laden with wild cherries and mint and some rata blossom, all dripping but delightful.
We hoped to find the larger boat more comfortable, but were sadly disappointed. It was a steam instead of a motor launch, five feet longer and fifty per cent. dirtier than the other, for the smoke from the funnel rained soot all over us and completed the damage begun by the red paint of the other. And there was no way of escape unless one descended into the tiny stuffy cabin that the boatmen used as dining-room, smoking-room, and all too probably sleeping-room!
However the scenery made up for all these annoyances. We could no longer see the hills, for we were in a deep gorge, with high densely wooded cliffs on either side of the river, which was continually winding round corners. The foliage was really lovely. The sombreness of the many pines was brightened by the lighter greens of birch and willow, with occasional dashes of rata-bloom. The tree-fern, growing to a tremendous height, had fronds six and eight feet long, and some of the other ferns were wine-red, bronze, and yellow. Many of the trees had smaller ones growing from their branches, and there were mosses in all the shades of green and yellow, with quantities of stag-moss growing like a carpet, so thick it was and long. And there were masses of feathery pampas grass, or toi, as the Maoris call it, and velvety reeds, bushes festooned with snowy clematis, with all the sage, olive, and emerald tints of green as a background, and grey rocks jutting out, stained with patches of yellow, red, and silver moss and lichen.
It was so silent and so solemnly beautiful, like the centre aisle of a vast cathedral, that when the skipper blew a hideous blast from the steam whistle to warn the house-boat of our approach I wished that I had the power to instantly order his decapitation for contempt of sacred things.
But the others regarded this act of vandalism merely as a signal that the luncheon hour had arrived; there were sighs of relief and a stir among the passengers crouched in the bow of the boat among the luggage, and a few minutes later we swept round a corner into view of the houseboat that is moored halfway between Tamaranui and Pipiriki as an inn for travellers on the river.
We managed to settle ourselves all together and a little more comfortably after luncheon, but it was impossible not to be cramped on that miserable vessel that was a positive insult to the river. We put in to the bank once or twice to take Maoris on board,—one was a stout lady in a neat brown skirt, blue print blouse, cherry red scarf, and silk-fringed black shawl, her hair in two shining plaits hanging below her shoulders, and her lips tattooed, a sign that she was married.
The Maori whares here and there were the only human habitations we saw, and I asked Colonel Deane why the guide books speak of the river as the “New
