interpreted, "This thing was given to you the believers of Mawhera by certain good women of Scotland, April 1853." An old woman, squatting by, explained that it was the present of Mrs., the missionary's wife, as "a piece of soft-soap to turn them to Christianity." This, we were assured, was the old creature's literal expression. The bell's history, as I learnt afterwards, had been full of vicissitudes. Sent out to the missionary at Mawhera by certain Scotch friends, it had only arrived in New Zealand after his death. It was then transferred to the Taupo Mission, whither it was brought from Tauranga in the following way. The chiefs sent down a party to carry it, suspended from a pole; but the men, finding it too heavy, left it by the roadside, where it lay for many months. At last Poihipi of Tapuaehararu hit on an expedient. Taking a beer-barrel, he packed the bell tight therein with fern. Then it was rolled along the track for nearly a hundred miles, transported in a canoe across Lake Taupo, and set up at Tokano. The natives, having got their bell, must needs ring it, and gave a party to the neighbouring tribe to celebrate the event. All rang so heartily that the bell broke, and has lain there ever since, useless and despised.

Again we visited the bath, but this time we had it to ourselves, and it was not so lively. Its neighbours, too, on either hand, had boiled over during the night, filling it with water too hot to be comfortable, and the same evening we found it unbearable. These sudden changes of temperature are quite common, and a bath must be cautiously approached. Sometimes this quiet pool throws up a grand jet of boiling water, measured a few years ago by Dr. Hector, a New Zealand savant, and found to reach an altitude of 150 feet. We witnessed no such grand display. Steam and furious boiling were common, but for columns of boiling water the traveller must wait until he can visit Whaka rewa rewa, near Ohinemutu.

At the head of Lake Taupo lies Waihi, the scene of the catastrophe already mentioned. Thither we were paddled across the lake in a small dug-out canoe. Here too are hot springs, and indeed the natives rarely build except in such convenient vicinage the little geysers are such capital neighbours. They provide hot water at all hours, and will cook, boil, even bake; in fact, do everything except light a pipe. Then on a cold night they are so very comfortable! It needs only to scoop out a little basin, let the water run in from one of the boilers, and then you can sit and warm yourself ad libitum.

Te Heu Heu (pronounced Te Héou-Héou) received us, and proudly showed a boat he had been building. Like the canoes, it was dug out of a single trunk, but was carefully carved with ribs on the outside to imitate a clinker-built boat-an odd instance of the survival of form where the necessity for it has ceased; just, I suppose, as the Greeks in their stone buildings preserved as ornament forms necessary in their earlier wooden architecture.

For our amusement the boat was launched, manned, and raced

against a canoe-and-six. The poor boat, though a fearfully crank affair, and manned by a crew evidently of fresh men, still beat the canoe, which had the advantage of a crew experienced in the art of paddling. Picturesqueness, no doubt, was on the side of the canoe, but neither speed nor safety, for when the wind comes down these little craft get waterlogged directly. For us, however, Taupo was as smooth as glass, and our canoe was pleasant enough. Stretched at length on the fern-fronds, with a dusky native at bow and stern, paddling silently, we felt as if the flavour of civilisation had somehow departed from us for a season.

We were translated back into a lazy, sleepy, old-world existence, where Adam delved a little, but Eve had not yet learned to spin. The heathen gods were over us, with grotesque, indecent forms, grim halfhuman faces and gleaming eyes. Life was altogether on a different basis. It could let the days run without counting them. Who has not felt the charm of savagery? Yet I suppose one would take to drinking before six months were over

The village of Waihi lies picturesquely on the lake, at the foot of the northern spur of Tongariro. The ground is very rich, and ferns cover the rocks. There is some little cultivation. Indeed, during our stay we saw, each morning and night, a long line of natives on their way to and from the fields. Along the shore the houses are scattered, and close to the village a fine waterfall of some 150 feet in height (I speak at a venture) falls almost into the lake. A Maori village has few features. Perhaps the most noticeable edifice is the storehouse, something between a doll's house and a dog-kennel in shape, elaborately carved, and painted red, and elevated on four posts, so as to defy the rats. There are no large buildings, such as temple or joss-house, to attest of a settled and formulated religion. Competent observers affirm that this people had no settled observances of religion, and that the "tohunga," or priestsorcerer, was only summoned in case of sickness (generally held to be the fruit of witchcraft or of an atua, or evil spirit), death, or where some divination or spiritualism, such as raising the dead, was demanded.

