mittee of the House of Lords,) and left to find his way home to Tawranga in his shirt. The "Tower" had made this a resting-place, and there were sheds enough erected to accommodate about five hundred men; the place as usual was swarming with fleas. The encampment was put up without much regard to order; the greater part of it consisted of sheds about four feet high, open on one side, and very long; one was a hundred and fifty feet, and just wide enough for a man to lie across. It was exceedingly cold, and wood was very scarce, the war-party having consumed every bit that could easily be procured. The mountain rose almost perpendicularly behind us, and was bare for a small distance from each side of the path, everywhere else it was thickly clothed with wood. The river from the waterfall, which I have before spoken of, ran within fifty yards of our feet in a deep ravine, the sides of which were more thickly covered with fern-trees than I ever saw elsewhere. I think that the glowing terms in which many speak of the ferns are not borne out by their general appearance; it is only when seen from above that they are such surpassingly beautiful objects; seen from below I do not think they are equal in beauty to the generality of palms. While the supper was cooking I tried to reach a waterfall in the vicinity of our resting place, but was benighted on the mountain, and should probably have lost my way had it not been for the fires of the party below me. I got far enough to see that the only possible way to reach the edge of the fall would be to walk down the bed of the river; for how great a distance I could not then tell, but was determined to try next morning.
April 2nd.—The natives informed me that the river crossed the road we should travel to-day at no great distance from the fall, so I accepted of their guidance in preference to hunting out a more direct route through the wood. About half a mile after reaching the edge of the wood, on the top of the hill, we found the river, which was about fifty feet wide and knee deep. I
