standing one over the other. The workmanship is most elaborate, scarcely a square inch of the wood being left uncarved; and the whole is painted with red ochre and fringed with albatross feathers. The two men who did the carving told me it took them six weeks to complete it. The bones of the native princess, to whose memory the monument was sacred, were pointed out to me perched on a tree. It is a common custom with the natives to expose bodies in this way, covered with old mats, on platforms in high trees, or elevated on long poles, till the flesh has rotted off the bones, which are then collected and placed in their final resting-place, which is generally an enclosed house above ground.

It was not till the 19th that the party was ready to proceed. The loads were packed and distributed among the natives. I had with me a large quantity of goods, both for the purchase of mats and for presents to my friends, so that one carrier had a large kitful of blankets, another a bundle of half-a-dozen pieces of printed calico, and there was, in another load, a hundredweight of tobacco. A tin box containing tea, sugar, and bottles of pepper, salt, and mustard; another containing journal-books, sketchbooks, pencils, and other necessary nicknacks; pipes among the blankets, spare boots, or baked legs of pork fastened to the tops of baskets full of shirts; bags of shot, tinderboxes, cartouch boxes, canisters of powder, hand lamps, a bottle of oil, tomahawks, leathern valises, with spare clothes, pea-jackets, and a light tent,-figured among the baggage. One man looked like Atlas, as he went along with a huge damper on the top of his pack. This is a loaf baked in the ashes, which has the advantage of never getting much harder than on the day it is baked. The tent packed into very small space. It was made of un

bleached calico, and was to be stretched over two uprights four feet high, and a ridge-pole six feet long, to the breadth of four or five feet. The necessary poles and the pegs for the bottom were cut at the encampment each night, or carried from the wood in passing, when we had to encamp in the open country. When rolled up, the tent was not so bulky as a greatcoat, and yet, when well stretched, it afforded ample shelter from a night's heavy rain to two people.

On the 19th, then, we got into the canoes, to the number of about thirty-five men, women, and children. We pulled down four miles to the place where a tributary, called Manganui, flows into the Wanganui. This we ascended about two miles, the natives jumping out and tracking the canoes up the rapids, several of which had a fall of six feet. The Manganui also runs between cliffs, nearly 200 feet in height, and is inhabited as far up as we went that night. But it would be tedious to relate each day's journey separately. It took us several days before we reached the open plains of the interior, which gradually extended on either side; and as the weather cleared up, and the clouds lifted, we saw before us the majestic forms of Mount Ruapehu and the volcanic Tongariro within a few miles to the eastward. We then crossed the Wakapapa, a large tributary of the Wanganui, which takes its rise from a small lake situated to the westward of the lowest part of the ridge which unites those lofty mountains. The lake is at the bottom of a circular basin of rocks, five or six miles in diameter, which is stated by a legend of the natives to have once been the site of Mount Egmont or Taranaki.

On quarrelling, they say, with his friend Tongariro, about the affections of a small volcanic mountain in the neighbourhood (which is described as a lady mountain of

most fascinating appearance), old Taranaki tore up his rocky foundations from this basin, and left behind the ragged and splintered edges to it, which are now pointed out as proofs of the fact. He then clove a path through mountain and wood to the sea-coast, and the Wanganui sprang up in his ancient site, and followed his steps to the sea. Such is the native legend.

A NEW ZEALAND WHALING PARTY.

THESE Whaling parties were usually enrolled in Sydney, whence they were carried in a brig or schooner to their station in New Zealand, with new boats, tackle, provisions, spirits, goods to barter for firewood and fresh meat, clothing, tobacco, and such other necessaries as would be required during the season.

The whaleboat is a long, clinker-built boat, sharp at both ends, and higher out of water at the head and the stern than at midships. They are from 20 to 30 feet long, and vary in breadth according to the make; at the stern, a planking, even with the gunwales, reaches five or six feet forward, and is perforated perpendicularly by the loggerhead, a cylindrical piece of wood about six inches in diameter, used for checking the whale-line by a turn or two taken round it. On this, too, it is customary to cut a notch for every whale captured by the boat. The boat is steered by means of a long and ponderous oar, called the steer-oar, which leans on a piece of wood fixed to the stern-post, and is confined in its place by a strap reaching from the top of the stern-post to the end of the support. The oar, however, moves freely in this loop, and is generally covered with leather for eighteen inches of its length, to protect it from tear and wear.

Close to the handle is a transverse iron

peg, which is held with the right hand, and serves to turn the oar. The headsman stands up to steer in the sternsheets, and usually displays great skill in the management of the steer oar, which is often 27 feet in length in large boats. In a rough sea an inexperienced person would not fail to be thrown overboard by it; but an experienced whaler manages it with ease and grace. The oars work between thole-pins, which always have a small thole-mat and spare pin attached, and are also protected by leather. On the opposite side of the boat to the tholes, below the level of the thwarts, a piece of wood with a small niche is strongly fixed to the side of the boat. This is for peaking the oars, or placing the handles in, without taking the oars out of the tholes, so that their blades remain out of reach of the water, either when sailing or running fast to a whale. Α boat in the act of peaking her oars in order to stop, is said to heave-up. The mast and large lug-sail are stowed while rowing under the after-thwart, with the other end projecting on the starboard hand of the helmsman, who can thus stow or unstow it himself. A whiff, or light flagstaff, with fancy colours attached, is stowed with the mast and sail. The mast is shipped in the bow or second thwart, and the halyards made fast to the midship-thwart. These boats are very fast under sail, and would bear a great press of canvas. In the bow of the boat, a planking, similar to that in the stern, projects some three or four feet, and has at the end a notch large enough to admit a man's leg. This is to steady the harpooner while striking the whale. One of the forward thole-pins is called the crutch, from having branches on it to support the harpoons ready for use. The harpoon is an iron weapon, shaped like the top of a fleurde-lis, and barbed so as not to draw out. It is fastened to an ashen handle, five feet long, and its point is covered by

a small wooden case. The line is made fast to them, and communicates with two tubs in the middle of the boat, in which 200 fathoms of whale-line lie neatly coiled up. Spare harpoons and lances, with oval steel-pointed heads, all covered at the points, are ranged under the thwarts, with sundry other articles, including biscuits and grog.

At length, when all is ready, perhaps early in the month of May, a whale is signalled from the look-out on a hill. Three or four boats are quickly launched, and leave the ways at a racing pace. The boats of rival stations are seen gathering towards the same point, and the occasional spout of the whale, looking like a small column of smoke on the horizon, indicates the direction to be taken. A great deal of stratagem and generalship is now shown by the different headsmen in their manoeuvres to be first alongside. The whale may probably go for two or three miles in one direction, and then, after the various speed of the different boats has drawn them into a long file, toiling one after the other, will suddenly reverse its position by appearing close to the last boat.

The chase becomes animating. Each headsman urges his rowers to exertion by encouraging descriptions of the animal's appearance. "There she breaches!" (leaps out of the water) he shouts ; "and there goes the calf! Give way, my lads; sharp and strong 's the word! There she spouts again! Give way in the lull! Make her spin through it! George a'nt two boat's-lengths ahead of us. Hurrah! Now she feels it,-pull while the squall lasts! Pull! Go along, my boys!" All this time he is helping the after-oarsman, by propelling his oar with the left hand, while he steers with the right. This is technically called backing up. Each oar bends in a curve; the foam flies from her bows as a tide-ripple is passed; and both