One instance of his funeral ministrations the writer witnessed at Wairoa, near the famous "terraces" of Roto Mahana, where the natives are fast relapsing into their old superstition. A great chieftainess and ariki (head of a family) had been deserted by her husband, had taken to drinking, and fallen sick. A Maori had a dream that an atua (evil spirit) in the form of a dog was gnawing at her vitals. The tohunga must be sent for to exorcise it. He came, but too late, for the poor woman was dead. I" attended" the funeral, which lasted several days. A great feast was prepared; piles of kumara (sweet potato) and smoked fish were set out; vile whiskey and rum were given to all comers. The natives flocked in from every quarter, boats continually arriving across the lake, and in two days several hundred persons were gathered together. The body of the chieftainess, dressed in gaudy colours, lay in state on her bed before her whare, and women with-fans continually

brushed away the flies from the dead face. Both hut and body were very "tapu." In the open space before the hut a large circle was formed, and a dolorous wailing was kept up continually. A large outer circle ate and drank, and at intervals the tohunga addressed them. Hideous and grotesque dances were danced before the eyes of the dead woman. It was, indeed, a shameful and afflicting scene of drunkenness and vice. Boys and girls, mere children, lay on the grass or staggered about laughing and drunken.

Yet here, as at Taupo, a missionary had lived and taught, doing his work in one respect so well that there was hardly a grown person in the village who could not read and write. A few steps round the turn of the hill brought us to the deserted Mission. It was a spot of the utmost beauty. We stood on a knoll overlooking Lake Tarawera, and clothed with the loveliest verdure. Behind us rose the grand pine-forests, and before, on either hand, the mountains sloped down to the lake. Just on the summit of the gentle eminence we had reached stood the little church, half-overgrown with ivy, and crowned with bell and cross. No pathway led to its porch, no trace of often-coming feet bore witness to its usefulness. We entered. There was no altar, no font, no pulpit ; all was desolate. "I can remember," said my companion, "the time when two hundred people met here, Sunday by Sunday, to join in the service of the Church of England."

We passed out through the deserted graveyard and entered the garden of the old Mission. Great white calla lilies were growing wild ; overhead peach-trees and acacias, ti-palms and sweet-briar, formed an avenue to the deserted house. We soon reached the little clearing before the door, and again the almost incomparable view over lake and hill was unfolded before us. To my surprise the door opened, and a venerable old man with snow-white hair and beard asked us in. It was the old Missionary himself, of whom I had heard as the most unselfish and devoted of all the workers among the Maori.

I was glad to spend the night at the Mission rather than in a Maori hut, and was given the room where at one time the Duke of Edinburgh, and at others three Colonial Governors, had slept before me. The old Missionary told me the history of the Mission. More than thirty years ago he had first come there, and bought the land for church and house from the Maori, giving 107. for ten acres-then a fair and more than ordinarily liberal price. Then the church and house had been built of wood, the Missionary Society helping, but the cost of the homestead being mainly his own. Then he had set to work. His wife helped him, and they kept school together on the week-days, she teaching the women and he the men. He had taught the Maoris to plant and sow also, and the valley had soon stood so thick with corn that a mill was needed and built. On Sundays he had often gathered together as many as two hundred persons for service, and the place had seemed a little paradise. The war came; and though the people stood by the English, Te Kooti, the

great rebel leader, was upon them; and certain death was within a day's journey of the Missionary. He fled, and had never returned, to live at least, among his people. "I come back once a month," he said, "and go about and preach and talk to the people; but it seems as if I were in a dream."

