not say that I was favourably impressed. It had a dingy, squalid appearance, reminiscent of some American-Mexican town, with the ugliness of the first and the dirt of the other. I was glad to be on the road again, leading through the mangrove flats to Whangaroa.
Whangaroa behaved like a spoiled child to me that day. She has been a hobby of mine since childhood days. My friends were seeing her for the first time, and I sang her praise in my best voice. Yet she showed herself in her unpleasantest garb, with grey light, and a harbour almost destitute of water. But with the incoming sea there came a new mood, and Whangaroa, with the tide dreaming between the Mounts of St. Peter and St. Paul, was unbelievably beautiful.
Whangaroa specialises in early mornings and phosphorescent nights. A wonderful, still, clearness characterises the first, while the second is a-swim with magic. I shall always remember the pale gold of the sunset—the light blue sky and yellow hills, with the harbour untouched by any hint of movement, and St. Paul’s dome celestial in a glow of golden sunset mist.
It is a deserted village—Whangaroa. The foreshore is littered with the remains of what were probably architectural achievements to the early settlers. Dignified old houses can be rented at an almost nominal rate. There is one, overlooking the sea, broad-verandahed andPage 26
