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 force and velocity must be stupendous, and the impact of so many tons of water at such a speed sends the volume of the Kawarau high in air, tossed in blinding spray, and the mighty buttresses of rock seem to tremble again as the water surges to and fro in their cavernous recesses. The swift Kawarau staggers, and its waves, swift as they are, are for the moment dammed back, and rise as a charger preparing for a bound into the thick of the fray. The point of junction is a hissing hell of foam—a very Phlegethon of fury. It needs the pen of a master to fitly describe such a "meeting of the waters" as this.

Below this point, and across the foam-filled chasm, we see the miners' huts on the Gentle Annie claim. Provisions and stores are sent across in a chair slung to a wire rope stretched across the river. By the same dizzy contrivance the wives and children of the district cross and re-cross. The school children use this contrivance daily. Surely here, if anywhere, we should have a race of women not liable to that mysterious malady known as "the nerves."

Still farther down the valley, great beetling rocks rise on either hand, and amid their honeycombed recesses colonies of blue and white pigeons have taken up their quarters. Here we release our rescued captive, and watch his gladsome exultant flight, as he rejoiced in his recovered freedom.

There is a magnificent cataract in the river here for some hundred yards. Several Chinamen are fossicking among the chinks and crannies of