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got into an interminable swamp. The river-bank, though, would have been good walking. About two miles up the river we found two totara-trees cut down, and an old camp, probably fifteen or twenty years old. There are some nice flats up the river, of no great width, with mixed bush. Where the flat is any width it has the usual west-coast swamp. " On the following day we returned without incident to our cache at junction, I making a rough prismatic traverse up river-bed, from about half a mile below falls ; this I continued right up and over Fowler's Pass to Boomerang Lake : so that this portion, at any rate, will be fairly accurately represented. On the rest I just took the general bearings of the valley, and did my best to estimate distances. From the junction we tried to strike a new route via Lake Tuaraki. We passed the stream from this lake, and got up on face of mountain above the Scott Burn, where we could see a fall some 40 or 50 chains below Lake Tuaraki, and made over to it through the bush. From this fall the going is partly open and partly bush, the latter being slow and rough, the stream-bed being the best walking. " Lake Tuaraki is a very fine lake, with an island in the centre. High bluffs fall sheer into the lake on each side. We tried the northern face, and managed to get round by a snow-grass ledge high up, the only piece of climbing of any difficulty we encountered on the route. Fowler's Pass (3,660 ft.) is easy snow-grass climbing for about 430 ft. going down north-east side ; thence to Boomerang Lake is plain sailing. " Leaving Boomerang Lake the following day wo had a very wet trip down to the lake ; and on the 15th, after pottering about to the Eask and Delia Burns until about noon, we pulled down the arm to Te Anau, coming straight on to Manapouri. " With regard to the scenic aspect of the trip : the scenery, as with all these valleys, is beautiful throughout, but I would not class it with the Clinton and Arthur Valleys. The falls (we saw them at their worst) are nothing out of the ordinary. The Camelot River is very similar in its lower reaches to the Clinton River near Glade House —the same colouring with rather more volume. We obtained a fine view of Lake Hall and two small lakes adjoining it at lower end. The exit appears to be not into Lake Cecil, as Mr. Hall shows, but a good deal lower down, near, and I think below, No. I lake (I did not actually see the confluence). Mr. Hall was, of course, wrong in thinking that the water that was, I understand, reported by the Maori To Au as seen from mountain to northwest of Lake Hall, and identified by him as the sound close down below him, was the sound, as it must still have been some ten miles to westward. The water would probably be Lakes Eva, lone, and Boomerang, and the land between would probably be shut out by intervening shoulder. Otherwise, and except distances are naturally greatly exaggerated, Mr. Hall's sketch-plan seems accurate. " I would say that three bushmen could hook out a passable track in three or four weeks, which would enable the average man to do the trip comfortably in two days. We were three and a half days going, and the same ueturning. " In conclusion, I would like to place on record the help and companionship extended to me by the Messrs. Fowler and Martin. They are men who have year after year devoted a large amount of their time to exploring and roughing it in these solitary places, a life that does not appeal to most men. 1 could not have wished for better companions. They took numerous photographs, of which I hope to got a few to send in with my plan."

Approximate Coat of Paper. —Preparation, not gives ; printing (1,100 copies, including illustrations anil map), £_1 lo.s.

Authority : Mabcus F. Marks, Government Printer, Wellington.—l9lB.

Price ,'-(..]

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