Parting with my companions -(who were going northwards) in order that I might return to Wellington, and thence-take ship to Taranaki, I started at daybreak on a lovely morning to walk by the sea-shore to Otaki. As I left the bank of the Manawatu river for the sands, Mount Egmont near Taranaki, and Mounts Ruapéhu and Tongariro, in the centre of the island, hung their great snow-domes in the soft blue of the sky behind me, and seemed to have parted from their bases.

I soon passed through the flax-swamp where we for days had shot the pukéko, and coming out upon the wet sands, which here are glittering and full of the Taranaki steel, I took off boots and socks, and trudged the whole distance barefoot, regardless of the morrow. It was hard to walk without crunching with the heel shells which would be thought rare at home, and here and there charming little tern and other tiny sea-fowl flew at me, and all but pecked my eyes out for coining near their nests.

During the day, I forded two large rivers and small streams innumerable, and swam the Ohau, where Dr. Featherston last week lost his dog-cart in the quicksands, but I managed to reach Otaki before sunset, in time to revel in a typical New Zealand view. The foreground was composed of ancient sand-hills, covered with the native flax, with the deliciously-scented Manuka ti-tree, brilliant in white flower, and with giant fern, tuft-grass, and tussac.