were well filled with worshippers; one of the churches has a stained-glass window which cost some fifteen hundred dollars—certainly an unusual sight for a mining town.
VISITING A MINE.
Monday was spent among the hills and in the mines of the Thames, and the youths retired to bed that night thoroughly wearied with the exertions of the day. On Tuesday the party returned to Auckland, and immediately arranged for a visit to the Hot Lake district. The trip was planned as follows: Their heavy baggage was sent by steamer to Tauranga, which is on the east coast, and the nearest port to the district they were to visit. Then, with only their hand-bags and some rough garments and necessities for mountain travel, the trio proceeded by rail, coach, and horseback to their destination. By this plan they were enabled to see the country and avoid travelling the same route twice over. The route for the ease-loving tourist is from Tauranga by coach to the Hot Lakes, a distance of about fifty miles, and back again over the same route. It is proper to say that travellers who come as far as New Zealand for the sake of sight-seeing are greatly disinclined to repetition, and nearly all visitors go by one route and return over another. The Government has established a sanatorium and laid out a town in the centre of the Hot Lake district. It is building a railway from Oxford
