march began entirely to change: after a few miles the fern completely vanished, and was replaced by a short wiry grass growing in tufts about a foot high. The road was level, although we were surrounded by hills at no great distance. These were generally quite barren to the very tops. There was, however, a remarkable exception on our right: this was a long mountain called the Horohoro; its direction was about south-west; and it formed the boundary of the plain as perfectly as if it had been a straight wall, which it in some degree resembled. It was, in fact, a perpendicular wall of basaltic rock, rising to about 2000 feet from the surface of the plain; perfectly level on the top, and covered with trees; then suddenly descending perpendicularly for about half its height, and presenting a straight bare wall of rock, rising as it were out of the top of a long, steep, thickly-wooded hill. It was one of the most wonderful as well as most pictuturesque objects I ever saw. Our road lay parallel with it, and at the end passed round its base. We had crossed several small streams during the morning, and here met with one about ten yards across and two feet deep, which, like all the small rivers I have seen in this country, appeared to have no valley, but to have its course excavated perpendicularly out of the plain to a great depth. After crossing the stream, we had a curious place to ascend on the other side; the path leading up a very steep ridge of hard earth, not above a foot wide, formed apparently by the river making a very sharp turn just at that place, so as on one side of the ridge to be running very nearly in a contrary direction to the other. There I found a new use for my friend the chief. It began to rain very hard, and as Rangey-o-nare and I were ahead of the rest, I should have been thoroughly drenched, had it not been for a plan of his. I sat down on the earth, and he stood up behind me, stooping over my head, and holding out his mat, and seeming just as much diverted
