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 first voyage to the antipodes, and the smart, well-found, modern steamer Manapouri, one of the magnificent fleet of the Union S.S. Co. of N.Z., with her genial, lovable commander, Captain Logan; but it may be sufficient to say that, having left Sydney with her peerless harbour and sickening smells behind us, after a few days' steaming we sighted Cape Maria early on a Monday morning, and I once more gazed with strangely mingled feelings on "the land of the Maori and the moa," the new Great Britain of the Southern Seas.

Cape Maria is the northernmost point of the mainland of the colony, but it is not the first land sighted by the voyager from Sydney to Auckland. The triple islets named "The Three Kings" lie to the north of Cape Maria, and are the first spot of the Maori domain that catches the eye of the man on the look-out.

Eastward of the cape is a wide, shallow bay, known as Spirit Bay. The coast-line terminates here, in an abrupt solitary conical bluff called Spirit Point. The designation, however, relates not to that mundane medium of seduction which a Scotchman would call "speerits," but owes its name to a legendary belief of the waning Maori race. These dusky warriors hold that the spirits of the departed here congregate, and poise themselves on the dizzy verge, preparatory to taking a final farewell of the shores of their earthly dwelling-place. From this point they wing their flight to the Three Kings above-mentioned, which