Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/219

 It had two decks, the lower one being divided into staterooms and the upper reserved as a dining-room. Here we sat down to lunch, twenty-four miles from Taumarunui, and we were to eat dinner in Pipiriki, sixty miles below us.

Below the houseboat the scenery became more beautiful with every passing mile, until, miles from our day's destination, we were in the heart of Wanganui's grandeur. The hills were clothed with a denser, more luxurious growth of ornate bush and flowering tree. Most brilliant of all was the crimson rata, greatest of New Zealand's forest parasites. Thousands of tall tree ferns bent over lofty cliffs, and ran in straggling rows up steep slopes or spread into thick groves. At infrequent intervals a nikau palm thrust up its latticed fronds in shaded nooks. Everywhere the kiekie clambered and the long pointed leaves of the astelia rustled, weighting the trunks of tree and fern and clinging to perpendicular walls. With them, struggling for possession of bole and limb, were the wiry mangemange, the cable-like supplejack, and many other climbers and parasites. For miles the short mountain flax clung to the face of cliffs, and in wide bands sword ferns from three to four feet long hid the sandstone mile after mile. From the river's edge spread mossy carpets inlaid with fragile fern and tiny creeper.

Water in diversified form completed this composite picture of grace and ruggedness. The banks dripped with it, they shed it in oozing drops and trickling