persons who told us we should not fail to see Lake Taupo and Mount Tongariro.
MAORI PROPHET IN THE KING COUNTRY.The country is desolate, and the most that can be said of it, so far as we could learn, is that it contains larger geysers and hot springs than are to be found around Lake Tarawera. There is a hot river which is fed from boiling springs below it, and Lake Taupo is a pretty sheet of water twenty-five miles long by twenty in width. Tongariro is an active volcano, much larger than Tarawera, and has been ascended by very few people. The ascent is attended with so many difficulties that we did not care to undertake it, and, as we had seen the most interesting part of the volcanic region of New Zealand, we concluded to return.
"The road from "Wairoa to Tauranga was rough, but the strong coach endured it without injury, and the team of six horses carried us along at a good pace. Tauranga has a melancholy history, as it was the scene of severe fighting in the Maori war. About four miles from the town is the celebrated Gate Pah, which was built by the Maoris as a defiance to the English, who had a fort at Tauranga. It was a fortification of double palisades such as the Maoris usually make, the inner line of palisades being much stronger than the outer one. Inside the inner line there is a ditch where the men can stand, with the earth breast-high in front of them; and they aim their guns through loop-holes notched in the logs of the palisades. The outer fence is expected to delay the assailants sufficiently long to enable the defenders to shoot them down. A Maori fort is constructed with much more military skill than one would expect of a people without any training in engineering work.
"An English officer says that the salients, angles, ditches, and parapets of the Maori pahs greatly astonished the generals who tried to capture them, and often led to disasters. The Tauranga Gate Pah was held by about three hundred Maoris, while the English had about sev-
