. The lower part of this lake