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Rh mountain, which is not far distant from the West Coast of the North Island.

The great plain of the Thames is still almost without cultivation or human habitation, with the exception of a few Maori villages; yet, in all human probability, the time is not far distant when it will be covered with flourishing English farms and herds of cattle and sheep. The Thames already supplies a liquid highway, and the goldfields near its mouth a ready market for pastoral and agricultural produce.

On his return to Ohinemuri the Governor was present at the arrival of a large number of visitors from various tribes, who had come, according to Maori custom, to join in the lament ("tangi") for Taraia—a ceremony resembling the coronach of the old Scottish Highlanders, and the "keen" of the Irish peasantry. The wailing of the women, and the chants celebrating the deeds of the departed chief, were very striking. It is considered a fortunate thing that the Governor visited Ohinemuri at a time when so many of the leading chiefs of the principal Maori clans were there assembled, and thus had an opportunity of paying their homage to the head of the Government.

April 23.—The "Luna," the largest vessel which had ever previously ascended the Thames, left Ohinemuri at 7 a.m. with the ebbing tide. Owing to the hitherto imperfect survey of the river, she grounded about two miles from the mouth, but floated again with the rising flood, and reached the wharf at Grahamstown at 5 p.m. On the 24th a deluge of rain having set in,