are thus the veritable Walhalla of the Maori race. A sacrilegious cynic aboard, remarked, that if a private still were only set to work on the Three Kings, the spirits of a good many more than merely defunct Maories might be expected to muster thick when the roll was called.
Behind Cape Maria stretches a weary, wild sand-drift. We could see the clouds of shifting sand whirling aloft like a mist. The country does not, indeed, look inviting here. It is reputed to be the most barren tract in all New Zealand. Indeed, as the reader will find if he follows me, a suspicion sometimes steals across the mind of the observant traveller that, on the whole, perhaps the fertility of the country has been overrated.
Farther inland a good breed of Herefords has been introduced; and at North Cape, a few miles to the eastward, many sheep can from the steamer be seen browsing on the scanty pastures.
The chief industry on this part of the island, is the digging for kauri gum by the natives, and by scattered parties of bushmen. The diggers probe in the likely places for the buried deposits of the amber-like gum with long slender spears. In Auckland great warehouses are filled with huge blocks of this unearthed treasure. It looks just like clouded amber, and a lively foreign trade is done with the steamer passengers in trinkets made from it.
The North Cape presents a rugged, scarred, weather-beaten front. It is capped by a thin layer of red earth, and in the precipitous gullies,