The missionaries have lost heart. Those who first came out are now very old men. They have under their charge very large districts—far too large for the care of any one man; for how can one man fulfil the duty of pastor over a country extending as far as from London to York? The writer had heard much of Maori populations gathering together morning and evening for daily prayers, and of large and devout congregations on Sundays. Who has not read such accounts in missionary reports? He passed through the heart of the Maori country, saw village after village on his way, with teeming Maori population, but of prayers or services on either weekday or Sunday he saw nothing. It is usual to throw the blame on the natives, and to say that they had no aptitude for religion; but how long does it take to Christianize a nation? What would be the result of leaving an English village for ten years without any religious or secular teaching whatever, and, it may be added, without any police or magistrate?

Returning to Tapuaehararu we visited the very curious range of geysers which here fringe the Waikato River on its exit from Lake Taupo, one of which only calls for account. It is a very singular little water-volcano, christened the Crow's Nest by the wife of the officer in command at Tapuaehararu. It resembles the nest of a crane, being a conical mound, with a deep wide crater. A rocky cone of about eight feet in height has been formed by successive deposits of the geyser, which acts regularly at intervals of four minutes. There is just time to climb the cone, look down, and then, warned by ominous gurglings and bubblings, to retire again before an eruption. The method of irritating a geyser by a dose of sods, described by Lord Dufferin, does not succeed with the New Zealand geysers. Their throats are perhaps too wide to be choked by such a dose.

and I received a

From the wife of the officer in comnand Wmost interesting present, consisting of a little collection of the extraordinary "vegetable caterpillars" (Sphaerea Robertsii) found in the North Island of New Zealand. The Maori name of this curious insect is Awheto. First appears a small caterpillar, which bores a hole in the trunk of the puriri-tree, the lignum vitæ of New Zealand, and forms a sort of parade-ground in the bark round the orifice, covering all up with a strong web. Soon growing too large for its apartment, it migrates to a fresh dwelling. When it has reached about one inch in circumference, and is filled with a cream-like fluid, with a central thread of blood, it buries itself in the ground at the foot of the puriri-tree, and nothing more is seen till a small succulent shoot springs up, bears a flower and seed and dies. On digging to the root the caterpillar is found, with

legs, eyes, and head, &c., complete but wooden, and with the little plant growing out of its head. Several of the caterpillars in the state described the writer has in his possession, and for the above account he has to thank Captain Mair, of the Native force, who has observed all the habits of this curious insect.

Before leaving Taupo we entertained another chief, named PohipiAnglicè Busby. He proved a teetotaller, for the question of total abstinence is agitating the Maori, as it is occupying the attention of so great a portion of the English-speaking world. That temperance would be the greatest of all good things for the natives of New Zealand no one is more convinced than the natives themselves. In the "king" country, governed entirely by native laws, the sale of "grog" is prohibited, and it is discouraged wherever the influence of the native chiefs prevails. By grog is meant all intoxicating liquor, and petitions against its sale are frequently sent up from natives to the Colonial Parliament. One such the writer saw, and with it will conclude this article. It was headed "The Petition of Haimona te Aoteranga, and 167 others," and was presented to the House of Representatives on August 18, 1874. "A petition from all of us whose names are signed at the foot hereof to all the Members of the Parliament, to grant this request of ours, for some law to be passed by the Assembly and the Government, affecting this evil thing grog, which is destroying us, so that a stop may be put to drinking among the Maori, for that is at the root of the evils under which we suffer. These are the evils. It impoverishes us; our children are not born healthy, because the parents drink to excess and the child suffers; it muddles men's brains, and they in ignorance sign important documents, and get into trouble thereby. Grog also turns the intelligent men of the Maori race into fools. Again, grog is the cause of various diseases which afflict us; we are also liable to accidents, such as tumbling off horses and falling into water; these things occur through drunkenness. It also leads on men to take improper liberties with other men's wives. It also is the cause of men fighting with one another. In fact, there are innumerable evils brought upon the Maori race by grog. We therefore ask for a very stringent law to be passed to keep away the evil thing from the Maori altogether."