the group of sharp rocks at the entrance, about a cable’s length within the bar there is a dangerous rock nearly in mid-channel, and generally a wash at high water; but the water being quite smooth around it, it can easily be avoided.

With regard to the currents and tides within the river, they vary so much, according to the state of the weather, that it would require a few months’ experience of the river before a correct account could be given of them.

From what has been observed, however, it appears that after a few days’ rain the current runs out very strongly, and the effect of flood tides is hardly at all felt, so that there is a constant outset. After fine weather the current in the river does not run stronger than between Dunedin and the Heads, which is from two to two and a half knots per hour during the ebb tide. The influence of the flood in ordinary weather is felt within the river about an hour and a half before, and half an hour after, it is high water outside. But after a few days’ fine weather and southerly winds, when the level of the lake becomes lowered, the flood tide commences to run up the river fully two and a half hours before high water, at the rate of nearly two knots an hour. On the bar, however, the current never makes stronger than at the rate of one knot an hour. Within the entrance of the river the rise and fall of the tide is from four to eight feet, being full tide at the change of the moon at 11.40. The range, however, decreases on ascending the river, and in the lake it certainly does not exceed six inches. By keeping in line the marks which I put up to guide the yacht over the bar, and which I intend to place in a permanent form before I leave the river, a vessel will pass safely between the point of the spit and the sunken rocks; but after opening up the bend of the river she must keep close to the back of the sandspit, where there is the deepest water within a couple of fathoms from the edge of the bank, the exact position of which can always be easily known by the tide-rip, which the rollers give rise to on breaking over the spit into deep water. In the present state of the entrance no vessel drawing more than seven feet should attempt to enter this river, and then only under very favorable circumstances, with a high barometer and light S. E. wind.

For a quarter of a mile within the lake the water is shallow, excepting in the proper channel, which lies to the eastern shore, in which there is from two to five fathoms; but when over this bank there is everywhere from 10 to 20 fathoms, with steep gravelly shores, and further up the lake, where the shores become mountainous, the depth increases to 70 fathoms. When the lake is very low the water is slightly brackish just within the entrance, but elsewhere it is at all times perfectly fresh. In the lower part of the river the water is fresh only during the latter half of the flood tide, but then only on the surface.

On the 10th of September we left our mooring at the Split Rocks, at 6:30 a.m., just as the tide was beginning to run up the river. We got on very well, as far as the Kaiyk’s Rapid, where the bank I have mentioned crosses the river, but there a gust of wind off the eastern shore caused the schooner to take the ground, and before she was got off, the up-current was nearly spent. However, she was kedged up during the day against the current, and in the afternoon was anchored in Gravel Cove, which is a pretty little bay on the east side of the lake, with six fathoms water, and so steep a beach that the stern of the yacht was hauled in and made fast to the trees without touching the ground, so that we could jump ashore.

The gravel beach which surrounds the lake rises to 6½ feet above the ordinary water level, which indicates the extent to which it is occasionally flooded, and it was delightful to have such a pleasant promenade after the bold and rocky shore we had been accustomed to on the other parts of the coast.

The Maori family had accompanied us, and had established a picturesque camp in the woods close to the mooring place. For the next few days we had splendid weather, so that I was able to ascend several of the mountains. Towards the Sara Hills, which lie to the N.W. of the Lake, the land slopes gently back for three quarters of a mile, forming a succession of terraces rising to a height of 270 feet, and covered with fine open woods of noble growth. At the base of the hills these terraces become broken and cut up by gullies, but there is no rock exposed, as they appear to consist, to a height of 400 feet of imperfectly stratified clay and sub-angular shingle. It is in this broken ground that the Maoris catch the Kiwis and Kakapoes, but although they accompanied us one day for that purpose they procured none, as their dogs were too shy to hunt before strangers. They are always able to catch them when they are alone, however. Only the small Kiwi is to be found here, the larger species, or Takawika, being found only in the Sounds further south.

The slopes of the hills are very steep, but still are covered with trees of large size; some of the iron-wood trees, (Rata), at an elevation of 2,000 feet having a girt of from 20 to 30 feet.

South of Gravel Cove a considerable stream enters the lake from the eastward, which the Natives call the Hokuri, and south of which the high mountains commenced to bound the lake. From Cairn Hill, one of the low peaks