the natives left us for about of an hour, on returning he told us that he saw from an elevation above us Wanganui, wh. was a falsehood, he also saw the smoke from the houses in New Plymouth and discovered there was no vessel in. This cheering news put us in spirits wh. had been sadly damped in missing our footing when jumping from rock to rock in the(Mongarere). In ascending this arm we particularly noticed the soil to be a conglomeration of sand stone, granite and cinder. Pitched our tent close to the River being all wet through, as we had been for the last 4 days - could get but little fire wood and the ground miserably wet, from the late rains. Started by day light up the ascent for about 2 miles seeing in our way a great deal of Totara, the bush gradually diminished in height and size as we ascended, on reaching the top of one of the spurs of the Middle range found the totara moro etc. so stunted as to be entirely impassable without cutting our way which was the most tedious operation conceiveable, descending from this ridge we re-ascended the range crawling on our hands and knees in one of the water courses. The magnificent view we had from the top of all the Island North of the Mountain at once repaid us for all we had gone thro in the preceding six days, before us lay an immense track of level land extending from the Sugar loaves to about 4 miles beyond the Wika then at right angles or thereabouts skirting a range of hills whose tops were hidden in clouds and appeared to extend thro the centre of the Island probably ending at Wanganui or thereabouts the precise limits in this direction we could not define