Auckland, but preferred the free unconventional life of the whare and the bush. At times she could be conveniently deaf. She professes a very outspoken contempt for blue ribbonism, and can put herself outside a sample of whisky with as much nonchalance as apparent gusto. Not that she is intemperate; far from it. We found her exceedingly attentive and obliging, and she was particularly nice in her behaviour to one old lady of the party, who but for Kate's strong guiding arm would have fared badly during the long day's sight-seeing. Kate is proud of her Scotch descent, and never fails to put in her claim to Caledonian nationality. Altogether, we found her an amusing study. Sophia, the other accredited guide, we did not see at all. She had gone away on a visit to some other settlement.
I would fain record my impressions of the Terraces. I know they have been done to death. I am aware that words are all too feeble to give a just estimate of their many-sided wondrous beauty. And yet they so haunt my imagination! They so appeal to my inner consciousness that I must commit my thoughts about them to paper, and perchance let my friends share with me, in some measure, the keen pleasure of the retrospection.
We were fortunate in the weather. It was a glorious morning when we started. The sun lit up the long blue arm of Lake Tarawera, on which we gazed from the top of the steep descent, down which we scrambled and jumped all full of robust gaiety and pleasurable expectancy. Marshalled
