Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/312

104 mountains 5000 feet in height, with detached snowy peaks several thousand feet higher. As the weather was very threatening, we made our way back to the camp of the previous night, and regained the schooner next day during a violent storm, with rain from the south-west.

On the 24th August I left the head of Milford Sound, and dropped down to Anita Bay, where we anchored at dark; and next morning, at 4, taking advantage of the land-breeze, sailed to the northwards to the Awarua River, which is laid down on the chart 18 miles further up the coast. After making 6 miles, the wind died away when we were off Yates' Point, which is the first promontory to the north of Milford Sound.

As the yacht lay becalmed, with too heavy a swell running to allow of our towing, and as it was necessary that the Awarua should be carefully examined before we attempted to enter it with the craft, I went on in advance with three hands in the whaleboat. Keeping close in-shore, I had a good view of the coast, and satisfied myself that it would be quite possible to get along it from Milford Sound northwards. The coast-line forms a succession of bold headlands, which generally have a group of sharp rocks, or a long reef extending from them to the seaward. Between these headlands are shallow bays, with steep sandy or shingly beaches, on which the surf breaks with tremendous violence. Three of these bays are of large size, each having a large valley extending from it into the interior in a southerly direction; and it is as flowing into the most northerly of these that the Awarua of the Admiralty Surveyor is laid down on the chart. The proper Awarua of the Maoris, according to all the information that I am able to collect, is, however, a large river that falls into Jackson's Bay to the north of that river, which I named the Jackson last summer, but which I have since learnt is known to the Maoris as the Terrewhatta.

After pulling 10 miles, and when opposite to the south end of the second bay, or Martin's Bay of the chart, we observed a smoke on the shore; and, on standing in for it, found it to be a party of Maoris, who made signs for us to land; but as the sea was breaking nearly a quarter of a mile from the shore, I dared not take the boat even within hail. Guided by the Admiralty chart, which hitherto I had found faithfully correct, I was making to the next bay to the north in search of the Awarua River, when our guide, who had been along this coast sealing, though he knew nothing of that river, thought that I was going too far, and that the mouth of the only large river he had ever heard of on the coast, into which there was a chance of taking a yacht, was at the northern extremity of Martin's Bay, as he recognised the long and dangerous reefs that lay before us. On making towards the north end of the sandy